Monday, November 1, 2010


Li-ion Motors Inizio: If Tesla Were A Supercar (Jalopnik)

Li-ion Motors Inizio: If Tesla Were A SupercarThis is the Li-ion Motors Inizio — a prototype all-electric supercar with a range of 250 miles and a 170-mph top speed. It hopes to build them starting next July for a mere $139,000 — if it can.
Does the name Li-ion Motors sound familiar to you? They should, if you're a fervent fan-boy of the Automotive X-Prize. The North Carolina-based electric automaker and electric auto conversion-maker won the X Prize for the Side-by-Side Alternative Class for its all-electric Wave II. While that's a piddlingly beige appliance car, they're looking at the Inizio to be more of a Tesla Roadster-killer thanks to its higher top speed (the Tesla Roadster Sport's limited to a very un-supercar-like 125 MPH) and all-American looks (unlike the bastardized-by-batteries British bloke Tesla uses).

The Inizio's powered by lithium-ion batteries (duh!) which generate a power output of more than 40kW (and a potential upgrade up to 96.7kW), with an electric motor delivering 145kW. That gives it an Inizio-to-60 (pun!) speed of just 3.4 seconds.
But it's not just the speed that's cool. Although the battery pack delivers a range of up to 250 miles per charge (obviously not at top speed), there's also the possibility of hot-swappable battery packs. Li-ion Motors is looking to allow the supercar's three battery packs to be easily removed and swapped out with a scissor-lift and a car lift. While not necessarily easy, it's still better than trying to slap a new battery into your iPhone. Or, you know, a Tesla Roadster.
After getting DOT approval on their built-by-hand platform, Li-ion hopes to get this better-red-than-dead supercar out to the public in July of next year. They're hoping for production to reach somewhere around 15,000 units per year by some as-yet-unannounced date.
But Li-ion has a troubled record. Launched as a mining venture, Li-ion has been accused of running "penny stock" schemes, owes the U.S. Internal Revenue Service $250,000 in back payroll taxes and has said it needs $5 million to commercialize the models its developed. An investigation by Greenwire found the company "has vacuumed up $50 million from stock holders in 10 years with little to show for it."
We'll believe it when we see it, but for the moment Li-ion's focused on just getting their prototype working and ready for production-by-hand. It's good to see an electric car company setting its sights at reasonable heights. Else you might end up like Elon Musk.
Send an email to Ray Wert, the author of this post, at ray@jalopnik.com.

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