See if this sounds familiar: A startup led by someone who wants to revolutionize the automotive industry has unveiled a sports car with an aluminum chassis derived from the Lotus Elise, a carbon fiber body to reduce weight and an electric motor with Porsche-level performance.
No, it's not the Tesla Roadster. It's the Detroit Electric SP:01, a "new" car from a "new" company you've never heard of. And while the engineering was done at the company's Michigan HQ, everything else can be traced to Silicon Valley. The concept, business plan, vehicle roll-out and overall direction almost exactly duplicates Tesla Motors' model.
Yes, this is all completely legal.
The SP:01 is the brainchild of Albert Lam, a former Apple exec in China who also served as CEO of Lotus Engineering Group and executive director of Lotus Cars of England before buying the rights to the historic Detroit Electric brand a few years back.
Lam, the company's CEO and chairman, wanted to revive Detroit Electric, lined up some funding from Chinese investors and announced the SP:01 this week.
"It's not rocket science," Lam told Wired. "You know what you can get away with [in an electric car]."
What you can get away with is copying everything Tesla Motors has already done.
Let's start with the car. Based on the remarkably nimble and already lightweight Lotus Elise/Exige, Lam and his Michigan-based engineering crew swapped the mid-mounted gasoline engine for an asynchronous AC electric motor developed by AC Propulsion — which, by the way, provided the motor first used in, you guessed it, the Tesla Roadster.
The drivetrain isn't quite as potent at the Roadster's, with just 201 horsepower to the Roadster's 288, but it's got 166 pound-feet of torque. Though down on power, the acceleration lines up exactly with the Roadster Sport thanks to improved battery chemistry and a lighter curb weight. Three "military grade" lithium-polymer battery packs doll out 37 kilowatt-hours of juice. All that oomph, and a curb weight of 2,354 pounds (370 pounds lighter than the Tesla), let the SP:01 deliver a 0-60 mph time of 3.7 seconds — exactly the same as the Tesla Roadster Sport.
The SP:01 falls short is range, though. The Roadster, which packed 53 kWh of juice in a 900-pound battery, was good for 200+ miles. Detroit Electric's copycat will get 150 to 160, according to Lam.
The one thing that Detroit Electric didn't crib from the Roadster is its transmission. Instead of a single-speed gearbox, the SP:01 offers your choice of a two-speed, dual-clutch gearbox for maximum acceleration and a top speed of 155 mph, or a four- or five-speed manual, complete with clutch pedal.
"We just want to put the fun back in driving," Lam said of the manual boxes. "European drivers especially like the engaging feel of selecting manual gears."
Charging claims are ambitious, with Detroit Electric saying that a 240-volt outlet delivering 32 amps will top up the batteries in just under four and half hours. Drop that down to a 13-amp outlet and you’re looking at something closer to eight hours.
For a base price of $135,000 you don’t get a stereo, but a dedicated smartphone app that handles navigation, music, lighting and charge status. And Detroit Electric says the SP:01 has a “bi-directional charge and discharge” system that can power your home.
Production is set to begin in August, and the car will be built in Michigan. Just 999 are planned, half of which will be sold in the U.S., according to Lam, which allows the Detroit Electric to get a federal waiver for the lack of a smart airbag (one of the reasons you can't get the new Lotus Elise in the states).
"People will always compare us to Tesla."But that’s only the beginning. In yet another imitation of Tesla, Detroit Electric claims to be developing “a new family of all-electric production cars.” That includes a sedan and hatchback set to be unveiled late next year. Sales are to begin in early 2015.
"The sedan will be class-leading in terms of performance," Lam said. "Both acceleration and top speed, it will be the leader, not just in an electric car, but when compared to all other sedans."
All of this, too, sounds awfully familiar. Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk mapped out the same route for his company: Build a low-volume, high-powered electric supercar for well-heeled early adopters, then bring a mid-priced, medium-sized electric sedan to market, followed by a high-volume, affordable vehicle for the masses. Detroit Electric is following the same path, but skipping right from the sports car to a mass-market sedan, which Lam claims will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $35,000 when it hits the market in 2015.
Lam is no stranger to the electric vehicle game, though he doesn't have much experience actually building them. When he acquired the Detroit Electric brand in 2008, he partnered with ZAP, the ill-fated and remarkably shady electric vehicle "manufacturer" based in Santa Rosa, California. Lam swears the relationship lasted a scant four months and ended when he realized he and the two guys "running" ZAP have very different goals and business practices. Detroit Electric is still mentioned on the ZAP website, but Lam says the two companies have no relationship.
"It's nothing. Zero," he said.
After several calls to ZAP's headquarters, we eventually reached an executive assistant for the company who said, "ZAP is no longer involved with [Detroit Electric]."
As for the obvious parallels to Tesla Motors, Lam isn't worried. "People will always compare us to Tesla," he said. And he's okay with that.
As for Musk, well, that's another story. Asked about his take on Detroit Electric and its "new" car, Musk said through a spokeswoman, “no comment.”
No surprise.
