The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT
Forget the Tesla Roadster, there’s a new electric badboy in town.
The Lightning GT is perhaps the least talked about of any of the new electric car concepts out there. But why? From the looks of the website the GT should be a fast, sexy, and expensive electric car. If the recent hubbub over Tesla or the impassioned love of Ferrari is a guide, then people should be really excited about a car that incorporates all of these characteristics.
The Lightning GT has some sweet features, like full regenerative braking, 0-60mph in 5 seconds (4 seconds projected for the sport version), and even claims to charge up to 250 miles of driving in just 10 minutes.
More after the jump!
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On the battery end of things the GT uses what they call NanoSafe™ technology, which is based on technology by the US company Altairnano Inc. These nano-tech-employing batteries should hold 85% life after an amazing 15,000 cycles and are the reason that Lightning claims its extremely fast 10-minute recharge rate.
The Lightning site even comes with some impressive performance statistics that would turn anyone’s heads. Just take a look at this comparison between the planned sport model and the Jaguar XKR and the Toyota Prius:
| Cars | 0-60 MPH | Power |
| Jaguar 4.2 XKR convertible | 5.0 Secs | 420 bhp |
| Toyota Prius [Hybrid] 1.5 T4 | 10.9 Secs | 76 bhp |
| Electric Lightning GT | 4.0 Secs | 700+ bhp |
Hopefully this sweet British car makes it into production and the NanoSafe™ technology is proven, improved, and makes its way into mainstream battery technology. More updates to come as they come from the company!
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Lightning Press Release:
NEWS RELEASE – FEBRUARY 08 – ELECTRIC LIGHTNING GT DESIGN REVEALED
In June 2007, The Lightning Car Company announced its intent to develop electric technology for a luxury
British sports car – the Lightning GT. Today sees the unveiling of its evolutionary design. This super car with its outstanding presence & performance is set to put British sports car innovation well and truly back on the map. Designed to accommodate the latest battery and motor technology and reflect its 100% electric power and performance, the electric Lightning prototype is being hand-built by a small team of passionate British engineers, designers and collaborators. Whilst the rest of the automotive world engages in the hybrid, hydrogen or electric debate, the Lightning Car Company firmly believes its 100% Electric Lightning GT will help kick start the market for performance EV’s.
Without a significant positive shift in perception, electric motoring will remain a huge compromise in the eyes of driving enthusiasts and therefore fail to impress the masses. Our vision is shared by the world’s biggest car maker, General Motors, who believes the global oil supply has peaked and a switch to electric cars is inevitable…
The design team has created a successor to the petrol Lightning GT. Combining the spirit, heritage,
individuality and drama of the original car with a dynamic and contemporary design language moves it into a new era and, in doing so, embraces the new technologies and innovative architecture that reside beneath its skin. Subtle creases, positive and negative sections add a sense of strength and finesse to the dramatic surfaces of the car while retaining an understated, yet distinctive British Grand Tourer aesthetic. The Lightning’s interior will also be designed to complement the unique electric driving experience.
With the build of the prototype well underway, we should see how this translates into the ‘real thing’ during the second half of 2008. The electric Lightning GT and Sports versions are now available to pre-order and deposits of £15,000 are being accepted.
For further print ready images please download from the press area on our website
www.lightningcarcompany.co.uk
Image source: AutoBlog Green
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March 9th, 2008 at 1:04 am
I suppose its par for the course that enthusiasts
would get excited, but at well over $200,000, the Lightning will have about as much influence on our environment and the future direction of auto design
as yesterday’s newspaper. I can’t conceive of a more status satisfying, and totally irrelevant vehicle as this one. Multimillionaires aren’t clogging the highways, and neither will this piece of fluff. Call
me when you can buy 50 kilowatthours worth of Altairnano batteries for les than the price of a Cadillac. And you can recharge in 10 minutes only if you are close neighbors to an electric power plant.
Do you hojoes have any idea how much raw power is required to recharge 50 kilowatthours worth of batteries in 10 minutes? Well, do you? I didn’t think so.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:20 am
Love it! I want one! You need to get it out there for more people to be aware of. Popular price it as much as possible.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
With those batteries and brakes it could perhaps be a decent sports car. Bring it to the track, race it for 60-80 miles at full throttle and then plug it in while the car cools down and you take a break.
March 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
fun cAr innowation
March 9th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
this is cool
March 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
[...] GT sport model. If every electric car in the future looks like this I won’t be complaining!read more | digg story Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can [...]
March 9th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
It looks like a rip off of the 612 Scaglietti…
March 9th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Although I wish it weren’t, this has got to be a hoax. The web sites in the “press release” are nonexistent as is the source web site.
I’m reminded of the old adage, “it it seems too good to be true…”
Bummer!
March 9th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
[...] The Lightning GT is perhaps the least talked about of any of the new electric car concepts out there. But why? From the looks of the website the GT should be a fast, sexy, and expensive electric car. – Gas2 [...]
March 9th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
The websites (inlcuding the source) most certainly do exist, Joseph. I clicked them and they popped up just fine.
March 9th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
I fly high-power electric R/C airplanes and unless these guys are hiding a Nobel-Prize-winning battery technology, hide your checkbooks if they want you to be an ‘investor’…..
