Speed claims need rules
There is no widely accepted answer to which electric car was the first to exceed 150 mph. The answer changes with the definition. Is it a one-off record machine or a car sold to customers? Is the speed an average of two runs in opposite directions, as official records usually require, or a single run? Is it measured by an independent timing team or announced by a manufacturer? Different combinations give different winners, so this article describes the milestones that are documented and avoids naming one first.
The first records were electric
The earliest land speed records were set by electric cars. In December 1898 Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat, driving a Jeantaud electric car in France, recorded about 63 km/h, roughly 39 mph. Over the following months he traded the record with the Belgian driver Camille Jenatzy several times. On April 29, 1899, Jenatzy reached about 105.9 km/h (around 65.8 mph) in a torpedo-shaped electric car called La Jamais Contente, the “Never Satisfied”. It is generally described as the first road vehicle to exceed 100 km/h. The car had a lightweight body made of an aluminum alloy and used a pair of electric motors fed by a lead-acid battery pack, and it ran on pneumatic tires.
These records fell quickly to steam and gasoline cars, which could carry more energy and soon went much faster. Electric cars stopped being competitive for speed for many decades.
Decades of low profile
For much of the twentieth century, electric speed attempts were rare. Experimenters built electric dragsters and record cars in the 1960s and 1970s, and a small community of builders kept the idea alive, but batteries and motors did not give them the power per pound of a gasoline engine. Many of these records were for electric cars in specific classes and were set on tracks or dry lakes, not on public roads, so they are hard to compare with each other.
Streamliners and the 300 mph barrier
The most dramatic modern electric speed work came from purpose-built streamliners. The Buckeye Bullet series, built by students and engineers at Ohio State University in partnership with the carmaker Venturi, ran at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah and by the 2010s had surpassed 300 mph in official electric-vehicle record classes. The cars are long, narrow and low, designed around aerodynamics and big battery packs, and they bear little resemblance to a road car. They show what electric drive can do in an unrestricted setting, but they do not answer the question about road cars.
Production cars and the 150 mph mark
Sports cars built around lithium-ion batteries, such as the Tesla Roadster had top speeds limited electronically to about 125 mph. In the 2010s, high-performance electric cars with larger battery packs and stronger motors became available, and some reached or approached 150 mph. Manufacturers’ stated top speeds have included figures around 155 to 160 mph for some luxury electric sedans and sports cars and higher figures for some very powerful models. Exactly which car first passed 150 mph depends on whether you count a prototype, a limited run or a standard production model, and on whether the company’s figure was independently verified. There were also low-volume electric supercars and hypercars in the 2010s that claimed higher speeds, some of which were tested and some of which were only announced.
More recent hypercars have claimed speeds above 250 mph. One Croatian maker, Rimac, reported a test run above 400 km/h in 2025; readers should check current sources, as such claims and rankings change frequently and are sometimes revised.
Why electric cars are fast and also limited
Electric motors deliver strong torque from a standstill, which is why many electric cars accelerate quickly. Top speed is a different matter. At very high speed air resistance rises steeply, so the car needs a great deal of power, and a battery that delivers high power also heats up. Gearing is also a factor, because most electric cars use a single-speed transmission or two speeds, which limits how the motor’s speed is matched to the wheels. Many makers therefore limit top speed to protect the battery and to keep range reasonable. A car that can reach 150 mph briefly may drain its battery in minutes at that speed.
Racing and rail
Electric racing has also grown. Formula E, an electric single-seater series, began in 2014, with races in city streets. Its cars are fast but are not designed to match the speeds of Formula One. Electric traction also has a speed history on rail, where overhead lines supply power and high-speed rail passengers have traveled at over 150 mph for decades.
What is safe to say
- The first land speed records were set by electric cars in 1898 and 1899, with the first run over 100 km/h in 1899.
- Specialized electric streamliners have since exceeded 300 mph.
- Road-legal electric cars passed 150 mph at some point in the 2010s or around then, but the specific first is disputed.
For records, always check the rules, the class and who verified the number.