In a market filled with tantalising promises of wonders ‘to come’, here is a viable electric car that you can drive away right here, right now
EVERY MANUFACTURER turns out to motor shows with a whole fleet of electric cars that we should be able to drive “soon”. Soon hasn’t really come soon enough: bar a handful of limited production cars and the Nissan Leaf, we’re largely stuck with hybrid power and promises of what we’ll have “tomorrow”. Yet, alongside Leaf, there is a firm in Britain called Liberty Electric Car Company that has an electric Range Rover you can buy right now.
It might seem a flight of fancy, particularly given its price tag of £160,000, but it’s a grown-up luxury car that can handle the weekly commute, which is what an alternative fuel car is all about.
After all, the only way the world will feel a tangible difference from the electric car is when rush hour traffic in the world’s biggest cities and beyond runs on the lightning rod and we have real cars with zero emissions.
Electric cars, even the groundbreaking Tesla, have notoriously short ranges. This inevitably leads to nervous glances at the power gauge, or a night by the side of the snow covered road.
Liberty’s Barry Shrier and Ian Hobday are already thinking beyond simply selling a car. They have targeted whole cities with plans for taxi fleets charging up on plates mounted in the rank and buses charging as they traverse the route. They already have an order from China for the buses.
But we’re here to test their new Range Rover, which Shrier claims can manage 300km on a single charge, more than enough for the average daily grind and enough to banish range anxiety to Room 101. It should also be enough to tempt fleet business, early adopters and perhaps even the odd Hollywood star to take the plunge. And the Range Rover image might better suit some of these starlets than either the Leaf or the Mitsubishi i-Miev supermini.
For now the firm is targeting company fleet business worldwide, as major savings could be made on company car taxes with this zero emissions machine.
The potential market is huge. In Norway, for instance, this car costs exactly the same as a standard Range Rover, thanks to luxury car taxes, and savings are made the moment someone places an order. It does carry a hefty price tag, but there are still people out there with the money for such an SUV and the desire for a clearer conscience.
It drives, more or less, like a standard Range Rover. The gearbox works in forward and reverse only, but all the torque comes from an electric motor anyway so the car scoots off the line. It’s as fast as the base car at lower speeds and, while the petrol-powered Range Rover takes over as they head towards triple figures, does that really matter on the weekly commute?
It’s a little eerie getting used to the silence in such a big SUV as it moves towards 100km/h in seven seconds with the help of 1,000Nm of torque – more than almost any sportscar you could mention. The electric powertrain will take time to fully get our head around, but with far fewer losses in the actual drivetrain itself, electric is way more efficient and has the potential to be faster. You can’t really ask for more than the top speed of 180km/h either, unless you want to sacrifice your car entirely and spend a few months on the bus.
There’s a muffled electrical whine and the noise of the tyres on the road, even the suspension rattles, breach the peace. But that all happens in the standard car – it’s normally drowned out by engine noise – and turning the stereo up would cover it.
The storage space isn’t taken up with ill-fitting batteries. Liberty E-Range has buried them in the floorpan to keep the handling sharp and to ensure the car keeps its passenger and boot space. It’s a big car that an executive should feel at home in. The standard interior, with no discernible impact from the batteries, offers little room for improvement.
The batteries are made of 96 cells, rather than the hundreds many others have adopted, which allows for a lightweight battery pack that weighs in at less than 500kg and powers separate electric motors in each wheel. It sounds a lot – it is a lot – but the whole base drivetrain is gone and some of the other components have been lightened too, to scavenge back some of the weight.
Regenerative braking comes courtesy of a capacitor and the car can be tailored to your own style: snappy and aggressive or like the gentle coasting of a car in gear if you don’t like the resistance that can occur in other cars.
The battery is developed from military and medical applications, and Hobday maintains it should last 10 to 12 years. The hope is that, by that time, a system will be in place to use these packs – and those from other electric cars – as storage devices for alternative fuel sources such as wind energy.
Of course, in coming years batteries will get lighter, last longer and charge faster. The rapid speed of development is something Liberty thinks counts in its favour. Manufacturers have long turnaround times, and they feel this gives them the edge to hone the product and to offer an ever-improving fleet option to companies, cities and even governments.
But that lies in a indeterminate future. Here is an electric Range Rover that works, that you can buy right now. It is a viable choice for the well-heeled who need a little more practicality than sports cars offer but don’t want a small electric saloon.