Small Electric Sports Car

SiliconChip

A new more sporty version of the MG Cyberster might be coming which could address some of the issues that have been reported when driving the current models.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/mg/cyberster/369038/hardcore-mg-cyberster-superleggera-possible-brand-wants-special-editions-boost

born_again

A long winded project but Caterham 7 to EV

Purplemeanie

Goudy

The raison d'etre of these types of sports cars were light and agile, handled well but also moderately powered, which meant the pleasure from driving one was keeping it "on the boil" and picking your lines. There were a certain amount of involvement in driving them that normal cars didn't need and they rewarded you when you put that effort in.

The original MX5 had between 115 and 130hp as did the original MR2. Before that the likes of the MGB had what 90hp and your Elan had 105hp.

Along with the light weight they had short and slick gear changes, responsive throttle and brakes which encouraged drivers to drive in a style that was pleasurable to most.

Some manufacturers tried to up the ante with HP but the cars were never the same. Sure the MR2 and MX5 turbos were powerful, but most thought the pleasure of driving was diminished by things like turbo lag spoiling the responsiveness. Another infamous sports car ruined by this for example is the E type, once they stuck the V12 in it was never a sports car anymore.

There's also a point about the noise. I bet anyone over say 50 on here can still "hear" in their mind what a MGB sounds like or in my case a Lotus twincam and that adds to the overall involvement in driving them.

When it comes to electric sports cars, it's not just about the weight or the power but the way it will feel to the driver. There's a certain "involvement" needed to reproduce those feelings that those older cars produced and I just can't see how they would ever reproduce that fully.

As previously mentioned by another poster earlier in this thread, you can have some of the things that go towards a simple EV sports car but not all of them. I've no doubt they can make a fast sports car or an agile one or even perhaps a light(ish) one, but putting all of the pre requisites of a simple sports car together in EV form is perhaps out of reach, for now at least.

Yes I know plenty convert these older sports cars to electric and some aspects of these car will almost certainly be improved by it, I wouldn't argue against that but they will also lose some of the things that made them so great and enjoyable to drive in the first place.

I'm not EV anything, I'm neither for them all or against them all but I once watched a programme where they converted a Porsche 356 to electric and I could see only one point to it. They kept a 356 chassis on the road for people to look at, but in doing so they ripped the very heart out of the car that made it such an iconic vehicle to drive in the first place.

There was so much "wrong" with the original that driving one really well was almost all of the pleasure.

Mildly_Miffed

"I'm not EV anything, I'm neither for them all or against them all but I once watched a programme where they converted a Porsche 356 to electric and I could see only one point to it. They kept a 356 chassis on the road for people to look at, but in doing so they ripped the very heart out of the car that made it such an iconic vehicle to drive in the first place."

Oh, please… An asthmatic Beetle flat-four…?
Early ones were 1.1 40bhp, 1.3 44bhp, up to the heady heights of 1.6 74bhp around the time the 911 was making the 356 look like yesterday's leftovers. Nobody's binning off the four-cam 2.0 from a Carrera 2.

There's a lot of classics on the road which can quite happily lose the utter mechanical mediocrity of their original powertrains. Say "Mk1 and Mk2 Escort" and everybody now thinks of fast rally-spec 2drs and RSs… Nope, the ubiquitous 70s reality was that they were nearly all asthmatic misery-spec beige 1.1 4drs with terminal rot after a few years.

Nobody cries sacrilege at putting, say, a Fiat Twin-Cam into a Moggy Thou and chucking 1098cc and 48bhp of A-series where it truly belongs. Issigonis didn't even want a boring straight four like that there anyway - commercial reality intervened.

And there's the thing… people like Ferry Porsche, Alec Issigonis, all the other iconic designers - they'd have been RIGHT on board with modern technology like BEVs, looking forward not backward.

Same with modern cars. People complain about BEVs being soulless or anonymous or whatever… Yeh, how very unlike the sheer charisma of a Hyundai i10 or a Nissan Qashqai. The simple reality is that the vast majority of cars built and sold ARE anonymous mediocrity bought by people who don't much care, to do a job of transport. What's wrong with doing that whilst polluting less?

Goudy

You completely missed the point. It's wheezy engine hanging out the back is part of the experience. It makes it what it is and the joy of driving one it trying to get the best out of it.

A cheap quartz movement is far more accurate than that of even the most expensive Rolex, but no one bins their Rolex movement and sticks a quartz movement in the case instead.

It's not about power or handling or style or top speed or noise, it's about how they all come together and make you feel.They are all just ingredients in what should be a fairly well balanced recipe for a sports car, but each is as important as the next.

The Tesla Roadster went on sale here in 2008 and they even set up assembly over here in the UK and there is less than 30 on our roads and never been more than around 45 at any time, ever wonder why? It can't be price alone as there are lots of sports cars that cost far more and sold far more.

What about the MG Cyberster, that's half the price of what a Tesla Roadster was, have they sold in their tens of thousands or just thousands? No, just over 500 in 3 years in a market that has been in love like no other European country with two seater open top sports cars.

Why is that? There are many well proven and accepted benefits of EVs, yet no one has yet cracked the simple sports car version in let's face it, a very favourable market here in the UK. I'm saying it's because with an EV power train, no matter how good it is and what other benefits it brings to the recipe, it can't replicate one or two ingredients of a simple sports car.

BTW, the MX5 is probably the lard stick to measure simple open topped sports cars in recent years and by 1998 they were selling 10's of thousands a year here.

There is something intrinsic missing with one and it shows. Yes the market has changed slightly, but it can't be down solely to that as many other sports cars still sell drop top versions. Will a manufacturer crack it? Maybe, but they are going to follow a well used recipe as closely as possible and have to bring something new to it to make up for what is losing out on. In other words, make an EV that is more engaging to drive even if that means bringing along or even building in some faults that you wouldn't normally associate with an EV, as certain faults didn't really hamper other sports cars in the past.

I get your point about soulless and anonymous cars, but I can't see the point in turning one that isn't into one.

For future reference the 356 used a VW block but the pistons, crankshaft, camshaft and cylinders and heads were bespoke as were the inlet and exhaust manifolds. The original put out nearly twice that of a similar displacement Beetle engine.