For the first time in its 52-year history, Ford's Mustang Cobra Jet factory drag racer will be a whisper-silent EV

This isn't the first all-electric Ford Mustang we've seen. Ford launched the fully electric Mustang Mach-E crossover in 2019 as a competitor to Tesla and other mass-market EVs. Production of the Mach-E is supposed to start this fall and deliveries are said to begin in late 2020 into early 2021, but it's unclear how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the timeline.

In its release, Ford said the Cobra Jet 1400 will undergo further testing before its world debut later this year at a drag racing event.

The Cobra Jet 1400 might very well become the king of Mustang dragsters, but it's certainly not the fastest EV to take to the strip — not by a long shot.

The National Electric Drag Racing Association, which champions electric-vehicle performance and technology, keeps track of electric quarter-mile record holders. Currently, the record for the all-electric quarter-mile is 6.940 seconds at 201.37 mph.

A difference of one second and change between that and the expected Cobra Jet 1400 run might not seem like a lot, but it's years of time in drag racing.

As Michael Fragomeni, long-time drag-racing enthusiast and director of Western Australian company Top EV Racing, explained in a New Atlas interview:

… electric motors make all their torque from zero RPM, so we've got more launch force. In Top Fuel drag racing, these guys are slipping their clutches all the way to half track or more, so they're not using anywhere near the full power their engines are able to make until about half track.

Our limiting factor is tires and grip, just like theirs is. But the difference, I believe, is that we're applying our power and torque much more precisely and more controllably. Those cars are subject to clutch behavior changes. And the air pressure, humidity and temperature change, which affects the power of the motor, and the ignition timing is critical as those variables change and the applied load varies. They have a lot of factors changing dynamically that are very hard to master.

We believe we can be a lot more precise and measured, with a lot more control. We hope to achieve more launch force and take advantage of our launch force more linearly up to half track.

When a race only lasts a few seconds, instant torque counts for a lot.

Ford believes its new prototype will achieve a quarter-mile run in the low eight-second range at more than 170 mph — which, in drag racing, is fast. Ford's 2018 Cobra Jet, powered by a supercharged V8, was touted at the time as Ford Performance's "quickest drag racing Mustang ever, capable of covering a quarter-mile in the mid-eight-second range."

The new EV is supposedly even faster off of the line, which is typical for EVs.

While the overall quarter-mile drag record is still held by a vehicle with an internal-combustion engine, EVs do have a unique advantage over their gasoline-powered counterparts.