The Aspark Owl SP600 just hit 272.6mph, becomes world’s fastest EV*

The Aspark Owl SP600 has managed a top speed of 272.6mph (438.73kmh) on a really long road in Germany. Who?

The Owl, you’ll no doubt remember, is that curious not-so-little Japanese electric supercar that emerged in the middle of the last decade and has made a few sporadic appearances since, most notably with a (somewhat sketchy) blistering 0-62mph run.

That car’s apparently been honed into this SP600, and we’re told the build and development has been handled by Manifattura Automobili Torino (MAT). Who? That’s the outfit responsible for the SCG003, Apollo Intensa Emozione, and new Stratos.

We’re told the SP600 was put through “a full set of virtual and physical tests”, including wind tunnel validation and “several days of track testing”, which sounds arduous.

Then on 8 June – last week – it was delivered to the Automotive Testing Papenburg facility in Germany where professional hotshoe Marc Basseng was given strict instruction to send it, and send it he did, the Racelogic V-Box measuring 438.73kmh.

That’s a fair bit faster than the Rimac Nevera, which back in 2022 hit a top speed of 256mph, courtesy of a quad-motor, 1,888bhp powertrain. The Owl gets something similar: four motors, a 64kWh battery, 2,012bhp and 1,475lb ft of torque.

"It has been about 10 years since we started working on the Owl hypercar. We aimed for the world’s fastest accelerating car, then attempted and achieved the top speed world record today with our new hypercar Owl SP600,” said Masanori Yoshida.

Who? He’s the boss of Aspark, who once told TopGear.com there’s more to come from the Japanese engineering firm. Hypercar-shaped more. Watch this space…