Top Gear has never been shy of dealing with controversies and lawsuits, having spent an inordinate amount of their time and resources deflecting complaints left and right, including a recent dispute with Tesla over the state of their electric sports car.
Turns out, Top Gear’s electric car curse has come back and bitten Jeremy Clarkson in the hiney a second time. In the middle of their EV test drive with the Nissan Leaf and the Peugeot iOn, the former’s electric power runs out on the Britishman, leaving him stranded and at a loss of what to do with the latest debacle. Worse off, the whole incident happened in the city and outside of the Top Gear test track. After much deliberation and a few requests to boot, the two crackling hosts - together with a number of good-hearted volunteers - were able to push the stricken Leaf into the University of Lincoln where an outlet was ready, willing, and waiting.
In the event that Nissan decides to file a lawsuit against Top Gear similar to Tesla, the British show at least has visual evidence of what transpired, probably saving them a whole truckload of money.
Imagining the car of the future would be a pretty serious challenge for most of us, but for Marko Lukovic, from Belgrade Serbia, this challenge was a piece of cake. His Supersonic concept car was designed for the 2011 "Plus 10: The Best is Yet to Come" challenge and was on display at the Michelin stand in Detroit.
The Supersonic has a three wheel based construction and offers interior room for two people, with seating one behind the other, like in a cockpit of a super aircraft. The concept is defined by elegant design lines, with extremely large Xenon head-lights additionally equipped with blue LEDs. Each of the three wheels is powered by a powerful electric motor. The front wheel is hidden and two rear wheels are equipped by circle Neon blue lights for better visibility and safety in traffic at night.
The electric motors take their power from light extra-durable electric batteries (an advanced lithium-ion battery) that will ensure an autonomy of 190 km of driving at higher speed around the town, and about 300 km at lower speed.
The concept comes with no mechanical linkages for the steering and brakes as the steering is based on Drive-By-Wire system. It comes equipped with a GPS navigation connected via satellite to CTSC (City Traffic & Security Center) which assists and suggests crucial activities to all drivers in some specific area.
Similar to how Henry Ford set out to make the automobile accessible for everyone in America; a small start-up company based in Santa Monica, CA intends to make the electric car affordable to all. Coda Automotive has been developing what they call a revolutionary new compact, full-electric car for less money than the competition. The past several years have been a struggle, but as with any start-up company, there are growing pains.
At the beginning of 2011, the company had already raised $76 million dollars and is looking to end with a total of $200 million. Past CEOs of this fledgling carmaker are former Goldman Sachs executives that should have no problem finding the last chunk of capital. This year, Phil Murtaugh became the new CEO and can back up his credentials with former stints at Chrysler and General Motors. “We’re getting our production tooling in order now. It all takes about six weeks to ship them over to the United States, so sometime in the fourth quarter, probably the late fourth quarter, we’ll see cars going on sale in California,” said Murtaugh.
The car itself is less than stunning on the outside, but with fuel efficiency being at the forefront of many Californian’s minds, this car could be the easy answer. It should achieve 90 to 120 miles on a single charge and charge faster than its major competition.
The automotive world is preparing for the ultimate gas price takeover and more and more start up companies are waiting to hit it big in the electric car business. Small start-up company, Delta Motorsport, is one of these hopefuls and their latest project, the Delta E-4 Coupe, has a winning combination of performance and electricity.
The Delta E-4 Coupe is a very compact, light weight, low drag, 4-seat passenger car that the company has been working on since 2007. The idea behind this model was to build an ultra low energy vehicle, and not just a vehicle that provides low emissions. The company feels that any car can provide low emissions if run on batteries, but bigger automobiles - like the Audi Q7 or the BMW X5 - will still be depleting energy at a much faster rate than smaller, more lightweight vehicles. They go on further to explain that automakers, after creating all of these low emissions vehicle, will eventually have to focus more on reducing the energy used by these models.
Enter the E-4 Coupe.
It may not be the prettiest vehicle we’ve ever seen, but it is certainly impressive nonetheless with a carbon composite chassis that weighs only 187 lbs and high performance direct-drive electric motors that together can get the E-4 all the way up to a top speed of 150 mph. Want fast results? The E-4 Coupe can get from 0-60 mph in under five seconds.
Get ready folks, the electric car phenomenon has just taken its next step.
More details on the Delta E-4 Coupe after the jump.
After teasing it for a while, Peugeot has released today the official details on the EX1 electric concept that will make its world debut at the Paris Auto Show. The concept was created as a celebration of the Marque’s 200th anniversary.
The EX1 is a two-seater roadster that combines the “floating” front grille and flowing contours from the SR1 concept, with polished aluminum components adorn the door surrounds from the RCZ and BB1. A particular feature of this concept is the reverse-opening door that gives access to the two sports bucket seats. There is also an instrument panel screens for each occupant showing in particular the vehicle’s instantaneous performance.
the concept is powered by two electric motors, one on each axle, each with a peak output of 167 HP and a maximum torque of 240 Nm at the front and rear.
"The EX1 concept car benefits from characteristics that give it a high enough level of performance not only to leave behind the city center, the preferred territory of electric vehicles, but also to challenge acceleration records. Its lightness, weight distribution and aerodynamics, the torque and power of its two electric motors and its high-output lithium-ion battery are just some of the characteristics that make this a car capable of lightning acceleration: the latter can exceed 1 G of gravitational force."
UPDATE 12/16/2010: The Peugeot EX1 started its history of breaking records back in September, and now the concept has matched or surpassed five records in a series of runs made at the Chengdu military airport in the province of Sichuan in China.
The EX1 established a 0 to 60 mph sprint time of 3.49 seconds and a symbolic longitudinal acceleration of 1G over 39 m. The concept also broke its own official records initially set in Montlhéry for the 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile with times of 7:08:62 and 12:67:54 respectively.
UPDATE 04/29/2011: Peugeot EX1 has established a new world record at the Nurburgring circuit. With Stéphane Caillet behind the wheel, the EX1 lapped the circuit in 9:01.338 seconds with an average speed of 138.324 km/h (85.95 mph).
UPDATE 05/04/2011: Peugeot has unveiled official images and an official video of the EX1 breaking the world record in Nurburgring. Enjoy!
