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Electric motorsport

Electric Motorsport
2013-Monster-Tajima-Giti-EV.jpg
Characteristics
Mixed gender Yes
Type Outdoor

Electric motorsport (also known as electric racing or electric motor racing) is a category of motor sport that consists of the racing of electric powered vehicles for competition, either in all-electric series, or in open-series against vehicles with different power trains. Very early in the history of automobiles, electric cars held several performance records over internal combustion engine cars, such as land speed records, but fell behind in performance during the first decade of the 20th century. With the renaissance of electric vehicles during the early 21st century, notable electric-only racing series have been developed, for both cars and motorcycles, including for example, the FIA Formula E Championship. In other racing events, electric vehicles are competing alongside combustion engine vehicles, for example in the Isle of Man TT and the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, and in some cases winning outright.

see also: History of the steam engine and Origins of the locomotive

Early mechanically powered vehicles used steam power, a technology first developed for static applications (notably, Thomas Newcomen 1712 and James Watt 1765) (see History of the steam engine). Steam for vehicle traction was taken up both for road vehicles and for rail by Richard Trevithick who creating the Puffing devil for transporting passengers by road in 1801, and later rail transport, initially for coal (1804) and then for people (Trevethick 1808, George Stephenson 1824 onwards). By the 1830s steam began to be more widely adopted for transportation, with steam carriages for road (e.g. the 1827 Goldsworthy Gurney Steam bus) and for rail, although the latter quickly became more established for medium and longer distance travel. Mechanically powered road vehicles were largely limited to utilitarian vehicles such as traction engines during this period (especially 1850s onwards, see History of steam road vehicles).


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