Small Caterham is also preparing to "surrender", under the circumstances, to electrification, announcing that it is already under development of a Caterham Seven Electric.
Expected to arrive in 2023 — coinciding with the brand's 50th anniversary celebrations — the goal for Caterham's first electric is, according to the brand's executive director, Graham Macdonald, "to convey typical Caterham feelings."
In this way, the focus will remain on mass control to preserve the agility and dynamic behavior typical of the British brand's proposals.
share as much as possible
Although, ideally, Caterham intends to ensure that the electric Seven shares as many components as possible with the combustion engine version, there is still a lot to define in the project.
For example, the British brand has not yet decided whether this battery-powered Seven will be “larger and roomier than current versions” or whether it will stick to its smaller chassis and minimalist concept, which marks the Caterham Seven (this hypothesis seems be the most likely).
With its own suspension setup and chassis adjustments to handle a predictable increase in pounds, the Caterham Seven electric will have to forgo technologies like regenerative braking, precisely to control the final mass.
Aiming to have performance close to the top of the range 620R (which reaches 96 km/h in 2.79s), the first electric Caterham Seven is already in prototype form and was even tested by Graham Macdonald who said: “ It's a lot like a kart: it has two pedals, fast acceleration and it's a different product to drive. No less exciting, but exciting in a different way.”
Now all that remains is to know which brand Caterham will partner with to share engines and batteries. Although Macdonald didn't come up with any names, one thing is guaranteed: Caterham doesn't want a ready-to-use architecture, but rather the components to create its car.
Graham Macdonald, CEO of Caterham"I think we would go into some kind of partnership where we could buy the batteries and adapt them to our dimensions, instead of buying a square 'skateboard' (battery platform included) and putting a body on top. This is not a Caterham."
The launch of an electric Seven, however, does not (for now) compromise the existence of the Seven with a combustion engine, as Macdonald explains: “my ambition is to keep the combustion engines as long as possible, as long as we find an engine that suits our product (Seven), but it's getting more and more difficult. They're all getting smaller and installing turbochargers, and that's not what we want.”
Source: Autocar.