It’s always a special day in the automotive world when Ken Block and his band of merry Hoonigans drops a fresh Gymkhana video. For almost 14 years, Block and Co. has enthralled audiences with high-energy tire-slaying in a range of locations, from empty airstrips to shut down cities. For the latest video, things are a little bit different. Ken Block has gone electric. Like Dylan!
The premise of an electric Gymkhana car sounds pretty neat. Electric motors generate tons of torque, so glorious tire smoke is essentially guaranteed. Plus, it’s great seeing people prove that electric cars can very much be hooned. Upon first watch of Electrickhana though, I wasn’t completely enthralled. Something felt missing, so I went back and re-watched Electrikhana and various Gymkhana videos to figure out why.
Let’s compare this latest Gymkhana to say, Vaughn Gittin Jr. demonstrating the capabilities of his Mustang Mach-E 1400. Setting aside the V8 rumbles of various Mustang coupes, the Mach-E 1400 makes its presence known with the obscene banshee shriek of its electric motors. It sounds like a Cuisinart on speed, and while not necessarily an objectively good sound, it’s exciting. In contrast, Electrikhana’s sound design tones down the electric motor whine and plays with it so it isn’t relentless. While it’s good for establishing camera position relative to the action, it doesn’t feel as visceral as the energy drink-fueled, open-up-this-pit sound design of previous Gymkhana videos.
Next, there’s the issue of Las Vegas itself. Gymkhana often excels when it really showcases proximity. While Electrikhana has its high points like the donuts in the casino, the Vegas strip is wide, flat, segmented by medians, and generally a fairly boring venue. In several scenes, like the drone shot of the left turn across the intersection and the boxing gag, there’s just so much space that can’t be used practically that certain shots just aren’t hugely exciting. There’s so much tarmac in the intersection pictured below, yet Block and the gang can only use a small amount of it for this shot. In addition, the inky cover of night conceals true proximity to some objects like the parking structure, so it takes a few re-watches to really grasp how impressive Block’s driving is.
Aside from location limitations, there’s likely a good reason the Gymkhana crew didn’t always try to go for the hardest, tightest-proximity stuff possible. According to Hoonigan employee Zach Mertens, Block only had about an hour of seat time in the Hoonitron for the filming of Electrikhana, and limited seat time typically means a limited amount of comfort in a car and location. In several shots, you can see Block abruptly cut wheel speed to either correct a slide or line up for another stunt. Sliding an electric car can be tough because there’s no rev limiter to sit on to limit wheel speed, so the learning curve involved is a bit steep.
Perhaps the biggest contrast comes in watching Electrikhana with the sound off, then immediately watching Travis Pastrana’s Gymkhana video from two years ago with the sound off. Pastrana may pull off some more ludicrous stunts, but part of the appeal is easily seeing how close he gets to curbs, poles, and other objects. Even with the sound off, the video’s immediately exciting. With Electrikhana, it takes a few watches for the sheer level of hoonage to really sink in.
Despite the latest drop in the Gymkhana series not grabbing me from first glance, there’s still some great stuff going on. The backwards entry between the median strips is gnarly and the skid around one minute and 23 seconds in is absolutely disgusting in the best way. Bonus points to the heavy angle around the fake Arc de Triomphe and eyeball spin dryer shenanigans inside the casino. It’s also lovely to see all the race cars from Audi’s heritage collection, even if the promotion can seem a bit heavy-handed at times. Of equal importance, a mind-boggling amount of planning went into this production, from shutting down streets to talking with casinos to stitching far-apart roads together to look seamless. Shoutout to the producers, directors, and editors who pulled this massive endeavor off.
While Electrikhana may not be the most thrilling video in the Gymkhana series, the team did a great job given the location, limited seat time, and challenges of filming an EV. Making electric cars look and sound exciting on film is hard, just watch any Formula E car doing donuts for proof. However, with more seat time and a different location, I have a feeling the Gymkhana crew could make an EV just as exciting to watch as a combustion-powered car. Think of this latest video as a first glimpse at some excellent things to come, exactly like how the first Gymkhana video kicked off more than a decade of thrilling tire destruction.