March 9th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Well #1 poster there is a car that will make a huge splash and I am surprised that they didn’t talk about it. I’m getting one here in October this year. Look at http://www.aptera.com. The only draw back at this point is that the car will only be released to California residents. Aptera is talking about expanding after they take off and the most expensive one they have goes for just 30K. It’s a plug in Hybrid that gets 300 mpg.
March 9th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
“The Lightning GT is perhaps the least talked about of any of the new electric car concepts out there. But why?”
Because it doesn’t exist until you show a video of it like Tesla Motors did of their roadster. We want to see and hear it working, not just some site with a few 3D computer graphics pictures and large claims.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:37 am
700 horses and a four flat 0-60? This thing must way a ton, a Ferrari 612 puts about about 530 hp, weighs 3800 lbs, and runs a 4.2 sec 0-60. If they can make a 700 hp engine, they should be able to find a way to cut some weight. I think Kent nailed it on the head, sounds like an appeal to the wanna-be-green millionare.
March 10th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Ah. They finally put those batteries in a car. I’ve been waiting since the press release on those nano particle batteries came out a year and a half or two years ago for them to finally slap them in a car. Now they just need to percolate down to the mainstream consumer (an affordable car) and the electric car will finally be good enough to compete with the gasoline car and cost pennies per mile to operate.
March 10th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
[...] GT sport model. If every electric car in the future looks like this I won’t be complaining!read more | digg [...]
March 10th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
“nano-tech-employing batteries” – Lame
March 10th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
[...] read more Tags: [...]
March 10th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Since Kent can’t do math, I’ll do it for him. Charging 50 kWh worth of batteries in 10 minutes would require 2500 Amps of electricity at 120 Volts or 1250 Amps at 240 Volts… My home only has 200 Amp service so I guess I’ll need an up-grade. But seriously, the 10 minute time is only an issue on the road, so it’s only service stations that will require insane power hook-ups. If the same battery pack was recharged over night (8 hrs), it would only (!) draw 52 Amps @ 120 Volts or 26 Amps @ 240 V.
I hope fusion is around the corner…
March 10th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
[...] Posts: The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT Car Hacker’s Hummer Gets 60 MPG How to Get 76 MPG 6 Ways To Find And Use Biodiesel [...]
March 11th, 2008 at 5:30 am
Gasfan: It is likely that this car will be fairly heavy. With so many batteries the car probably weighs quite a bit. But remember that it is much easier to have a high output electric motor than it is to have a high output gasoline motor, and it is certainly much easier to add a few more horsepower to the electric motor than it would be to cut down battery weight a tremendous amount. It would be nicer, and more energy efficient, if the car were lighter, but to achieve the performance Lightning is going for I’m sure they’ve got a good balance.
Jeremy: Thanks for you comment! That is precisely why I’m excited about this car. Putting this cutting-edge technologies into practice is the best way to prove and improve them. The more cars, trucks, or anything that use these batteries the quicker they will fall in price and improve in quality.
Bernie Holbrook: Thanks for the math…it certainly is a tall order. I imagine that an owner looking to do a quick charge would need to have a special set up for it, much the same with the Honda Civic GS has it’s own home NG filling station. The 10 minute figure is likely not to full and I would hazard a guess that it’s only for a flash charge and not the preferable method. But then I don’t know the specifics on this part of the car’s concept. I’ll certainly update the post if I find out more about the charging.
Once again, thanks all for your comments and for reading!
March 12th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] Vía: gas 2.0 [...]
March 12th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
[...] Related Posts: Plug-In Hybrids Use Over 17 Times More Water Than Regular Cars, Researchers Say Get 120 MPG Out of Your Prius (Plug It In) The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT [...]
July 14th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Interesting that the same old mode is in operation… the designers simply mimic popular old cars. Same as trying to make an early car as a carriage… Can no one approach the problem of electric transportation afresh.
The early design of the Tesla published on their website was vastly superior to the current end product. I’ll bet that the designer went into full blown angst as it was being developed.
These buggies with radiators and all probably also have fake exhaust pipes.
And 3 wheeled vehicles are simply motorcycles and have inherently unstable suspensions. Lots of deaths to come.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
[...] The Sporty Future of Electrics Cars: the Lightning GT [...]
August 5th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
If you research this story further you will find that it’s (my opinion) utterly nonsense. Lightning Car Company claims 700+ bhp but the math doesn’t support that claim. Four 120kW hubmotors equals 643 bhp. The “Nano-safe” batteries they claim to use are not in production and there’s no possible way to power 480kW in motors from even 30 (as Lightning claims) batteries – the weight is far too much (another little ommission from Lightning’s spec sheet). And Lightning says the car will retail for $300,000! This is NOT what the world needs.
August 11th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
after 10 years what will be the future of petrol and diesel cars? will they be converted into electric or fuel cell cars?
September 27th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Wonderful, I want one, thanks…..
March 25th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
[...] to plug-in electric vehicles (PHEVs, like the Chevy Volt) and pure electric vehicles (EVs, like the Lightning GT and Subaru R1e). PHEVs are not a new thing, and they have been discussed on Gas2.0 before, but [...]