This all-electric British sports car prototype from Nyobolt also incidentally only weighs 1,246 kg.
With batteries being rather hefty things, the dream of a lightweight sports car was to be commonly considered as being an impossibility in this upcoming all-electric future. That is however until Nyobolt came along, with its recently-revealed (and rather unimaginatively named) EV prototype coming in at just 1,246 kg!
Unfortunately however, it is perhaps prudent to highlight on the outset that this all-electric sports car’s 35 kWh battery pack is only supposedly capable of a paltry WLTP range of 250 km. Though handily enough, this small driving distance on a charge is to be more than made up from the rather neat little party piece of this EV prototype, which is for it charge (using a 350 kW charger) from 10 – 80% in just 4 minutes and 37 seconds!
Claimed by its maker as being ‘twice the speed of most of the fastest-charging vehicles today’, the EV prototype’s super fast-charging battery is supposedly also extremely resistant to degradation. This is evidenced by the fact that this battery pack apparently still had over 80% of its capacity even after over 4,000 full depth of discharge fast-charge cycles, equalling roughly 600,000 miles of real-world use.
Nyobolt currently touts that its rapid-charging and low-degradation cell technology manages to minimise the size and weight of the battery packs required in an EV, with one of the applications that is most receptive to these benefits being in a sports car. And for those who think that this EV prototype looks rather similar to a Lotus Elise, it is largely because it was designed by the man who penned the original.
Now in discussing a little bit further as to what exactly makes these batteries so special, there is unfortunately not really much else to say regarding this topic. Such is as the British upstart has kept its cards close to its chest regarding the technical details of its pack, with all that was stated in this regarding being that its high-density cell technology and battery management software being used to optimise powertrains for ‘high-uptime’ EVs that ‘demand high power and quick recharge cycles’.
“Our extensive research here in the UK and US has unlocked a novel battery technology that is ready and scalable right now,” continues Dr. Sai Shivareddy, Nyobolt co-founder. “We are enabling the electrification of new products and services currently considered inviable or impossible.
Similarly, there is really little currently concrete regarding the car that these batteries are situated in as well. All that is known thus far is that it could be offered as either a road-going sports car or a dedicated track-day toy, with Warwick-based design agency Callum (of Jaguar designing fame) currently assisting in the engineering of this prototype for low-volume production.
What is nevertheless more than certain though is that the EV prototype will likely not be making it past the low volume stage any time soon. Such is as Nyobolt has already stated that the main aim of this all-electric sports car is as a demonstrator to get other automakers to buy into its novel battery technology, of which there are apparently 8 interested OEMs already.
Low-volume output of its batteries are earmarked by the company to potentially begin this year, ramping up to 1,000 batteries next year. Ultimately, it says it could produce two million units annually using its “flexible” manufacturing model.
