LONDON — British retro sports-car maker Caterham plans to launch an all-electric coupe that it hopes will give the corporate a viable future as looming bans on combustion engine automobiles threaten its core mannequin, the Caterham Seven.
Caterham is exhibiting the Mission V three-seat idea on the Goodwood Competition of Pace, alongside an all-electric model of the Seven.
Caterham’s ultra-lightweight Seven open-top two-seaters, powered largely by Ford gasoline engines, have a robust following amongst sports-car lovers They’re reworked variations of the Lotus Seven roadster final constructed by Lotus in 1973.
With its electrical drivetrain and stable roof, the Mission V is extra like a standard coupe and so is a radical departure for the corporate. It is because of go on sale in late 2025 or early 2026.
“Sooner or later we won’t be able to make a combustion-engine Seven, and even one with an EV powertrain in some markets,” Caterham Vehicles CEO Bob Laishley advised Automotive Information Europe. “We have to discover one thing to maintain the model transferring ahead.”
The Mission V present automotive was constructed by Italdesign in a collaboration that Caterham says alerts the seriousness of the undertaking.
Caterham, which was purchased by Japanese supplier group VT Holdings in 2021, plans to promote round 2,000 models of the automotive yearly, greater than triple the present gross sales of the Seven.
U.S. gross sales
The automotive will probably be provided globally, together with the U.S.
Caterham plans to homologate it below regular U.S. guidelines, slightly than use the much less stringent Present or Show guidelines, Laishley mentioned. Work to adapt it for the U.S. will occur after the manufacturing automotive has gone on sale.
Success is just not sure, Laishley warned. “It’s a danger. Now we have not received a queue of individuals saying ‘make one thing apart from the Seven.’ Fairly the alternative.”
With the Mission V Caterham is hoping to enchantment to its buyer base and to a wider viewers by sticking as shut as attainable to the Seven’s core values of light-weight, fun-to-drive simplicity.
The automotive weighs simply 1190 kg, because of partially to a chassis fabricated from aluminum and carbon fiber. Infotainment is through smartphone mirroring.
Electrical vary
A 55-kilowatt-hour battery pack feeds a single 268-hp electrical motor mated to the rear chassis to provide a 0 to 60 mph (97 kph) acceleration time of 4.5 seconds, in accordance with the corporate. The manufacturing automotive’s vary is anticipated to be 249 miles (400 km).
VT Holdings has invested greater than 100 million kilos to assist Caterham develop a automotive that it hopes will correctly problem rivals, which embody upcoming electrical sports activities automobiles from Lotus, Alpine and Porsche.
“It is a vital funding,” Laishley mentioned. “Caterham has not had cash to speculate. Ever.”
The manufacturing model of the Mission V will price from 80,000 kilos, ($103,000), considerably greater than the common promoting value of the Caterham Seven vary at 50,000 kilos.
Caterham has beforehand tried with out success to maneuver away from the Seven, most lately partnering with Renault unit Alpine to collectively develop the automotive that grew to become the Alpine A110. The deal fell aside in 2014 after Caterham failed to boost its share of the cash.
Previous to that it tried to rebody the Seven as a coupe known as the 21 in 1994. Manufacturing stopped in 2000 after simply 48 automobiles had been constructed.
Combustion engine bans
Caterham faces the prospect of halting gross sales of its combustion engine automobiles in 2030 within the U.Ok. when the federal government plans to ban the sale of automobiles powered by fossil fuels, 5 years forward of an identical ban within the EU. Britain is Caterham’s greatest market, accounting for greater than half of its income.
The corporate misplaced 408,845 kilos within the 15 months to the tip of March 2022, when it moved to a brand new monetary yr. The corporate has blamed provide issues for the loss.
Caterham hopes to just do sufficient to homologate the automotive below the European Small Sequence Sort Approval for low-volume producers with out including to prices or spoiling its light-weight ethos.
“It sounds a horrible factor to say, however we is not going to be chasing NCAP scores,” Laishley mentioned, referring to the European crash requirements the place automakers purpose to realize excessive scores. The NCAP requirements are usually not legally binding.
The present Caterham Seven was homologated below European guidelines stretching again to the early Nineteen Nineties. “Ideally that’s what we want to do [with Project V], however we can’t,” Laishley mentioned.
The corporate has lately expanded its manufacturing facility within the city of Caterham 30 km south of London that builds the Seven to clear an order backlog, however it’s trying to make the Mission V automotive elsewhere both within the U.Ok. or in continental Europe.