The 300kW Varley evR450 Electric Sportscar | Car News | Upcoming Concepts

Another high-performance electric sportscar broke cover last week from an unlikely source. To be built by a 125 year-old Australian company specializing in aerospace, defense and electric vehicles, the less-than-US$215,000 gull-winged Varley evR450 was on display at the Third Annual Australian Electric Vehicle Conference.

Composites will enable the evR450 to be "featherweight" and development relationships with other EV specialists Tritium and Ultramotive have yielded some significant advantages for the vehicle, though we're unlikely to see those advantages announced until 2012.




The evR450 is believed to be running two Ultramotive CARBON motors, each with a peak power rating of 150kW (and 522 Nm of torque) and each offering continuous power of 58 kW (122 Nm). As the motors weighing only 40kg (excluding inductors), evR's 300 kW of peak power will be pushing a very light vehicle, and with in excess of 1000 Nm of torque, acceleration can be expected to be blistering.

The company is claiming a 0-100 km/h time of 3.8 seconds and an electronically-limited top speed of 200 km/h (125 mph). The evR450's range of 150 km (93.21 miles) can be doubled with an additional (but obviously heavier) lithium-ion battery pack.

The evR450 is powered by Lithium Ion cells in a 24Kwh pack and can be easily charged by plugging in to mains power. The Inverters that control the AC motors are described as "state of the art", coming off the back of years of development in the electric solar racing industry.