IIT-B students unveil world’s fastest electric racing car

The students of Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) unveiled Orca the fastest electric racing car made indigenously by a team of 74 students on Sunday.

While the Orca team claims that the vehicle is the fastest in the world reaching speeds of 100 kilometer per hour in 3.4 seconds, they are still looking to put their claims to test as some of the international racing car manufacturers like Lamborghini and Porsche have turned down the institutes offer to pittheir cars against the Orca. The team has requested car manufacturing biggies in India to participate in a head-to-head race to prove their claims and one of them has agreed.

Speaking about the Orca and its ability to reach from 0-100 km/h faster than any other racing car in the world, Archit Sanadhya, a student and chief marketing officer, IIT Bombay Racing said, “The Orca is the outcome of eight years of research by successive student teams. The car has been made entirely by the students including the various parts like the chassis, electronics and the battery. Teams comprising of students from different departments worked on completing the car,” said Sanadhya.

He added that while the testing showed the car had the capacity to reach 100 km/h in 3.4 seconds, it was not done in a head-to-head race. “We contacted Lamborghini and Porsche but they turned down our invitation to pit their fastest racing cars against ours as the costs involved in doing so was very high. We then approached one of our sponsors who has agreed to have a trial before the car is shipped to UK to participate in the Formula Student race in July 2016,” said Sanadhya.

Elaborating on the Orca’s trials Sanadhya said, “Mr. Vinod Kulkarni, head CSR at Tata Motors was present at the launch of the Orca and said that the company was a full fledged supporter of the IIT racing team.”

“It’s encouraging to see students pursue beyond their normal syllabus in research, and develop something, which is stupendous. Tata Motors has been a great supporter of the team this season, and we look forward to test Orca to the limits at our test tracks in Pune,” Mr Kulkarni said.