Forget Tokyo Drift! This electric car just broke a real drifting WORLD record

Published on May 21, 2022 at 4:06 PM (UTC+4)
by Brandon Livesay

Last updated on May 21, 2022 at 4:06 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by Kate Bain

An electric car has broken a drifting world record after getting sideways around a track for 43.6km.

That’s the equivalent of drifting up and down the Las Vegas Strip non-stop, six-and-a-half times.

The Guinness World Record was smashed by Chinese car brand Zhiji Motors.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CdrRaT3oUw8/

The record was the longest drift in an electric car on a wet surface.

Driver Wei Pengda, who goes by the nickname Panda, drifted the Zhiji L7 electric car around a special circular track for an hour and six minutes straight!

That was 258 laps, which makes the continuous drift 43.646km (26.203 miles).

We all know Tokyo Drift is the hidden gem of the Fast & Furious franchise, and we like to think the preparation for this record attempt was exactly the same as in the flick. (Hopefully, they had a car park drift race too.)

The last world record for this category was broken back in August 2020 when Porsche drifted a Taycan for 55 minutes (42.171km/26.203 miles).

If you don’t know too much about the Zhiji L7, it’s built with iO “Origin” architecture which the company says means it’s a “car born for drifting”.

Drifting is all about balance and power, and the Zhiji L7 has a 50:50 front-to-rear axle load ratio.

That means it’s got a whole lot of balance.

And it’s fast enough to blast from 0-100km/h (0-62mi/h) in 3.87 seconds.

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The L7 was developed alongside the engineering team at Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, so it’s got pedigree too.

The EV market is absolutely booming right now so we’ll wait and see which car brand tries to take on this record next.

We’d love to see Elon Musk send out one of his Tesla models to get sideways….

Other Guinness World Records for drifting

  • Greatest distance vehicle drift in 8 hours is 374.17km (232.5mi), and was achieved by BMW of North America (USA) in a vehicle driven by Johan Schwartz (Denmark) in Greer, South Carolina, USA, on December 11, 2017
  • The fastest vehicle drift is 304.96km/h (189.49mi/h) and was achieved by Masato Kawabata (Japan) driving Nissan GT-R Nismo, at Fujairah International Airport, in Fujairah, UAE, on March 3, 2016
  • The longest continuous vehicle drift on ice is 6.231km and was achieved by Wang Dongjiang (China) in an event organized by Meihekou Northeast Cultural Industry Development Group Co., Ltd in Tonghua, Jilin, China, on January 8, 2022

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Brandon Livesay covers the latest headlines and news across automotive, technology, gaming, watches, movies and lifestyle. Brandon is an experienced editor and journalist, and has worked across multiple publishers in Australia. Awards and recognition: Winner - Outstanding Online News - Breaking Issued by Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism | Nov 2021 Winner - Outstanding Online News - Breaking Issued by Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism | Nov 2020 Winner - 2014 Queensland Country Press Association, Journalistic Excellence 'Individual' Winner - 2014 Queensland Country Press Association, Best News Picture