Hayden Paddon aiming to win World Rally title in electric car within 10 years

November 4, 2020

Paddon said he and his team have a 10-year plan in place to take the rallying world by storm.

Kiwi rally driver Hayden Paddon revealed more than just his new electric car in Auckland this afternoon, saying he's set a goal of winning a world title with the car and his "100 per cent Kiwi team" within the next 10 years.

Paddon has spent the last 18 months developing his Hyundai Kona EV in Cromwell, creating one of the first electric rally cars in the world.

The former WRC driver told 1 NEWS he believes it's the first step in a big change for motorsport, particularly rallying.

"There's been so much work go into it, particularly over the last few months just to get it to this point, but pretty proud with the amount of effort that's gone in by the whole team," Paddon said.

"There's a lot of other perametres that go into it but if you were to put this on a straight line [against a normal rally car], you can't beat electric vehicles - you'd blow all other combustion vehicles away."

Paddon said the car won't be used when he competes at the Jack's Ridge Rally Sprint later this month but he will take it for a couple of demonstration drives.

After that, it'll be about tinkering and refining as they work to a huge goal.

"We've got a 10-year goal to try and win a world championship with our 100 per cent Kiwi team, very much emulating what Team NZ do in yachting, we want to do the same in motorsport," Paddon said.

"That's a long process but the next two or three years will be development with the cars and technology but I'd like to think within five years we'll see electric vehicles become quite predominant and hopefully we're a big part of that."

Paddon added the journey will be rather unpredictable though.

"There's a lot to learn when you're starting from a clean piece of paper."

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