Even though this British electric supercar will be well out of the price ranges of most of us ($300,000); the Lightning GT utilizes such a unique drivetrain and battery that I think it will be an important project for the future of the electric car industry.

Drivetrain

The Lightning GT has four electric motors at each wheel, but don’t confuse that with the Venturi Volage’s Michelin “Active-Wheel” technology. However, the concept is similar. With this format, there are no gearboxes, differential, axle, drive shafts or propshafts. All of the power is generated at the wheel, the point at which it’s required, which eliminates mechanical complexity and power losses experienced in standard sports cars.

NanoSafe

The Lightning GT uses a unique battery called NanoSafe. These batteries use nano titanate materials instead of graphite which makes them far more thermally stable. There are no toxic substances or heavy metals used in NanoSafe batteries. Unlike standard Lithium-Ion batteries in electric vehicles these don’t need to be kept cool when charged/used or heated to get them to perform in sub zero temperatures. Therefore, the batteries can operate in hostile environments and will work in temperatures between 75°C and minus 30°C.

The Lightning GT’s Nanosafe batteries are not of the “laptop variety”. They are each about the size of a regular car battery. 30 of these units are dispersed around the Lighting GT to provide optimum balance and performance. This ‘designed-in’ weight distribution, low roll centres, and wheel mounted motors will allow the GT to achieve excellent road holding performance dynamics. The Nanosafe batteries should allow the car to have a max range of about 200 miles and be fully recharged in 10 minutes using a 3 phase power supply.

Source: Lightning Car Company

Here is some spy footage of a Lightning GT test drive for your viewing pleasure:

Below is a transcript of Peter Ward’s speech he gave at the launch of the Lightning GT. His speech has all the trappings you would expect from somebody that ran Rolls Royce and Bentley for 10 year.

Transcript of presentation by Peter Ward – Launch of the Lightning Car at the British International Motor Show at 13:00 on Monday Tuesday 22 July 2008.

Good afternoon ladies & gentlemen and a very warm welcome to you all on behalf of the Lightning Car Company. We’re absolutely delighted you could join us. For those of you who have been doing the press tour this morning and have got tired legs by now, we believe we’ve got the perfect antidote for you with an absolutely remarkable car to show you. This car is full of inspiration and has the latest you could hope to see in design and in terms of technical inspiration with both the batteries that drive the electric motors and the fact that it has four electric motors, one in each wheel. My name is Peter Ward and, for those of you who may have very long memories, in the 80’s and the 90’s I ran Rolls Royce and Bentley motor cars, so I was responsible for those 10 years for some of the largest and the most expensive
gas guzzlers on the planet. Having been at that end of the market I am delighted to be associated with the Lightning Car and to be able to present to you a very, very different motor car, a car that is purely electric – not hydro- and a car that is driven in a totally different way. Now you could perhaps say that I’m converted and I’ve got the commitment to the converted but nonetheless this car is a car that really and very truly can make a difference to motoring and I’ll talk about that in a little moment. The Lightning Car Company was started in 2006, so if you just think back, in under two short years, lead by the inspiration of Iain Sanderson and the sheer hard work of Chris Dell and Arthur and the team, then they have moved mountains and probably got very little sleep over that time to get this car to you today to present to you a true and working car, it really does work. They have moved a long way to get to this point but it is a car that is genuine and a true performance car, it’s a true GT as you will see and it has all the characteristics that you’d expect of a GT. When you actually see the car, then remember one thing, it is the actual car that you’ll also see on the plasma screens, so it’s a driving car and it’s capable of doing what it’s claimed to. The claims are quite marvellous, it only takes 30 batteries, it’s not one of these that has thousands and thousands of laptop batteries – it takes 30 batteries. Those batteries can be charged in 10 minutes, so by the time you’ve had a cup of coffee on the motorway you can charge this car. That’s just a 10 minute charge time on the right connection.
It has a motor in each wheel, so for those of you that are technically minded, the chassis dynamics and the opportunity for chassis dynamics on this vehicle are phenomenal because it means the turning angle into a bend and the speed at which you approach it you can get the wheels turning at different speeds. The expression of ‘on rails’ is almost true of this car, it is quite amazing. You can also put the sounds in it which means you can have it purring away like a beautiful smooth straight six or as raucous as a V12. You can choose whichever you want, so have some fun with that. I know that Chris and the guys are desperate for me to get these covers off and get me out of the way. This really is the moment that they’ve all worked very, very hard for, as I said earlier, when you look at the plasma screens; this car is a running car. This is the car that was at Alconbury airfield doing the road testing. It is going to be quite a life changing car. It’s going to meet a lot of things that come forward. You can talk to any CEO of any vehicle manufacturer here today and they’re talking electric cars and, in fact. even Gordon Brown two weeks ago was saying that his vision for 2020 was that electric cars and hybrid cars would be at the forefront of all our motoring needs. But that doesn’t have to be an odd looking or an unusual looking style it can be a performance car, as this will prove to be. So we’re very excited that this is a dynamic car, a car that does have all the performance characteristics. It will do 0-60 in less than 4 seconds when it’s fully developed – that’s because the wheel motors have such fantastic torque. It really can do an awful lot and the guys have worked extremely hard to get it to this point. It is an amazing car, the dynamism, the style and the technology that’s in it really will amaze you. So I’m going to ask the guys if they’ll come forward to take the covers off it, but as they do that I’d like all of you if you would to take absolute pride in what I know is the very finest in British engineering and British design. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Lightning Electric Car.