After a tough 2025 race where it won its class but only came in 2nd place overall, Ford brought its Super Mustang Mach-E back for revenge and managed to beat every gas car up the hill at the world’s toughest road race event.
The Pike’s Peak International Hill Climb is one of the longest-running races in the world, being held 103 times since 1916.
It’s a famously difficult race, starting at an already-high 9,390ft (2,862m) in elevation and finishing at 14,110ft (4,300m), with an average 7.2% vertical grade. Until 2011, the track was largely unpaved on dirt or gravel roads, and it is still not uncommon for cars to leave the track and crash into the woods or, worse, end up tumbling down the mountain. The race is also commonly stopped by rain, snow, fog, or other inclement weather… of the type you commonly get at the top of mountains.
In particular, the high altitude nature of the race (which earned it the nickname “Race to the Clouds”) has always been difficult, because at high altitudes there is less oxygen, which means less complete combustion of fuel. This means that gas-powered race vehicles need to have incredibly oversized engines to do well.
That difficulty does not apply to electric vehicles since EVs don’t need oxygen for combustion, so for years EVs have overperformed in the race. In fact, the all-time record for the 12.42-mile (20km) hillclimb, 7:57.148, was set by the all-electric Volkswagen ID.R in 2018, driven by Romain Dumas (put a pin in that name).
