Tesla competitor

[unixronin]

UK-based Lightning Cars has revealed a competitor to the Tesla Roadster electric sports car.

The Lightning GT has very similar performance to the Tesla Roadster, but can recharge its batteries in ten minutes if 3-phase power is available.  Battery life is claimed to be 12 years, with 85% of charge capacity retained after 15,000 charge cycles.  In shades of Car Wars tech, the Lightning GT uses individual 120kW motors in each wheel for a total of around 700HP.

Better start saving those nickels though.  It's priced at £120,000-£150,000 with £15,000 down.  But don't rush out to the bank, it's not available in the US yet.

Sorta looks very reminiscent of an Aston Martin or a TVR, doesn't it?

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

What are you planning to use for batteries? And do you have regenerative braking planned?

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

I figured I'd look into golf-cart batteries to start, see if they could handle the sort of load I want without getting too heavy. I'd like regenerative braking, but I'm not sure of the sort of electrical loads that generates.

My plan is actually a train style hybrid, with a generator running a purely electrical drivetrain. I'm thinking that sticking solar cells all over it might not be too bad of an idea, but I don't know how heavy that would get.

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

As long as you're doing that, remember that straight turbines have much better efficiency then piston-driven. They have no rapid torque, sure, but you don't care about that...

Also, regen braking is, apparently, pretty Deep Magic.

Talking with the guys who did the conversion for ElecBlue, even doing it on the rear wheel would have added 3000usd to the price for them, and a month of extra time.

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been looking at helicopter GPUs for the genny. Plus, that gives me an absolutely awesome multifuel capacity.

Gonna be loud as hell, though.

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

Well, remember, you don't need something that big.

There was a project somewhere, with someone taking a big turbo, and turning it inside out, which gives you a turbine engine. it was like, 35hp or something, which isn't much, but if it's running pretty constant, can leverage into some pretty awesome mileage.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

There are aircraft APUs in that range.