New EV Caterham
 

Apparently Caterham are planning on making an EV sports car. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/n...radical-design

Interesting tidbits:
SVA (UK Single Vehicle Approval) is basically kit-car/ultra low volume approval. Fingers crossed the Caterham US would be able to bring it over as a kit, although one wonders where would the EV powertrain come from.

Looks like VT Holdings didn't fund Caterham to just keep producing Sevens. Honestly I'm pretty excited for this - if they can pull off a lightweight EV sports car that emphasizes pure fun I'd be very tempted to buy one.

I have to wonder how light it could really be. My understanding is that a pretty potent electric motor weighs less than and inline four and not having a trasmission, driveshaft or exhaust helps keep the weight down. However, the batteries are insanley heavy. The original Tesla roadster was 2877lbs(1305kg) while the Elise that it was based on weighed 1984lbs(900kg). I'm sure that battery technology has improved since 2008 but I don't know if they've gotten much lighter. I agree that a bare-bones EV that doesn't have an Ipad coming out of the dash would be pretty cool.

A Seven weighs in at about 1,200 lbs, so the battery could be smaller for similar range and performance. Battery tech does improve, specifically Wh per kg. The original Roadster had 117 Wh/kg, today we're at around 300 Wh/kg. This would mean a 50 kWh battery would weigh 166 kgs instead of 427 kgs. That's on par with engine/transmission/gas.

I've never heard of an EV battery being that light. The 40 kwh Leaf battery is 300kg, the 62 kwh is 400kg. The standard range model 3 50kw is over 300kg.

I found this little excprt too, though I have been seeing energy density ratings of newer batteries to be a bit better(assembled weight energy density over 200wh/kg) but this is from 22'.

You can't really compare the Roadster to a modern car. They took an Elise and modified it as opposed to building something with EV in mind as the base of the design. Lot less compromises when starting from scratch. I have no doubt Caterham will figure it out.

Yeah, cell vs pack density is certainly an easy place to claim improvements without them being applicable for the end product.
Still, even if the advances are not that extreme, we're still better today than in the original Roadster with regard to EV battery weight. Plus we're talking about an even smaller and lighter base vehicle - an Elise tub is 150 lbs; a Seven chassis is around 50.
And yes, I'm aware Caterham are claiming no relation to the Seven, but they are planning on a spaceframe and it's reasonable to expect a Seven sized car.

They could also make the pack structural to the frame which would help out a lot. Modern EV's do this.

And if/when someone has a bit of a bingle the repair costs go through the roof.

Interested because of Jannarelly and Caterham. This is like Colin Chapman building an EV sports car.

Another EV coming from Caterham, this time an EV Seven prototype not meant for production. The interesting bit is that it weighs in at 1540 lbs with a 51 kWh battery (with 40 kWh usable) and 240 HP/180 lbf with an LSD. I'd say this bodes well for their planned EV sports car.

Collision with structural damage =/= bit of a bingle.

The latest from PistonHeads. Some new images showing the layout.


https://www.pistonheads.com/news/Cat...20Smart%20List

I think that Caterham may go down the mid-engined EV route. I would not be surprised if it has the same footprint as the series 1 Elise or even the Elise 'reborn'. Tesla did it with the Lotus platform, perhaps it was too ahead of the game at the time.

Here ya go, right from the Cat's mouth so to speak.
https://caterhamcars.com/en/models/evseven

Looks like a Seven with the roll cage from a forklift grafted on.

That's thier standard race cage.
https://caterhamcars.com/en/models/t.../seven-420-cup

https://images.pistonheads.com/nimg/47243/CEV1.jpg

https://www.supercars.net/blog/wp-co...uperlight2.jpg

https://a.pinatafarm.com/620x425/c86...arrow-what.jpg

I guess the interpretation of "modern" depends on whether the modern look is flat panels with no vents, or real/fake vents all over the place....

Relax dude, I think it's a mule, testing the EV innards.. I think Caterham's EV will be mid-engined.

Yes, as the article in the OP's first post stated. The sEVen is the test mule to prove the concept. The production car will be more like an Elise with clamshells for and aft. (roof optional at this point)

Only 34 days to go....

https://caterhamcars.com/en/models/p...ource=hs_email

In typical British small car manufacturer fashion, I can't signup for the updates...

Yes but... Only 6 days (Ooopps, should have read more like 36, my bad) to Goodwood's Festival of Speed where the SEVEN test mule is scheduled to make it's appearance.


Hummmmmm... I got the above notice so I guess I'm already signed up. :w00t:
Might be that you're in the colonies and I'm in a Commonwealth Country. :bellyroll:

Used to be British, now Japanese owned...

Lotus proved that no matter where the money is coming from, small British outfits stay small British outfits. The development and launch of the Emira (under Chinese Geely) is going about the same as the Evora in 2009 and the US Elise in 2005 (under Malaysian Proton).

Looks cool but out of my budget

So, is Caterham basically going to create the EV Elise that Lotus never did? That would be cool. The Emira is cool, but it has morphed into more of a luxury GT sports car to compete with the Cayman, and there is nothing on the new market like the Elise left in terms of being purely sports focused, light and tiny.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/JZpqsB0Xerc

https://www.goodwood.com/grr/event-c...-ev-sportscar/

2+1 seating?...

At first I thought that was a neat idea. With no driveshaft hump and room between the front seats a real, live human would fit. Then I saw the photos from the Top Gear article. Looks like no room between or behind the seats so that's a :thumbdown: from me.


https://www.topgear.com/sites/defaul...348-104395.jpg



https://www.topgear.com/sites/defaul...407-104405.jpg


https://www.topgear.com/car-news/ele...ost-less-ps80k

Need a fuzzy seat delete option and a cargo net and tray to be actually useful.

...Beat Lotus to what Lotus has planned. Lotus has said it will be moving to EVs for all future models after the Emira. Whether those would be GTs like the Evora/Emira or more classic Lotuses is yet to be seen. If I had to guess, I bet Lotus will be moving on and competing more directly with the Cayman in quality/weight/power, but they aren't going to have the means of manufacturing batteries in-house like VAG or being able to directly compete with Porsche, so they will likely need to best the Cayman in more than just the feel/handling. I think they will try to keep weight down across multiple models in order to stand out, and they will use SUV EV sales to build the bulk of their revenue, so they can produce sports cars and keep the ethos of the brand alive.

There is talk that the next Cayman will be EV and the 911 will be hybrid, and much of the industry is moving to EVs, so Caterham is trying to beat everyone to an "affordable" sporty vehicle, and in this case, to a sports coupe that lives up to that title--light weight and good power-to-weight. I'm a huge fan of the Design-1 from Jannarelly, and Jannarelly's involvement into this design seems obvious. It definitely ticks a lot of boxes for me. If the price was right, I would be interested. As it stands, I would have to drive the car to know if it was worth the money, but I would also consider waiting to see what comes from larger manufactures once the EV market matures. In the end, this might be too bare bones and too exotic in materials to have much direct competition at this power/weight/price.

And that is my rub with figuring out what this car is all about. I think many manufactures are using this market change to attract investors, get government grants and/or to rebrand themselves. What is Caterham trying to do?

Trying to stay relevant

The electric SEVEN went up the hill. Unfortunately in the rain. I've found no sign of any videos of it as yet.


https://images.carexpert.com.au/resi...-goodwood.jpeg

Yeah, I have been looking too and nothing so far. Even looks like a camera on the rollbar :bs:

That back seat is perfect for a dog.

- Andrew

from that thumbnail angle it looks like they took design inspiration from the last generation Mitsubishi Eclipse coupe.....