Latest news with #LongbowMotors
Top Gear
22-05-2025
- Automotive
- Top Gear
Should a car last 100 years? Sportscar-maker Longbow reckons so
Business The sustainability bods want your car to last as long materially possible Skip 1 photos in the image carousel and continue reading Imagine: a car that lasts 100 years. Not just preserved like a museum piece, but continuously upgraded, repaired, and remanufactured. Interiors refreshed, drivetrains swapped out, and the core shell and structure still doing its job decades later. A British Leyland special this is not. The message from the sustainability bods to the car industry speaking at the FT's Future of the Car summit is: build a car so it lives well, dies responsibly, and can be reborn without giving the planet another sucker punch. Advertisement - Page continues below Sustainability chief at Jaguar Land Rover, Andrea Debbane said: 'You have to actually design with the end in mind.' Tailpipe emissions? These guys dabble in the dark arts that are Scope 3 emissions - those are the ones generated across the entire supply chain. Automotive start-ups and established names are beginning to take this stuff seriously. Daniel Davey, boss of Longbow Motors, said: "Fundamentally, the design thinking should be 'how do I keep this car on the road for a hundred years?'" You might like He's building his fast electric cars with sustainable recycled aluminium, reckoning on a whopping 75 per cent saving in CO2 emissions by doing so. The current, less-Earth-friendly approach is: new model, new lease, rinse and repeat. These guys argue that if carmakers design a vehicle to be modular, maintainable and endlessly recyclable, the paradigm shifts. Advertisement - Page continues below According to Debbane, manufacturers have to stop working in silos to achieve it though. 'You need to work very collaboratively with your entire supply chain,' she said to an industry built on confidentiality and competition, where the proverbial tariff war is the topic du jour . Debbane talks about 'going upstream' (IndustrySpeak for supply chain direction). How upstream? Way upstream, to where the materials, mining and crayons are – well before your brand new EV is even conceived. If it all sounds a little bit leftfield, consider this: JLR has invested in a company trying to extract nickel from plants . Yup, really. This is from the carmaker responsible for the Land Rover Defender, and perhaps in the future, it won't just be making electric cars, it'll be making heirlooms. Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Look out for your regular round-up of news, reviews and offers in your inbox. Get all the latest news, reviews and exclusives, direct to your inbox.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Ex-Tesla employees aim to launch an electric roadster before Musk can
An automotive startup based in Britain aims to release an exclusive fully electric open sports car before Tesla can deliver its long-promised roadster model. Pre-orders are already being taken by Longbow Motors, which was founded in 2023 by Daniel Davey and Mark Tapscott, former Tesla and Lucid employees who also gained development experience at China's BYD. Production is due to start by 2026. Tesla fans are still waiting for a roadster from the company which was promised by chief executive Elon Musk in 2020 and again last year. Musk went on record as saying that the new Roadster "has to come behind the things that have a more serious impact on the good of the world". Power from an electric motor is not the problem with electrically driven sports cars but rather the weight that hampers performance. Longbow Motors said it wants to counteract this with its concept of "Featherweight Electric Vehicles" (FEV). The lightweight sports car will be available as a roadster and an open Speedster. Both cars should be very quick to to hit 100 km/h although no official figures or detailed specification have been released. The models are based on an aluminium platform which delivers a weight of 995 kilos for the hardtop and 895kg for the open Speedster. "There is a need for a driver-centred, featherweight electric sports car that is affordable and accessible to those who love driving and the places it takes them. That's why we developed Longbow," said co-founder and chief executive Daniel Davey in a release. Davey had been in charge of the launch of the Tesla Model 3 in Europe and was Lucid's first official representative beyond North America. Tapscott worked on the Lotus Elise. The Longbow Speedster is being launched as a limited edition of 150 vehicles at a price of around €102,000. Customers can also reserve the Luminary 1st Edition and Autograph Edition models, which are limited to 10 and 25 units respectively.
Forbes
31-03-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
A British Startup Challenges Tesla's (Delayed) Roadster With Two Ultra-Light EV Sports Cars
British automakers like Lotus are known for engineering sleek sportscars with ultra-low curb weights that enable brisk acceleration from engines that would otherwise be considered tepid in larger and heavier rides. As an example, the classic Lotus Elise – upon which the original Tesla Roadster was based – packed a Toyota-derived 1.8-liter four-cylinder engine that generated what would seem to be a puny 188 horsepower and 133 pound-feet of torque, yet its super-slim mass (around one ton) enabled it to register a 0-to-60 mph time at under five seconds, which was decidedly brisk for its time. Both Elise and Tesla's initial production models are long gone, and while a new Tesla Roadster has been planned (and delayed) for several years now, a fledgling U.K. brand named Longbow Motors, hopes to beat Elon Musk to market next year with a pair of what it calls the world's first 'FEVs' (for Featherweight Electric Vehicles). Founded by veteran British engineers Daniel Davy and Mark Tapscott, both with sportscar and EV development on their resumes, the company's motto is ' Celeritas Levitas,' which is Latin for 'the speed of lightness.' The brand's premiere offerings, planned for introduction in 2026, will be a pair of low-slung two-seat rear-wheel-drive EVs, the Longbow Speedster and Roadster. Each is wrapped in graceful exterior lines and curves that sweep rearward from a massive hood that evokes a classic Jaguar XKE from the 1960's. The Speedster comes without either a windshield or a roof, however, for the ultimate vintage sportscar experience. Rather than engineer and develop each of the cars' major components in house, including the batteries, motors and brakes, they'll reportedly be sourced from established Chinese suppliers to hold down costs and speed development. Each model will come powered by a 240 kw electric motor (at an estimated 322 British horsepower) and over 2,000 nickel-cadmium battery cells. Range on a charge is anticipated at a European-rated 275 miles (443 km) for the Speedster and five additional miles on a charge for the Roadster We'd guess dual-motor all-wheel drive models could arrive at some point in the vehicles' future. While the Longbows' outputs pale compared to some of the most powerful EVs on the market, either promises a 0-62 mph time at around 3.5 seconds, which places them firmly in supercar territory, thanks to extensive use of lightweight aluminum and composite components. Their curb weights are planned to tip the scales at around a svelte 2,000 pounds, which itself is about the weight of a Ford F-150 Lightning EV's battery pack alone. Both premiere models are planned for a limited production run of 1,500 units, and the company promises to show a prototype of the Speedster by midyear, with a production model scheduled for 2026, to be followed in subsequent months by the Roadster. Best of all, while the Longbow FEVs are built to run with Ferraris and Lamborghinis, they're planned to be more affordable alternatives. The Speedster is expected to start at $109,900 (£84,995), with the Roadster commanding a less-costly $84,040 (£64,995) base price. High rollers can step up to an even more-limited Luminary 1st Edition of the Speedster with 10 units planned, or the Autograph Edition of which 25 are said to be produced. There will also be 50 Luminary 1st Edition Roadster units up for grabs as well as 100 Autograph Edition versions. No word yet how much of a premium those limited models will command. Specifics including standard and optional equipment, U.S.-certified specs and availability on this side of the Atlantic are yet to surface. Oh, in case you haven't yet caught on, the Roadster's moniker was reportedly chosen as a dig at Tesla's yet-to-surface second-generation model of the same name. 'A lot of customers have put deposits down for a Roadster that they can't get," says co-founder Daniel Davy via Top Gear. "If people want to get back their $250,000 deposit for a 2020 car and put it into a better car, they're going to get one sooner (and) they're welcome to do it.'
