X

'Gremlin' foils electric car's speed quest

Jon Skillings Editorial director
Jon Skillings is an editorial director at CNET, where he's worked since 2000. A born browser of dictionaries, he honed his language skills as a US Army linguist (Polish and German) before diving into editing for tech publications -- including at PC Week and the IDG News Service -- back when the web was just getting under way, and even a little before. For CNET, he's written on topics from GPS, AI and 5G to James Bond, aircraft, astronauts, brass instruments and music streaming services.
Expertise AI, tech, language, grammar, writing, editing Credentials
  • 30 years experience at tech and consumer publications, print and online. Five years in the US Army as a translator (German and Polish).
See full bio
Jon Skillings

On the road to a speed record, a cigar-shaped electric car has been bested by a gremlin.

No, not the trapezoidal AMC compact from the 1970s. "It's an electrical gremlin," said Colin Fallows, a member of the British team aiming to break the existing record. That's the word from the stretch of Nevada highway where the E-motion vehicle was to be put through its paces, according to the Associated Press.


Fallows, the car's designer, and driver Mark Newby had hoped to make their high-speed run Thursday, but ran into weather and mechanical problems. The effort fared no better on Friday or Saturday, with the gremlin apparently taking up residence in a circuit board, and the team has now postponed its run until sometime next year.

In previous efforts, the E-motion had reached 146 mph over a 1,000-yard course--the longest that was available to them in England. In the more spacious Nevada desert, they were hoping to race past the record of 245 mph.