Electric Toyota race car zips to a new Nurburgring record

No automaker seems more schizophrenic towards electric vehicles than Toyota. Two weeks ago, its top electric executive called EV passenger cars not ready for prime time, firmly committing the company to hybrids instead. Meanwhile in Europe, Toyota's racing unit has sent its battery-powered racer around the Nürburgring at a new record pace, beating such supercars as the Chevy Corvette Z06, Nissan GT-R and Ferrari Enzo. Can racing on Sunday eventually sell EVs on Monday?

Two years ago, the fastest EV took 10 minutes to lap the 12.8 mile Green Hell, and in a year of work Toyota Europe's racing engineers have shaved 25 seconds off the time from the TMG EV 002 driven by Jochen Krumbach. As much as batteries dominate all thought around EVs, racing requires many other important components to get the power efficiently to the tarmac, and Toyota says developing those pieces -- including through a run up Pikes Peak in August -- helped push the car to new speeds.

The video below of the lap shows how running the world's fastest electric race car can sound like a jet-powered dentist's drill. But it also begs the question of where all this fantastic engineering can go from here, and whether Toyota will ever get of the pits in that race.