Skywell BE11 Driving, Engines & Performance
What is it like to drive?
Sinfully underwhelming. It just about manages to go, stop and turn on command, thus doing the bare minimum to qualify as a 'car'. But ask anything more of it and you might as well be asking a dolphin to operate a forklift truck.
The BE11's shortcomings boil down to the ride and the powertrain. It gets MacPherson struts on the front axle and multi-link suspension at the rear: that should be an assuring combo, but its behaviour is so basic it makes you wonder if Skywell did any setup work at all beyond just bolting it onto the frame.
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The body doesn't wallow in corners, but you get jiggled laterally and longitudinally. All the time. Undulating roads cause it to pogo along like a merry-go-round.
Handling-wise, it's vague and distant, with numb steering and a chassis that simply doesn't want to engage. Judge your speed well (translation: slow right down) and very occasionally the Skywell will corner predictably, but more often than not you'll find yourself tugging at the wheel to correct your trajectory, upsetting the ride (again) in the process. Fluid this is not. Crumbs. And the powertrain?
Mildly infuriating, unfortunately. 201bhp sounds like plenty but the BE11's motor is entirely pedestrian, even lacking the 0-30mph chops that make most electric cars perky in urban areas. Venture out onto the open road and it's got just enough oomph to get by (0-62mph in 9.6 seconds is slow, but not glacial), but this isn't a car that belongs in the outside lane unless it's mid-way through a traffic jam.
More annoying is how easy it is to spin the wheels, especially when you're waiting at a junction with a bit of lock on. You only have to prod the accelerator for the grip to momentarily vanish, making you look like a berk with lead feet. Can't be good for tyre life either.
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Worst of all though is how lazy it is. Press the throttle, pause, then the power comes. Same for the regen: lift off, wait… then the braking force kicks in. What it gives you is always at odds with what you want from it.
Ostensibly there are Sport and Comfort modes, but they don't seem to do anything. That's pants. Now you're going to tell me the range is diabolical, aren't you?
No, actually. We saw 3.3mi/kWh during our test drive, which points to a theoretical range of more than 280 miles against a claim of 304 from the bigger 86kWh battery. The BE11 had warm weather and gentle country roads on its side, so we'd expect that figure to fall significantly on a longer motorway run or in colder conditions.
The bigger issue is the charging speed: both the Standard and Long Range versions are capped at 80kW, so the promise of a 0-80 per cent top-up in 1h 10m and 1h 23m apiece falls well short of what we've become used to from mainstream EVs that'll have you on your way again in half an hour.
Plug in at home and a full charge will be an overnight job. Nothing wrong with that – 11kW AC is pretty conventional.
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