Acciona

Acciona

Acciona

Acciona

Acciona

Acciona

Motorsport is never easy, but races don't come any tougher than the annual Dakar rally. Originally, the race used to run from Paris to Dakar, Senegal but security concerns about crossing North Africa in 2008 saw the race moved to South America the following year, where it has found a new home ever since. Cars, trucks, bikes, and quads all compete in the two-week long, 5,700-mile (9200km) race, through stunning but remote and arduous terrain. And this year an electric vehicle called the Acciona 100% EcoPowered put in an extremely credible performance.

The car in question is a technology demonstrator project from Acciona, a renewable energy multinational. It's a purpose-built machine (i.e., not based on an existing road car), powered by eight lithium-ion battery packs (that may well have come from Tesla road cars) to give it a total 150kWh. Those cells feed a 335hp/250kW electric motor, and Acciona say the car uses between 20 and 45kWh per 100km. Recharging takes an hour using a fast charging system, something the team was able to do at various checkpoints along the route with the help of a support truck.

Between the need to recharge for an hour at a checkpoint during the stages and the EV's limited top speed of 93mph (150km/h) the Acciona 100% EcoPowered was never going to trouble the factory-backed Peugeot and Mini teams for the win. But Ariel Jaton and his codriver Gaston Scazzuso put in a decent showing and were in 71st place by the end of the 10th day.

Unfortunately the car was disqualified the following morning, arriving at the starting point later than required thanks to a late arrival the night before. Still, it was a better showing than the car's first attempt last year, when its navigation system failed, causing it to drop out on day 3.

One thing we haven't been able to confirm is exactly how the support truck recharged those batteries during the race. Although the team claims the effort was completely carbon-free, a reply to one of its Facebook posts suggests there may have been a diesel generator involved.

Even so, it is a credible performance for an EV—endurance tests don't come much harder than Dakar, which punished humans and their machines in ways that even a 24-hour race at Daytona or Le Mans doesn't. Given how rapidly battery technology is progressing, we can't wait to see how they do next year.