Meet the Renovo Coupe: the muscle car with an electric heart
This all-electric beast produces over 500bhp without a peep from the pipes
An all-electric muscle car? That doesn’t sit well with us…
Admittedly, it is a bit odd seeing a glorious Shelby Daytona with a bunch of batteries underneath the bonnet rather than a big block Chevrolet V8 engine, but the latest unveiling for fledgling automotive manufacturer Renovo is set to deliver pony car-bothering power.
So how does it work?
Silicon Valley firm Renovo has taken a Shelby American CSX9000 rolling chassis as a basis and injected three monstrous lithium-ion battery packs and a pair of direct-drive twin sequential axial flux motors underneath the skin. The results are pretty impressive.
Go on, how powerful is it?
The twin motors spit out the equivalent of around 500bhp and 1354Nm torque, meaning the Renovo can accelerate from a standing start to 60mph in just 3.4 seconds and on to a top speed of 120mph. That’s quicker than Tesla’s Model S and Roadster models.
It must take an absolute age to charge…
The zero-emissions muscle car has been designed to work with the fast-charging network, which will top up the batteries in half an hour. Charging from a standard plug socket will take a road trip-destroying five hours, though. Renovo reckons the Coupe can travel up to 100 miles on a single charge but expect that figure to be dramatically slashed if you like burnouts, drifting, drag racing and all the other stuff muscle cars are perfect for.
It all sounds expensive, how much will it cost?
Are you sitting comfortably? It costs a whopping US$529,000 – or £316,214 in sterling. That’s a hell of a lot of cash to sink into a company that has only been operating for four years.
But It does look nice…
Yes, it’s drop-dead gorgeous and we will hopefully start seeing them in the wild towards the end of next year. Just don’t expect the soundtrack to be as good as the picture.
Leon Poultney
Freelance Automotive and Tech Writer Related content
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