Just unveiled at this year’s SEMA show was a new kind of drag racer: a quiet one. A concept car made by Chevy and electric drag racing team Hancock and Lane, the eCOPO has four 200-volt batteries (two in the back seat, two in the trunk to distribute their massive weight) plus two BorgWarner motor assemblies in series.
The result is an all-electric engine that can serve up the equivalent of 700 horsepower and 600 foot-pounds of torque, delivered instantly. They’re aiming for a 9 second quarter mile. The engine is a bolt-in replacement for the gas engine, which means the transmission and driveshaft are the same as in their standard V8 COPO and they’ve also gone with an electric blue paint job like some of the other 2019 COPO production racers.
They’re continuing to test and tweak the electric drag racer and they believe that in doing so they’ll find answers to make electric race cars faster, while consequently making electric cars better in general.
