Vendor Tevo Model 3 at Shelsley Walsh hill climb

[Tevo Solutions]

I entered our Model 3 Performance in a hill climb at the historic Shelsley Walsh course last Sunday.

We shared the day with all sorts of specialised ICE machinery including Westfields, Radicals, single-seaters and a Nissan Leaf! It was quite a task to get EVs accepted into this event due to the restrictive nature of the current rules set by UK motorsport's governing body but we managed to convince them it was worth risking in the end.

I was very encouraged by the positive reaction we got on the day. Officials, spectators and other competitors were all very interested to see what an EV could do up the hill. There were a few disparaging comments but I think we picked up a few fans as you'll hear from the video I've posted below. I did pretty well in the end finishing 14th overall (out of 131 entries) and 2nd in the 'tin top' class (saloon cars), with only a very well driven and highly modified Evo 5 topping my time. I was also on regular road tyres, unlike all the other cars faster than me.

Here are some photos from the day and a video of my final run. If you want to try anything competitive in your Tesla or just want to take it on track, feel free to DM me and I can offer advice and help. Also, please visit this page I've set up which has a guide to competing with an EV in the UK: www.evmuk.org

 

[Horatio Alger]

Fantastic. Well done, the run looked very smooth and accurate. Mu3stve annoyed the Sprite / Escort / Scooby brigade to see an EV blitz the course without fuss.

 

[Stranger Dings]

It seems so quiet and controlled. Great job.

 

[Achybolo]

Awesome job! Well driven, That looked FAST

 

[Tevo Solutions]

Fantastic. Well done, the run looked very smooth and accurate. Mu3stve annoyed the Sprite / Escort / Scooby brigade to see an EV blitz the course without fuss.

It's funny, they didn't come over to say hi

 

[Adopado]

Great stuff! Real car people appreciate good performances without prejudice as per the comments from the marshall. I did a couple of seasons of hill climbing at Harewood Hill near Leeds. I have to say we at least had the luxury of some potential run off space if you got it slightly wrong ... Shelsley Walsh looks like it leaves no room for error! Like you our class would be regularly won by a rally Evo that had been developed to the ultimate spec. Our Porsche 924s cost £1800 ... we heard the Evo had just had £50,000 spent on it during the closed season!

 

[Tevo Solutions]

Yes, one of the things I set out to prove was that you can take a Model 3 and be really competitive with it without spending lots of money.
There was a completely standard M3P at Shelsley the day before and he was only 1.5 seconds slower than me so that would still have placed him very high up overall.
My Model 3 has got a few mods, but it's still a daily driver and I don't need to rebuild the engine and gearbox regularly, which is where most of the money goes on these highly tuned ICE cars.

 

[Caterman]

That's a very good run, you make it look very easy, I presume that wasn't your first time at Shelsy?
Looks really easy in the video, straight up , quick left then right. Having competed there in a Caterham in the past it's a really tricky hill to get a good time on especially in something so wide as an M3, there are kinks in the straight with no margin for error and lots of things to clip and cause havoc on the way up, a couple of my coleagues tested their roll cages quite severely there on the straight bit. Well done.
It's also nice to see people using "normal" cars, that's one of the great things about hillclimbs and sprints, you don't have to spend a fortune to have a blast. There is also something quite satisfying in driving the car there and back rather than arriving with a huge trailer etc

 

[Tevo Solutions]

I'd never been to Shelsley in my life until I did a school day there in June and then last Sunday was my first competitve run, so I'd say there's at least another second I could find with more experience of the place.
Having looked at video from some other hill climbs I'd say Shelsley looks one of the safest to me!
Shelsley say they're going to have an EV class in every event next year so I hope there will be more competition for me next time I'm there.

 

[Adopado]

Shelsley say they're going to have an EV class in every event next year so I hope there will be more competition for me next time I'm there.

Though it's good that they're thinking of EVs I wonder if it's the best approach to put them all together in one class?... probably, I suppose ... but mixing it with a range of ICE cars allows people to see them in direct competition rather than a world of their own that some people would choose to have nothing to do with. Having said that, I found some hillclimb classes could be be more than questionable anyway (we were 160bhp 2wd against 500bhp 4wd and in the same class). Nevertheless you always spot someone who you can appropriately measure yourself against.

 

[Tevo Solutions]

Though it's good that they're thinking of EVs I wonder if it's the best approach to put them all together in one class?... probably, I suppose ... but mixing it with a range of ICE cars allows people to see them in direct competition rather than a world of their own that some people would choose to have nothing to do with. Having said that, I found some hillclimb classes could be be more than questionable anyway (we were 160bhp 2wd against 500bhp 4wd and in the same class). Nevertheless you always spot someone who you can appropriately measure yourself against.

I was paraphrasing to an extent. This last event had 3 classes for EVs based on power output and I think that's a good way to do it. That was the decision of the club who organised the event but each club is free to think up their own class structure so it may not be the same in every event.
The rules and regulations all need to be refined. Unfortunately MSUK haven't been as proactive as they could have been with this. They also offer no incentives for clubs to invite EVs into their events, so clubs just haven't bothered as it's more red tape and work for them.
Shelsley and MAC (Midland Automobile Club) should be congratulated for taking the bull by the horns, creating the classes and jumping through all the hoops required of them. We just need more like them!