Elon Musk's Tesla has been trying to make all-electric vehicles happen for quite some time now. But despite Tesla's impressive Model S sedan, which is currently the gold standard of modern electricity-powered cars, and the Roadster, once dubbed the world's fastest electric sports car, the mainstream market has yet to see something that will make buyers fall in love with all-electric cars.
That is what Renovo hopes to achieve as it introduces the simply-named Coupe, which the start-up hopes to be the pioneer in the next generation of supercars. Instead of the gasoline-guzzling high-performance cars of the past, Renovo equipped this new car with a new kind of battery technology where "multiple separate battery enclosures enable a performance-oriented weight distribution and minimize chassis volume requirements."
The result? This environment-friendly, energy-saving bad boy, which is essentially a Shelby Daytona equipped with an electric drivetrain, can deliver up to 500 horsepower in rear-wheel drive and 1,000 pound-feet of torque, pushing the Coupe from 0 to 60 miles in only 3.4 seconds, beating the Roadster's 3.7 seconds by a fraction of a second.
"This shape was nearly perfect 50 years ago, and physics doesn't change much over time," says Peter Brock, designer of the Shelby American CSX9000 chassis upon which the Coupe was based. "However, the redesigned car has a totally updated body, frame, suspension, and cabin; it's a new chapter for this chassis."
The engine can throttle to full power in 37 millimeters and drive to top speed at 120 miles per hour. But despite this crazy powerful drivetrain, Renovo still managed to drive the weight down to 3,250 pounds making it 24 pounds lighter than a Ferrari 458 by using a compact 30 kilowatt per hour lithium-ion battery pack to provide optimal weight distribution. Renovo, however, had to make a few sacrifice to keep the Coupe at its present weight.
"We could've put bigger batteries in for a 300-mile range," says Renovo chief executive Christopher Heiser. "But then it would've been a 4,500 pound car."
The Coupe has a lackluster mile range of 100 miles for every charge, which keeps it well below the 300 miles Tesla's Model S can run before it needs to stop by a recharging station. Still, the Coupe's compact battery pack makes for a quick, half-hour recharge. And Heiser is quick to point out that the company has carefully surveyed its market, saying its most likely customers favor a high-performance supercar than one that can go beyond 100 miles.
It's not as though the Coupe is for daily driving anyway, as this car can weigh down its buyers more than half a million dollars. Renovo first debuted its first-ever electric muscle car at Sunday's Concours d'Elegance at Pebble Beach, where California's well-heeled car enthusiasts were able to gape and gawk at what is essentially an updated Daytona with an electric engine. The company will start with a limited production of only 900 cars with distribution limited to California before it goes nationwide.
Renovo is a four-year-old company that has been developing the Coupe in stealth since 2010 right under Tesla's nose in Silicon Valley.
