World 0-100km/h record broken

When you think of the fastest accelerating car in the world, do images of the Bugatti Veyron, Ariel Atom, McLaren P1 or any Koenigsegg materialise in your mind? For many people this rings true.

But the world's quickest car to 100km/h is in fact a tiny, lightweight electric racer that does a pretty mean burnout. It sprinted from standstill to 100km/h in just 1.779 seconds and the record-setting drive was accomplished by students.

Indeed, the University of Stuttgart students set the provisional world record – which is due to confirmed by Guinness World Records soon – in a 100kW (136hp) all-wheel drive electric race car usually employed for Formula Student competitions.

Weighing just 160kg -- about one-tenth the weight of most supercars -- it slashed 0.006 seconds off the previous record, set by Swiss AMZ racing. The battery used was a 6.62kWh pack.

The runs were conducted by Priska Schmid on behalf of the University of Stuttgart's GreenTeam at the JadeWeser airport in Germany.

The world's fastest production cars, based on manufacturer claims, are currently the Ariel Atom at 2.3 seconds, followed by the Bugatti Veyron Supersport at 2.4 seconds.

Guinness World Records doesn't appear to have a category for non-electric cars for the 0-100km/h benchmark, only top speed. That record was held by the Bugatti Veyron at 431km/h, although there was controversy surrounding the record.