The surprisingly cutthroat race to build the world’s fastest lift
The Shanghai Tower lift whisks passengers from ground level to the observation deck on the 121st floor at a blistering 64km/h. We look at the tough business of providing elevators in China, the fastest growing market
Lift 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 up to show you the car’s location as it rises towards the building’s newly opened observation deck. A neatly dressed attendant informs passengers that the lift has now reached a top speed of 18 metres per second, approximately 64km/h.
“This is really fast,” one passenger says during a recent packed ride up the tower. It is, in fact, the fastest lift in the world.
At a ceremony in Tokyo in early December, the Shanghai Tower lifts 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 lift car with a Mitsubishi technician who can flick a switch, making the speedometer on the screen turn red: you will hit 20.5 metres per second.
China is experiencing a lift boom. Over the past decade, the vast majority of lifts installed around the world have been in China, where rapid urbanisation has met with a desire for ambitious “super-tall” skyscrapers. It has been estimated that by 2020, 40 per cent of all lifts 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 taller than Shanghai Tower, but its lifts go at barely half the speed. The fastest lift in the West, installed at 1 World Trade Centre in Manhattan, runs at a paltry 37km/h.