Protyre News
Team Protyre on hand to help with hypermiling world record
By Julia Freeman
On Thursday June 10th the team at Mission Motorsport, the Forces Motorsport Charity, set a new hypermiling world record driving a Renault ZOE around Thruxton circuit to almost double its official WLTP range of 245 miles and beating the previous record by over 100 miles.
Mission Motorsport’s team consisted of British veterans, the spouse of a serving soldier, and a hypermiling expert all working together to achieve the record for the longest distance driven by a Renault ZOE on a single charge. The previous record had been set by Pierre Desjardins in 2018 when he managed an impressive 351 miles, or 7.9 miles per kilowatt hour.
The Frenchman sent a Tweet of support to the Mission Motorsport team before they began their attempt.
To ensure a clean and fair attempt, the Hendy Group supplied two identical Renault ZOE’s in complete showroom specification with no special tuning. In a sort of two-pronged attack the first vehicle was left with its factory fitted OEM tyres whilst the second was fitted with ENSO’s EV tyres. Protyre were on hand to make sure that both sets of tyres were fitted, aligned, and set correctly to help the team squeeze every last mile out of the cars.
In 2018, Desjardins set his record travelling around the notoriously busy Paris ring road – the Périphérique – during regular traffic in a Renault ZOE that had a 41kWh battery. Mission Motorsport were at an advantage with the controlled conditions of the racetrack as well as the newer and updated 52kWh battery, however Desjardins was helped in his attempt by the very high ambient summer temperatures – one of several factors that can make a difference to how far an electric vehicle will go.
The ZOE with the OEM tyres reached 424.7 miles, surpassing not only the WLTP range specified by Renault but also Desjardin’s distance. But it was the ENSO-fitted vehicle that was the runaway victor after managing an astounding 475.4 miles, or 9.14 miles per kilowatt hour – almost double Renault’s WLTP range, and 124 miles further than the previous record.
