Altair Nano Technologies, a manufacturer of highly advanced lithium ion batteries, has got a healthy eye on publicity. Their batteries powered the winner of a competition organised by the (get ready for this!) National Electric Drag Racing Association !

See story here.

A drag race incidentally is a timed race in a straight line over a quarter of a mile, with one passenger driver. The goal - and I think this is right - is to get to the highest speed in the shortest possible period of time. The main engineering challenge in drag racing is to keep the vehicle on the ground - a bit like power-boating - and is equally dangerous. See youtube video here of the winner of the competition, from a couple of weeks ago, the Current Eliminator V in a potentially fatal spin-out.

What I think is important about this is that electric vehicles are making great performance strides from the nerdy to the sleek and sexy. And that is a critical image shift as far as consumers and investors are concerned.

 And we have a new world record to celebrate; 7.956 seconds at 159.85 miles per hour. So congratulations to the pilot, Dennis "Kilowatt" Berube. With more progress been made each year in electric batteries, is it too far fetched to imagine Formula 1 electric vehicle races at Daytona or Brands Hatch in the not too distant future?