► Designer Julian Thomson takes a second crack at the S1 Lotus Elise
► Engineering by CALLUM, batteries by Nyobolt
► Can fully charge in six minutes, 155-mile range
A decade and a half after some upstart firm out of California used the Lotus Elise as a starting point for an electric car, Norfolk’s finest is getting another lease of life. The Nyobolt EV is the product of battery firm Nyobolt and design agency CALLUM, and utilises the talents of the Elise’s original designer, Julian Thomson.
The Nyobolt EV was conceptualised by Thompson before he joined GM and finished off by CALLUM, the eponymous design house founded by ex-Jaguar designer Ian Callum. Design talent meets groundbreaking tech, too – Nyobolt claims to have solved several of the existing problems with lithium-ion batteries.
Looks like a S1 Elise to me
You know when sci-fi movies use existing cars but put them on dished wheels and fit funkier lights to them? That’s the sort of universe the Nyobolt’s come from. Thomson’s reimagined the Lotus Elise but with ‘exaggerated proportions’ – this EV is 100mm wider and 150mm longer than its inspiration. It sits on 19-inch wheels and the body panels (none of which are shared with the Elise) are a lightweight composite. Claimed weight is still less than a ton.
A raised waistline makes the silhouette even more dramatic, while LED lights front and rear help modernise it. And, since reflective surfaces are so passe for an EV, the Rover Metro door mirrors of the original have been swapped out for cameras.
The charging port’s discreetly located just behind the door on the B-pillar, and most importantly the roof panel lifts out for open-topped motoring. “The aim was to evolve the design and bring it up to date while keeping that iconic sports car character that was so well received in the Elise,” explained Aleck Jones, creative lead at CALLUM.
“Typically, you run into feasibility issues with initial sketches and a design loses impact as it moves from concept into reality, but incredibly – and thanks to the close working relationship between CALLUM’s design and engineering teams – we have been able to realise our early images and unique vision in the real world.”
Tesla famously used an Elise as the basis for its Roadster back in the noughties – something that CEO Elon Musk admitted was a ‘super dumb strategy’, as accommodating a motor and batteries required the platform to be almost totally redesigned.
What’s so groundbreaking about Nyobolt’s battery tech?
Nyobolt achieves a claimed range of 155 miles from 35kWh of battery capacity – that’d mean efficiency of 4.4mi/kWh or thereabouts, which is definitely impressive but more a byproduct of the car’s light weight and slippery shape, we suspect. The Tesla Roadster claimed 244 miles from its 53kWh unit back in 2008.
But Nyobolt claims the batteries themselves are smaller and lighter than those used today, and by simplifying the charging process says that their 35kWh unit can be charged in just six minutes using existing charging infrastructure.
We suspect ‘can’ rather than ‘will’ to be the case here. The maths checks out with the most powerful 350kW chargers currently in deployment at a few dozen sites across the UK, but even under ideal conditions these chargers rarely deploy their full power.
Even if that turns out to be more like ten minutes per charge in the real world, though, it’s highly impressive. Nyobolt says it’s subjected the battery to over 2,000 fast charging cycles ‘without significant performance loss’, and that it can be safely fast-charged to over 80 per cent without damage, something that’s typically not recommended for existing lithium-ion batteries as the heat involved causes the battery to degrade.
Unlocking faster, more stable charging and getting the maximum range out of reasonably-sized batteries is key to improving EVs from the driver’s perspective. The latest long-range flagship models typically stuff in more than 100kWh of cells, which makes the cars immensely heavy, has implications on packaging, and takes eons to charge, especially from home chargepoints.
Unlocking petrol-style recharge times (the average stop at a UK petrol station is claimed to be seven minutes) would solve this problem, even if overall range is reduced. And smaller, lighter batteries would make the cars better to drive, improve packaging, and consume fewer materials (such as dubiously-ethical rare earth metals) in their manufacture.
Plus, small and light batteries mean you can develop small and light cars – like the Nyobolt EV.
Is this a realistic proposition?
The Nyobolt EV may just be a show car at present but the firm isn’t just some upstart making bold claims. Nyobolt received £50m of funding in 2022 to build a battery manufacturing plant in the UK and says it can start producing its new batteries from 2024.
Sai Shivareddy, CEO at Nyobolt, said: “Unlocking the challenges faced by electric vehicle designers has been key to the development of our breakthrough fast-charging batteries. Previously, enabling a light weight fast-charging vehicle was not possible without compromising its lifetime and so people have been relying on costly and large battery packs in the vehicle. With our unique technology we have achieved a six-minute charge car, and developed smaller battery packs that can deliver more power and charge in less time.
“Our partnership with CALLUM shows how adoption of system-level technology innovations can transform the future of electric vehicles and increase accessibility of EVs, including to the 40% of UK households who can’t charge their vehicle at home overnight.”