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Tomorrow’s Sexy Cars

I’d like to make a confession this week that potentially jeapardises my eco-warrior status. I hope you can all forgive me, but you see I’m a seriously mad car nut.Nary a weekend passes where I haven’t tinkered, reengineered, raced, or polished my current weapon of choice (a highly-tuned Subaru STi), much to the chagrin of my wife (and conversely the excitement of my two young boys). I’m sure that this obsession with modifying my car stems from my little-scientist leanings, and while my car was already capable of face-reshaping torque from the factory, I just like to push things to their limits. I’m sure I’m not alone, the club I’m involved with has around 700 Members.

However, I’m also seriously mad for my planet, and herein lies the dilemma. Should I wish to continue to feed by petrol-headed-inner-child (I call him Gavin), I’ll need to either a) reengineer the Earth, or b) find greener motoring alternatives. The latter is the option I’m considering, so whether you’ll be buying a fleet for your staff, impressing your hippy girlfriend, or just want to get ahead of the curve, I present you the Ben Prendergast Approved Face-Mashing Whips for Tomorrows Entrepreneurs ™

1. The Tesla Roaster
http://www.teslamotors.com/
0-100 in 5 Seconds
250km range
180kw & a constant 220nm torque
1 hour charge time on 3-phase
3 hours charge on grid power

Kicking off is the Tesla Roadster, championed by the Governator himself, with sexy curves and a 0-100 time of around 4 seconds, you can cruise hollywood boulevard safe in the knowledge you’re not contributing to LaLa’s smog.

2. The Venturi Fetish
http://www.venturifetish.fr/fetish.html
0-100 in 5 Seconds
250km range
180kw & a constant 220nm torque
1 hour charge time on 3-phase
3 hours charge on grid power

Ahh the French, who create cars as they would a fine Creme Brulee (deliciously sweet innards with a fiery exterior), and who then use names befitting a car that pre-adolescent boys might pin on their wall. Take for example the Venturi Fetish, an all carbon-fiber electirc car with an electric-tuned chassis that places the engine in the back and the heavier batteries in the middle for better weight distribution and presumably handling. And just look at those curves, even the bonnet looks like a map of Tassy, mon amie!

3. Lightning Electric Car
http://www.lightningcarcompany.com/
0-100 in sub 4 seconds
400km range
520kw power
250kph+ Top speed

And where one frenchman treads there’s usually a Brit in tow, most often with a stiff upper c-panel. From the mother-land comes the Lightning Electric car, a 313 kilowatt beast with its design origins somewhere between TVR tuscan and Jaguar XLR. You can certainly see that that the Lightning mimics its petrol-fed predecessors, and rightly so given the car will catapult you to a top speed of 250 K/PH after dispensing with the first 100 in under 4 seconds. Hey, what!? I seem to have misplaced my colon back on the M4 good chap!

4. Audio R10 Lemans Bio Deisel
Audi World
BioDeisel
0-100 in 3 Seconds
300km range
180kw & 220nm torque
Charge time: as quick as your pit crew

You’re not likely to lease a fleet of these for your sales team, but perhaps you the CEO might consider a bum-frying race-track monster to ferry the Mrs in? I’ve included this because just as the technology of Formula One cars trickle down to the humble sedan, the R10 will attempt the next Lemans race on bio-diesel at the end of the month and as a result we might find that the interim class of green cars come to fruition via the bio-deisel path before their electric cousins.

5. The Zap-X
Zap Cars
0-100 in sub 4 seconds
563km range
480kw power
250kph+ Top speed
10-Minute Charge Time

Which brings us to the ZAP-X. Promising “one of the most advanced electric cars ever developed”, the Californian-based ZAP (Zero Air Pollution) has teamed with Lotus Engineering to produce the ZAP-X. With a range the envy of your great aunts Mazda 121 and a 10-minute charge-time the ZAP-X would be the first electric car to mirror the capabilities of the family sedan (e.g. interstate trips).

Should it look anything like the Lotus Exige, I’ll take mine in Black, and work on getting some extra batteries in there somewhere…

– Ben Prendergast