The surprisingly cutthroat race to build the world`s fastest elevator

The surprisingly cutthroat race to build the world`s fastest elevators

SHANGHAI -Elevator rides are not usually worth documenting. But when you step into the elevator at Shanghai Tower, people often pull out their cameras.

As the doors close, a screen at the elevator`s front lights up to show you the car`s location as it rises toward the building`s newly opened observation deck. A neatly dressed attendant informs passengers that the elevator has now reached a top speed of 18 meters per second, approximately 40 mph.

[This is really fast," one passenger said during a recent packed ride up the tower.

It is, in fact, the fastest elevator in the world.

At a ceremony in Tokyo in early December, the Shanghai Tower elevators and the company that made them, Mitsubishi Electric, were officially awarded the title by Guinness World Records. Yet many passengers may not even experience the top speed. To do so, you have to travel in a souped-up elevator car with a Mitsubishi technician who can flick a switch, making the speedometer on the screen turn red: 20.5 meters per second (45.8 mph).

China is experiencing an elevator boom. Over the past decade, the vast majority of elevators installed around the world have been placed in China, where rapid urbanization has met with a desire for ambitious [super-tall" skyscrapers. It has been estimated that by 2020, 40 percent of all elevators will be in China.

And when it comes to speed, the rest of the world can`t keep up.

The Burj Khalifa in Dubai is the only skyscraper in the world taller than Shanghai Tower, but its elevators go barely half the speed. The fastest elevator in the West, installed at 1 World Trade Center in Manhattan, runs at a paltry 23 mph. The Shanghai Tower`s elevator goes even faster than the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a Disney haunted-elevator amusement-park ride that hurls thrill-seekers at 39 mph.

Look at a list of the world`s fastest elevators now, and five out of the top 10 are in China.

But China`s vast elevator market is slowing. As it slows, elevator companies are becoming more cutthroat - at every level.

Companies such as Mitsubishi are in competition for huge contracts with companies from all over the world. Another Japanese elevator company, Hitachi, came close to winning the Shanghai Tower contract. It was awarded one in Guangzhou instead and then announced plans to beat Mitsubishi`s speed with its own 44.7-mph elevators.

In the end, Mitsubishi installed new hardware on one of the elevators in Shanghai Tower, snatching the record back from Hitachi shortly after it was lost. Mitsubishi representatives said that the demands of the client, a consortium with links to the Shanghai municipal government, had prompted the decision.

[The Brits would visit the United States and they would say, `God, why is it going so fast?` " Gray said.

For much of the 20th century, the fastest elevators were installed in American cities. Then the speed race moved to Asia.

The three elevators installed by Mitsubishi Electric in the Shanghai Tower. The elevator on the right is the fastest in the world, capable of reaching 20.5 meters per second; around 45.8 miles per hour. (Courtesy of Mitsubishi Electric)

China`s elevator gold rush

The elevator industry may have never been as unforgiving as it is now.

Why? China.

Over the past two decades, China has rapidly urbanized. To boost urban density, hundreds of thousands of elevators and escalators have been installed each year. There are now more than 4 million units in the country - more than four times the number in the United States. Just over a decade ago, there were barely 700,000.

If they don`t, when will the record next be beaten? Mitsubishi says that it has no plans to break its own record at present. Toshiba, which until recently held the record with the Taipei 101 Tower, said that it`s not focusing on ultrahigh-speed elevators anymore.

[The competition for speed is over," said Yoshinori Inoue, a communications representative for Toshiba.

But there could yet be new challengers. Hyundai, a South Korean elevator manufacturer, has plans to begin testing 50 mph elevators. Canny Elevator, a Chinese company based just outside Shanghai, is building a 3,100-foot test tower that it says will be the tallest in the world.

How much further the record can be pushed is unclear. One recent study suggested that 51.4 mph would probably be the limit before passengers get sick. Traveling down quickly is even more difficult: Go too fast and the body thinks it`s falling. Elevators in both the Shanghai Tower and the CTF Finance Tower go down at 22.3 mph, close to the limit.

Most importantly, even the most advanced elevator still needs a big building to go in. Right now it`s unclear where such buildings will be. While many say that India could one day be the next China, Rizk Maidi, an analyst with German bank Berenberg, doubts it will ever be as ambitious.

[I don`t think we`ll see a repeat of the Chinese boom," he said.