Buckle your elevator seat belts for this one. The Guangzhou CTF Financial Centre in China is home to the world’s fastest elevator, which can zoom from the ground floor to the 95th floor in just 43 seconds. Built by Hitachi, the express elevator tops out at 47 miles per hour. To pull that off, engineers had to get creative; the elevator cars are shaped like capsules to cut wind resistance and use special lightweight motors.
The brakes can handle extreme heat from stopping at such high speeds, and active guide rollers cancel out any shaking. Perhaps most impressive, the cars are pressurized, kind of like an airplane, so riders’ ears don’t pop from the rapid altitude change. The previous record holder was a Toshiba elevator in Taipei 101 that topped out at 38 mph.
Source: Oddity Central
