A battery-powered car designed to rethink peoples perceptions of electric cars has broke the UK electric land speed record.

Nemesis, a modified Lotus Exige by utility company Ecotricity, reached an average of 148mph last week. The driver, 21-year-old Nick Ponting cruised the car into the record books after beating the previous record of 137mph, set back in 2000.

Ecotricity say it’s the first electric supercar built in the UK and they hope it will “smash the stereotype” of electric cars as sluggish and unreliable. Company founder Mr Vince said: “This is brilliant. We built the Nemesis to smash the stereotype of electric cars as something Noddy would drive – slow, boring, not cool – and I think we’ve done exactly that today.

“Hopefully this will further stimulate debate about the future of transport in Britain and how we’ll be getting around when the world runs out of oil.”

Energy stored for the powering of the car came from a network of 53 Ecotricity wind turbines from around the UK and the eco-green recycling doesn’t stop there – the car was a second hand Exige from eBay and part replaced from the ground up.

The initial car cost £10,000 and a hefty £750,000 was spent modifying the vehicle over two-and-a-half years, however, unlike current production vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf that takes eight hours to charge, Nemesis can be fully charged from empty in 30 minutes.