A flashy new advertisement by multinational engineering company ABB shows off what could one day be the future of American auto racing body, NASCAR: a sleek, all-electric racecar.

While NASCAR, which is considered one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in the world, is broadly speaking associated with tailgating rural culture — and seminal pieces of cinema like "Tallageda Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," starring Will Ferrell — the vehicle presages a future in which electric motors could replace the iconic, steady drone of brawny gas engines ripping around an oval track.

The ABB NASCAR EV prototype, a collaboration between the body's OEM partners Ford, Chevrolet, and Toyota, was first shown off at the Chicago Street Course last year.

"If you look out across the landscape, one thing that’s for certain is that change is accelerating all around us," said NASCAR senior vice president and chief racing development officer John Probst in a statement at the time.

"The push for electric vehicles is continuing to grow, and when we started this project one and a half years ago, that growth was rapid," NASCAR senior engineer of vehicle systems CJ Tobin told IEEE Spectrum in August. "We wanted to showcase our ability to put an electric stock car on the track in collaboration with our OEM partners."

Besides pushing the boundaries when it comes to speed, the association is also looking to cut emissions.

"Sustainability means a lot of different things," said NASCAR's head of sustainability Riley Nelson last summer. "And for our team right now, it’s environmental sustainability."

The prototype features a 78-kilowatt-hour, liquid-cooled battery and a powertrain that produces up to 1,000 kilowatts of peak power. Regenerative braking allows it to race longer road courses as well.

In the latest advertisement, ABB also showed off the latest generation of its single-seater racecar, developed for its Formula E World Championship, which has been around for over a decade. The specialized vehicles are among the fastest electric racecars ever built, and are designed to reach speeds of over 200 mph.

It's not just ABB that's looking to develop all-electric contenders for NASCAR. Earlier this year, Ford revealed a new electric NASCAR prototype, based on its road-legal Mustang Mach-E.

While it could make for an exciting new development in the motorsport, NASCAR isn't quite ready to fully commit to electric drivetrains — at least for the foreseeable future.

"There are no plans to use [ABB's] electric vehicle in competition at this time," a NASCAR spokesperson told IEEE Spectrum last summer. "The internal combustion engine plays an important role in NASCAR and there are no plans to move away from that."

More on racecars: Scientists Teach Rats to Drive Tiny Cars, Discover That They Love Revving the Engine


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