Enlarge / After developing the Next Gen stock car and then the Garage 56 car, NASCAR’s tech team has now created a battery-electric race car prototype. (credit: NASCAR)

This past weekend was a busy one on the racing calendar. Over in the UK, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone was yet more evidence that Red Bull no longer has the fastest car in F1. In Ohio, IndyCar had a mostly successful introduction of its new supercapacitor-based hybrid system. And a couple of Great Lakes over, NASCAR held its second street race in Chicago, choosing that event to also show off its prototype of a fully electric stock car.

In doing so, it has partnered with the technology company ABB, which, among other things, makes charging equipment and is also Formula E’s title sponsor. “The objective of the collaboration between NASCAR, ABB in the United States, and the NASCAR industry is to push the boundaries of electrification technology, from EV racing to long-haul transportation to facility operations,” said ABB Executive Vice President Ralph Donati.

The NASCAR EV prototype starts with a modified Next Gen chassis, which was introduced to the sport in 2022. This is something of a no-brainer: in addition to the other stuff you want in a race car chassis, like a good ratio of stiffness to weight, it’s also designed to be able to safely protect the driver from the consequences of the very high-speed crashes that occur in the series. So there shouldn’t be any concerns about the 78 kWh liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack.