The Lightning Car First Drive

[TheSpeakers20]

sadly when i click the video and it came on i thurn up the volume

[fawnication]

looks good..can I have mine with a hydrogen engine, I like noise ;D

[z0tx]

0:08 ?

[s2gz]

who uploaded this? GM or BP?

700 hp this clip should show the car ripping up the road.

electric is inherently better than gas since theres no transmission. energy is directly turned into torque... no cylinders to waste power and almost no friction in the engine.

[Blueformdesign]

Am I the only one that sees the 700bhp part? leave aside the bad ass styling, it's f@#ing futuristic, look at the details, the surfacing? It's got brakes that regenerate power back into the car when stopping, it can do 300km (weakest point but in England who cares!), It would be the perfect pub to pub roadster in the English country side. These are the pioneers of the future folks, if I'm driving electric I'd want it to look like that though, not a Sinclair C5. Girls don't like C5's

[Ebook94]

Has the tail lights of a Bugatti

[Nichen]

This car...is it even going into production?

[codfather12345]

I would sat the back half is akin to a tvr and the fron in some ways to a BMW Z8. Not sure about the specificataions and the thinking behind having one motor in each wheel. Surely this means if one wears or you get a loose connectiong you wil get more power to the others ending in it steering into that side and crashing. They still havent quite got the range up to anything useable, 120 miles or so, but I have to say it looks a damn site better than the tesla roadster. Some commentary 'd be nice.

[plasmatv]

What is the range?........Yes, the range. With electric cars, the Kryptonite is the range...............Heck, you can't even go from San Francisco to Sacramento, without pulling over to charge the dang thing........and it takes 4 to 8 hours to charge it.

[Piwosz5000]

hmmm a little bit of corvette  ;]

[svdpsy]

Marcos.

[mondeost2202008]

Hmm..... Some say this looks like an Aston Martin. It looks more like a modernized Jaguar E-type coupe to me.

Such a good looking car and for that I want to buy one. Should've been hydrogen or Bio ethanol though.

Maybe in the near future, they'll invent something that will transfer electricty from a filling station to the car just like filling gasoline instead of plugging it to an outlet and charge it for 1 day.

[14fadu6]

oh weia ich würde krank werden von der stille

[VeadaTheBat]

Cool car! if I was behind the wheel I would be hoping out of my seat! XD

[earthstick]

Has anyone bought one yet and if so what do they after 200 miles when its batteries run out? Can't charge it off 240VAC.

[malayrojak]

Exactly what happens when someone runs out of gas on the highway. Cant charge that one off 240VAC either.

[earthstick]

@malayrojak

Actually I didn't mean if it runs out of

leccy on the road. I meant when you

get home and want to charge it.

[malayrojak]

Sorry for misreading earthstick. I am an ass.

Did you mean you cant charge this thing (The Lightning) off 240VAC? If so, then that sucks.

[AZURA888]

awesome car and batteries

[Cr4ptakular]

when its running at full power its supposed to push 600 bhp

[jakestephens98]

hey, i was one of the production team members .. well chuffed with the out come!!!

[xjet]

I don't think it's safe for the human body to be exposed to such high G-forces. That thing is *so* fast they must have filmed it in slo-mo. :-)

[greekpoutsos]

wow very fast

[spookylewis12]

r yall serious that thing look slow but its real nice

[cheezycam]

This is not an exiteing video. I'm sad now.

[Nichen]

The Altairnanobatteries being used here...I mean...Jesus Christ they will last 20+ years before you need to replace them!!!

[staticxmako]

lol in 6 years were all giong to have to put basball cards in our car's tires to make them have a sound

[contractki11er]

lol

[sirlonghair]

I'v heard of bills being brought up to have cars make at least some noise so deff pepole can hear them in town i think they shoud but could be silent in the country

[tiedielark2008]

fake!!!

[janebusby]

WHY hasn't top showed this car?

It's a beast!!

Petrol prices suck! Roll on the electric era!

[Standardfrank]

Looks very much like the Ronart Lightening GT that was discontinued...I wanted that car, but this appears to be better!

[cnxtrans]

This is done by the same company.

[tubescoof]

pretty slow lol

[spruce86]

it'll be 0-60 in under 4 seconds in the sport mode set up. Otherwise 0-60 in 5... i think thats pretty fast myself

[redghost105]

@spruce86 ya its fast...but its a quarter of a mil and you can only drive full throttle for a few miles...after a few miles then you have to charge it up for hours and hours

[oitzinger]

I hate loud cars - ergo I love this car. Everyone should drive this silence vehicle.

[moovuly]

Yeah, I hate loud vehicles too - the car modifying scene is supposed to be about 'stealth', you can hear 'annoying' noisy cars almost a mile off with their loud exhausts!

[blackghost10sg]

so slow.

[moovuly]

Actually the sound of the electric motors is like a milk float...

[Nichen]

lol what is a milk float dude?

[rrreger]

Why no sound, is there internal combustion engine hidden under the hood? And yes, this would make absolutely perfect Bond car!

[wesjoyce]

There's no sound because they didn't put sound in the video. There wouldn't actually be a loud sound. Look at the Tesla Roadster, if it zooms by you, you won't hear it. Electric cars don't have combustion, so there is no sound.

[rrreger]

Thanks captain obvious, but i was more interested in WHY they didnt put a sound and not how it might have sounded with it :)

[Nichen]

This is a teaser-trailer.

[rcast1986]

Hate to say it, but could easily be the next Bond car and I wouldn't bat an eye.

[atlanticus]

external speakers with some major rumble, this video is almost spoky silent

[drpeterz]

Odd that it has a big radiator opening when it does not need a radiator. Pretty...

[chiluk]

Still might need airflow for air conditioning condenser, or to help cool the engines/batteries in some other manner.

[cduran01]

Batteries get warm to hot when they are under load (spend enough time on a cell phone and you will notice hot warm the battery gets), so do electric motors. You still need some way to cool them.

[cnxtrans]

Those batteries are not suppose to get hot

[cnxtrans]

Those batteries are not supposed to get hot.

[MARTIN0641]

I would imagine a 2HP electric car would sound the same as a 5000hp electric car. Other than the extra tire screeching and possibly some electrical hum during high-load, it's just tire noise and silence.

[tompon1923]

awesome clip, it looks a little bit aston martin-ish. Awesome car

[ABotoxCowboy]

I saw it unveiled at the Motor Show on Tuesday. The one motor per wheel is a crazy idea but if it works as well as they reckon it sounds like a stroke of genius.

[dougr944]

One motor per wheel is not a new or original idea. I don't know how long it's been around, but I first heard of the idea in the 1980's.

The traditional problem with "hub motor" design is added weight below the suspension, so the idea hasn't been popular on road vehicles. Since that's no longer a problem with the popularization of CV joints, I have to assume that automakers will tackle the problem that way.

[ABotoxCowboy]

Probably the same as any other electric car -- very quiet!

[RockaboxMedia]

Yup. I was there on the shoot and it is quiet but with a really interesting turbine-like sound. The short 'arty' bit where you can hear a noise was the only moment we got close enough to capture the sound of the car over the howling gale that was going on at the airfield that day. We will be bringing loads more on the Lightning soon...well soonish. I'll make sure we share the noise of the car then.

[dmaudsley]

There's about half a second of random sound in the middle and the rest is silence - I was hoping to hear what a 700bhp electric car sounded like!

[frankodelic]

Why are you disabling the embed? I wanted to show my buds on myspace...

[RockaboxMedia]

Apologies but as a commercial production house we have to rights manage the content we make for our clients. It's nice to be able to show this footage despite this. Many thanks for your interest though.