Unlike Tesla, Taiwan's Xing Mobility isn't interested in becoming a car manufacturer.
It just wants to prove the performance and reliability of its electric powertrain systems. And it's chosen to demonstrate its prowess with an absolutely ludicrous experiment – a 1,000-kilowatt (1,341-hp) electric on-road/off-road supercar called the Miss R.
Using four-wheel torque vectoring, the Miss R promises to accelerate from 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in just 1.8 seconds, which would see it pipping the2020 Tesla Roadster by a 10th of a second and absolutely annihilating anything short of a purpose-built dragster from the internal combustion world.
Reaching 200 km/h (124 mph) will take about 5.1 seconds, which is how long it takes last year's Maserati Quattroporte to reach half that speed, and Miss R is expected to have a top speed between 270 and 300 km/h (168 and 186 mph).
Heat becomes a huge issue in ultra high-performance electrics, and Xing has safeguarded its battery packs from overheating using an unique liquid cooling system. Xing has created Lego-like stackable modules each containing 42 lithium-ion cells and packed 98 of them into the car for a total of 4,116 cells. All of these are immersed in 3M's Novec 7200 engineering fluid, which is totally non-conductive, great for heat transfer and also happens to suppress fire.
Xing tells us this liquid cooling system allows the extraction of a massive amount of power, equal to or slightly more than the Tesla, while using somewhere between 30-50 percent fewer cells. That means this car won't get near the Roadster's 998-km (620-mi) range, but it allows the entire battery pack to be swapped over in just five minutes.
Miss R is currently undergoing initial testing. The next test will boost things up to the terrifying full power of this thing, and the prototype is slated to be completed in 2018. A limited production run will then begin in 2019, with a purchase price of around US$1 million expected.
Oh, and yes, despite this thing's utterly obscene power and acceleration, it's designed for road, track AND off-road rally use. There's no doubt 1,341-hp off the road will turn a few hairs white. After all, Group B rally was shut down in the mid-80s when cars making less than half that figure were sending too any drivers to a fiery doom.
At a million dollars a pop, Miss R doesn't do much to prove the economics of electric performance – we'll leave that to the US$200k Tesla – but it's yet another demonstration of the wild, furious performance you can get when you swap hydrocarbons for electrons.
Check out an early test video below.
No comments:
Post a Comment