Students of the Swiss universities ETH Zürich and Hochschule Luzern have set a new acceleration record with their electric race car: 0 – 100 km/h in just 1.513 seconds.

The Formula Student team of the Academic Motorsports club Zürich (AMZ) has bettered the previous record set by the German University of Stuttgart, a 1.779s. The new record was set at the military airport of Dübendorf near Zürich, Switzerland.

The car, named ‘grimsel’, is designed and built by 30 students to compete in the Formula Student categories. Its lightweight design, weighing just 168 kg, and an unparalleled electric drive train producing 200 hp and 1700 Nm of torque forms the basis of its new record attempt.

The Swiss team is no stranger in setting records. In 2014 they set a 1.785s on the scoreboard, only before it was bettered by 0.006s by their German rivals soon after.

“We knew we were able to do it, but the simple question was how. Our last record was 1.785s and it was then beaten by the team from Stuttgart by just six thousand of a second. We know we had to beat that,” Jonas Abeken, Vice President of AMZ Racing toldElectricAutosport.com.

“At that time, the record wasn’t done as serious as possible because we had to focus on the new car for the Formula Student season as well. So we knew we could do better. We started testing and we realised it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be,” he added.