The Lightning car company has released new electric cars in the UK. The electric Lightning GT and Sports versions are now available to pre-order. Reservations for the first cars (2008 delivery) are now being taken.

Performance

• The car is capable of reaching a speed of over 130 mph.

• Driving range is over 250 miles.

• The Electric Lightning GT can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 4.0 Secs.

• It has carbon fibre/Kevlar hand-crafted bodywork with aluminium honeycomb crushable impact cells.

Battery

The NanoSafe battery by Altairnano has no operational safety issues and contains no toxics or heavy metals. The battery does not need to be cooled or heated, there's no risk itwill explode and there's no thermal runaway. The battery will workcomfortably in temperatures between 75°C and minus 30°C (-22° to 167°Fahrenheit).

While the Altairnano warranty is restricted for EVs to three years, the battery does have a life expectancy of 12+ years, and can retain up to 85% charge capacity after 15,000 charges. With 15,000 cycles and an average of 40 miles per charge, you can drive the car for over 600,000 miles, before needing battery replacement. The batteries exhibit no memory loss, i.e. partial charging and discharging of the battery does not have a negative impact on the life or the holding charge capacity of the batteries.

Also, the battery can be recharged rapidly, depending on the power available. A standard single phase home type power source can be used to recharge the battery overnight or at work. With a 3 phase power supply (EVCS), it can be recharged in about 10 minutes. In recent laboratory testing, Altairnano has demonstrated that a NanoSafe cell can be charged to over 80% charge capacity in about one minute.

Purchase cost