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UK startup to convert luxury cars to EVs

 
1 1,128 views May 21, 2008
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UK startup to convert luxury cars to EVs

UK startup to convert luxury cars to EVs

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Revealed today at the Eden Project Green Car Show in the UK, the newly-formed company Liberty Electric Cars Ltd. plans to invest £30 million ($58.4 million) in the re-engineering of luxury cars and SUVs to turn them into emissions free yet still high-performance electric vehicles (EVs). The ambitious project will kick off its production with an all-electric Range Rover.

The Liberty Electric Ranger Rover, as the company's first EV is known, strives to offer the same level of performance and convenience of the original with a pure-electric drivetrain and zero tailpipe emissions. The company says the car will be able to travel a full 200 miles (320km) on a single charge, with on-board range-extending generators available, effectively turning the cars into a sort of plug-in series hybrid.

With the seemingly impossible combination of high performance and large driving range, one would expect the price to be similarly impossible to afford. However, the company estimates the cars to cost between £95,000 and £125,000 depending on model and specification.

Though that's certainly no econo-box price, the standard Range Rover starts at £56,000, meaning the premium roughly doubles the price of the vehicle - but still comes in competitively compared to the Tesla Roadster, priced in the UK at £78,000 (€99,000). That price looks even more reasonable when you consider the vastly greater passenger seating, boot space and yet similar range.

Thinking big is a necessary step to achieving big goals, and the folks at Liberty Electric Cars have certainly done that. Though it realizes the market for pure EVs is still in the very early stage, it thinks its solution will persuade buyers of the advantages, such as 80% lower running costs, greater efficiency in power use, reduced emissions - and the attendant carbon taxes - and superior acceleration, thanks to the torquey architecture of the electric motor.

It's no small-time operation, either. The company hopes to reach annual conversion totals in the tens of thousands, employing 250 people in its works. If the product can live up to the company's claims, it should have no problems achieving its goals, and even exceeding them. Eventually other types of cars are expected to be worked into the conversion process as well, expanding the reach and target audience of the company's EVs.



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Comment (1)

  1. By Gus Posted: 5/21/2008 4:29pm PDT

    Yeah, uh, ok, let me go get my wallet...
     
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