Daily Archives: May 20, 2016
NextEV Electric Hypercar Rivals McLaren P1, LaFerrari
NextEV Electric Hypercar rendering from Autocar.
NextEV is getting ready to reveal its first car “somewhere in Europe” before the year ends. The car is reportedly going to be fully-battery-powered, a testament to the Chinese-backed electric vehicle startup company headed by former Ford President for Europe Martin Leach.
The car will rival both the McLaren P1 and Ferrari’s LaFerrari in terms of performance and price. Reports indicated that the hypercar has been developed at the company’s Munich design center for the past two years. Production, however, will start at the new UK branch.
NextEV was a product of an agreement between Chinese Internet billionaire William Li and Leach at the 2014 Paris Motor Show. Leach was Ford’s head of product development before becoming its president for Europe operations. Since that agreement, the startup hired Cisco System’s former chief technology officer, Padmasree Warrior, to run its US operations.
Warrior is heading the software development for the hypercar.
NextEV is gaining ground in concept competitions, too. It won the inaugural Formula E championship for the all-electric, single-seat race cars.
The problem, however, is that NextEV’s market seems to be targeted at the billionaire circle. This would mean ordinary mortals won’t even have the chance to get their hands on the supercar.
But Leach maintained the company’s vision is actually more than just targeting billionaires. It aims to widen its supercar market in the future.
He maintained that the production of the brand’s first hypercar is aimed at attracting and gaining attention, and to show what the company can do technology-wise. Over time, NextEV is expected to showcase more than just supercars.
The first NextEV supercar has been compared to the Tesla model, but Leach said his creation would definitely offer more convenience and accessibility.
We won’t be seeing this hypercar in US soil anytime soon, however. NextEV’s main market would be China, which is under immense pressure to cut down car emissions.