Always having been keen on the buzz around electric cars I jumped at the chance to visit Silverstone for the launch of the Delta E-4 Coupe and my chance to drive this great looking car.
[portfolio_slideshow exclude=”3923″]
This new Coupe has been developed by a highly innovative British engineering company based at Silverstone – Delta Motorsports. Using their extensive motorsport expertise they have developed a lightweight and highly efficient low carbon sports car. The Delta E-4 is a stylish 2-door car with room for four adults. Sharing the name of one of my favourites the Delta Integrale from Lancia and unrelated, it took me back to the Hyena concept car that was developed at that time. This new electric car performs well with a top speed of 150mph and a 0-60mph sprint in around 6 seconds, the company also have plans for a 4×4 car. Driving the car you are faced with a central dash panel and buttons forward, neutral and reverse. The EV still features a key to turn the vehicle on. With no noise you then select forward, while pressing the brake pedal. Check seat belt on and then with a silent whoosh the car takes off. Not much noise at all. The brakes were excellent as on any sports car of this size and developed with the partners Delta has. All that can really be heard is a slight motor sound and the tyres. The performance was a thrill, we were speed limited for the time but the sense of performance got from the vehicle was excellent.
The company Delta Motorsports founded in 2005 by Simon Dowson and Nick Carpenter has considerable experience in the motor sport sector and many other high profile high performance engineering and EV projects.
Dowson commented ” We became involved with the design of hybrid and electric vehicles because they share many of the engineering challenges associated with motor sport – light weight parts, aerodynamic efficiency and innovative packaging solutions. We’ve had to re-think road cars from the beginning”
The Delta E-4 performance is a highly impressive package. The car features a carbon composite chassis which weighs just 85kg 2/3 less than steel but still strong enough and designed to pass EU crash tests. The motors were developed in partnership with Oxford University and a spin off from that partnership is a new company Oxford YASA Motors. The car is low to the ground and with batteries mounted underfloor the cars handles superbly with all the weight under the car. It really has comparable performance to any sports coupe. The batteries still make up over 1/3 of the weight of the whole vehicle. the car is charge over 8 hours from 2 conventional wall sockets and gives a range of 200 miles.
The company has been supported by various grants and is now only seeking modest investment to take this forward a production car. Watch the youtube video below to see the car in motion on the circuit. Being a low carbon electric vehicle it drives very quietly on the circuit and this can be seen in the video. It was a neat comparison at SIlverstone having the Porsche cars from the Porsche Experience Centre flying around making all the noise and these coupes being a glimpse of the future. Well done Delta and I certainly look forward to developments with this car and the successful future for this British Engineering Company.