Yahoo Autos Porsche's New All-Wheel-Drive Electric Open Wheeler Is Quicker Than An F1 Car
Porsche’s António Félix da Costa is testing his newly revamped 99X Electric at a track near Madrid, Spain this week, and it’s entirely possible that this is the quickest car to ever carry the Porsche badge in history. The all-electric open wheeler is capable of a 1.82-second 0-60 sprint, which is about 14 hundredths of a second quicker than the more-powerful Taycan GT street car can manage, and four tenths quicker than the 918 Spyder hybrid hypercar. Perhaps even more amazingly, this is about 30 percent quicker than even a current Formula 1 car can manage.
The new GEN3 Evo version of the 99X Electric is not only quicker in a straight line, but it has a new higher top speed. In previous racing seasons the non-Evo GEN3 cars topped out around 190, but the new modifications and extra power delivery bring that up to over the 200 mph mark. With stickier tires, all-wheel drive, and more power, this new car is going to be significantly quicker around every race track than the non-Evo version. With the 2024/25 Formula E season scheduled to start on December 7, the new season will bring more speed and excitement to every round.
Obviously it’s not just Porsche competing in Formula E for Season 11, kicking off in a few weeks. Porsche will face competition from Maserati, McLaren, Jaguar, Nissan, DS, Lola-Yamaha, and Mahindra. Porsche will, however, be the most popular car on the grid this year. In addition to the two factory TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team cars, two additional cars will again be entered by Andretti Formula E, and for this season a new team called Kiro Race Co (formerly the Nio factory effort) will also race Porsches. Formula E consistently puts up the most exciting lineup of cars, teams, and drivers, and it’s worth paying attention to this season.
For the new season Formula E and all of the teams have put in a ton of effort to make the cars and the racing better. All-wheel drive will be available for the first time in competition, as drivers will get to use the front motor during qualifying, at each race’s traditional standing start, and when they enter attack mode. A new set of aero regulations require wings to be more robust to prevent lengthy cautions, and create less downforce (and aero wash) for better wheel-to-wheel racing. New Hankook low-rolling-resistance race tires are set to provide around ten percent more grip than last season. Faster and better racing? Sign me up!