Lead photo credit: Audi
Cool to see these constantly pushing boundaries in filming, editing, and of course driving and building insane machines. The whole Khana series is ace.
Anyone know what it weighs?
I thought this was the best one in a long time. Hoonicorn (Gymkahna 7) was OK because it was an all new car, with great sounds but the actual video wasn’t the best. Gymkahna 3 is peak IMO, because the car was insane the location was insane and the stunts were well crafted for the space, rather than “oh look a donut, around (object in the road) This latest video had some of those old exciting stunts, like the insane 180 outside the MGM, and the slide outside Paris. It also seems to me to have the fewest “takes” in some pretty dicey sections, like the parking garage, I didn’t see many. Not like in LA and when he went through Chinatown, the bricks were covered in previous tire tracks. The giant smoke show at the end was lame, but that probably plays well to a different crowd. He missed an opportunity, unless he can’t do it with 2 motors, to do the standing start donut.. https://youtu.be/TL4UQEgJ5Tw
Vastly underwhelming. I’m not even talking about the car. To me it feels like anything shot in Vegas is more about Vegas and promotion than the actual video content. Also 8 minutes of dark video is boring.
Agreed. Car is cool IMO, there’s just much less wow factor as far as the driving goes compared to the old ones.
Why the heck would he only take an hour of seat time beforehand? I feel like Audi’s been taking their partnership a lot more serious than Hoonigan is.
I thought the Vegas-by-night location was very cool, but the stunts/setups didn’t feel anywhere near as creative as previous videos, and Audi bringing all those classic toys out only to have them just kinda sit in the background felt like a massive wasted opportunity.
I can dig not having much time to practice so needing to tone down some of the really close-call stuff but it felt like that left them with no ideas for making it actually interesting.
Love the car though, here’s hoping they make a real one someday.
Watch any ten minutes of Formula Drift and you will be just as entertained.
Not saying this is boring but come on. I always can’t help but notice the black marks from all his previous tries. That takes the joy out of it for me.
Did you really think anyone can do this on only 1 take & no practice.
It’s beast, two Formula E motors and four 17.3KWh Audi Q7 batteries with 3,000Nm of torque.
what was the big digital display? Voltage?
I watched the video where Ken Block and Brian Scotto talked about the car and it’s downright bonkers. It’s a bespoke wheel annihilating machine that cost millions of dollars. It was so expensive that Audi stopped counting (well more like they stopped telling Hoonigan what it cost, they know exactly what it cost). I can’t watch the whole video now but I believe that they mentioned that Audi told them not to crash it which makes sense since it’s a completely custom build. They sent the tires back to Toyo because Toyo had never seen their tires do that. If you have a chance watch the 40 minute video about the car.
https://youtu.be/zsa-SxpiCU0
I thought this one was kinda lame compared to his others. Granted it’s a tire shredding beast, but that only goes so far IMO.
The driving/stunts/tricks whatever you want to call it was kinda lame compared to previous ones. I mean, car is cool, but this was probably the worst of the gymkhana videos from Hoonigan/Block.
Mute tab before watching to avoid the slot car X 1000 noises.
Counterpoint: I want *more* spaceship noises.
It’s like supercharger whine but times 100 🙂
Do you also enjoy the static on an old TV when there is no video?
I re-watched the Pastrana one right after watching the new one… it’s so good.
The overwhelming feeling I got from Electrikhana was “holy shit, I made my car too powerful in Forza Horizon and all I can do is spin”. It’s wild to see it in real life.
That first slide out onto the strip (from Paris) looks absolutely batshit. I love it.
Right? Can’t even drift it’s too powerful… And then it just sort of ends… in a cloud of smoke! Meh…