Nemesis - UK’s First All Electric SuperCar
Two years in the making, green energy
provider Ecotricity will unveil a 170mph
electric sports car, ahead of a crack at the
British electric car land speed record in
2011. Chief executive Dale Vince will debut
the car, dubbed the Nemesis and powered
solely by wind energy from the company's 51
UK turbines, at today's RAC Brighton to
London Future Car Challenge.
Nemesis has been something of an obsession
for Vince, who commissioned the car to "blow
the socks off Jeremy Clarkson and smash the
stereotype of electric cars" and has posted
regular progress updates on his Zero
Carbonista blog.
Since buying a second-hand Lotus Exige on
eBay in 2008, a team of British Formula One
engineers, partially funded by the
Technology Strategy Board, have lengthened
the chassis, lowered and shifted the centre
of gravity forward, and fitted a cluster of
96 lithium-ion polymer cells, two brushless
motors and a completely new transmission. In
doing so, they have delivered a range to 150
miles and developed a fast charging system
to fill the car up in less than two hours.
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"We wanted to prove electric cars can be
quick to develop, beautiful to look at,
cheap to run, and run entirely on wind
power," said Vince. "I was not looking for
something ecological, worthy and a bit
self-sacrificial, far from it. I wanted to
create something exotic and desirable.
Something that would turn heads and
challenge stereotypes." Vince has long been
a proponent of electric cars and once again
made the case that the power supplying cars
like the Nissan Leaf has to be clean and
sustainable, or any drop in transport
emissions will be cancelled out by increases
in traditional forms of generation.
"What will our transport look like, post oil
and post carbon? The answer has to be
wind-powered vehicles, charged using
renewable energy for the ultimate in
sustainability - zero pollution, from fuel
sources like the wind and sun that will
never run out," he said. "In fact, we could
power all of the UK's 30 million cars with
10,000 of today's windmills - or just 5,000
of tomorrow's."
Vince further threw down the gauntlet to car
manufacturers by boasting that no large car
company could have developed such a high
performance car so rapidly or on the
Nemesis' sub-£1m budget.
The Nemesis will now begin an 'on the road'
demonstration and testing period until
December 2011, during which time the team
plans to challenge the British electric car
land speed record of 139mph, which has stood
unbeaten since 2000.
Ecotricity said the technology developed
would be incorporated into its next two
projects: a souped-up 250mph plus
wind-powered electric supercar and, more
prosaically, an electric tractor.
