The minimum necessary for maximum enjoyment (Photo: manufacturer's website)
Soon it will happen, a collision of suns, the Big Bang, a cosmic event that may rebirth everything we know and think about the combination of the terms "pleasure," "driving," and "electricity." This will happen when Caterham, who owns the rights to produce the modern version of the Lotus 7, introduces the final version of the electric car based on it. If she decides to do so, of course.
The moment when the purest and brightest expression of filterless analog driving will meet propulsion that is essentially synthetic, sterilized and synthesized. Because we tried some very good and very good ones in this world of electricity, to tell you that there was a steering wheel there that we didn't want to leave? Not at all.
Other trams we're ready to give a chance:
first driving the electric Abarth 6 hot compacts and electric roadsters on the
way
Lotus 7 (red) and one of its many replica versions, in this case Westfield (Photo: Kenan Cohen, Kenan Cohen)
Somewhere in a world where the car is more than a conveyor box, we're told about something called "track days," where men and women in wool vests, felt hats and thermoses of steaming tea talk about an entire culture of driving for pleasure, at a designated time and place, usually under inclement skies. And yes, we know that this also happens in Israel the story of track days, rainy days, less.
And somewhere, one of the undisputed queens of these runway days has since 1957 been the Lotus 7, and later its later incarnations from Caterham, Westfield, Dunkerwort and others. Now Caterham intends to propel the legend into the future with an all-electric version of her.
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Beneath the historic design is the drive of the future (Photo: manufacturer's website)
And so, under the innocent-looking body, which hasn't changed much in recent decades, Caterham packs this car's new, electric propulsion system. To carry out this conversion, Caterham is joining arms with Swindon, a workshop that specializes in converting classic vehicles to electric cars.
The result is the compression of a 51 kWh battery into the elongated body and I know your first concern: "Electric cars are driving neutering weights." So somehow, through magic at Caterham and Swindon they managed to stop the weight of the electric Super 7 at 700kg - only 70kg beyond the weight of the petrol version.
The power itself comes from a single electric motor that sits right on the rear axle and delivers 240 hp, acceleration to 100 km/h is very agile - 4 seconds, more or less like the intermediate versions of the workshop's gasoline cars. The top speed is 209 km/h, but from experience, this is a car where you die of fear at 140 km/h. In order to allow the owner to maintain continuous activity on the track, it is capable of charging the battery at a rate of up to 152 kW.
In what they call a 20-15-20 ratio – that is, a 20-minute drive, a 15-minute charge and another 20-minute drive.
A single electric motor accelerates it to 100 km/h in 4 seconds (Photo: manufacturer's website)
From Caterham's announcement, it's unclear whether future plans for the machine also include licensing for public roads. But anyway this track-oriented car has a limited-slip differential, adjustable Beilstein brakes, a steering wheel with a super-fast ratio of 1.93 revolutions from lock to lock.
Currently, the electric seven is defined as a concept, a kind of mobile laboratory in order to test the applications of this kind of propulsion in this type of car.
We'll see her buzzing on the runway in July when she makes her public debut at the Goodwood Speed Festival in the UK.
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