Exactly ten years ago today, Lightning, a small English manufacturer, announced that it would build a fully electric sports car. The Lightning GT had to roll off the production line in an edition of 250 cars per year from 2012. In retrospect, this did not work out, but the company is still active.
Lightning was perhaps too far ahead of his time. The manufacturer wanted to market a fully electrically powered supercar, a concept that did not seem like a formula for success in 2010. Despite this, Lightning claimed to have found investors who were jointly willing to invest 17.2 million euros in the project. At the time, the company indicated that it was working on two driving prototypes and that the plan was to start producing the GT from 2012 in a production run of 250 cars per year. The GT would cost a converted € 200,000 and it is said that fifteen enthusiastic customers had already placed an order. Those customers are still waiting, because the actual production never got off the ground.
The then undoubtedly enthusiastic customers had to pay a down payment of the equivalent of € 16,720 before they ended up on the waiting list. The first specifications and design of the GT were already released in 2008. In appearance, the GT seems to be a love baby of Jaguar, Aston Martin and TVR. Lightning promised a monstrous 700 horsepower, but that then translated into a somewhat disappointing sprint to 100 km / h of four seconds and a top speed of 210 km / h. In 2010, Lightning reduced that expectation even further, because the GT had, according to the expectations at the time, a power of 405 hp and should accelerate to 100 km / h in ‘less than five seconds’. The specified range was, certainly by today’s standards, not very spectacular 150 km.
Still hope?
The promised deadline for the production start of the GT has now expired. You would think that the company died a silent death, but at least it has just paid the server costs for the website. That is because it stands still live. The website is rather sparse in terms of content, but photos show the GT with a lot of tire smoke as a decor ‘in action’. Furthermore, the specifications on the site have been updated: the GT is constructed from carbon fiber, weighs 1,850 kg, has an output of 495 hp and accelerates to 97 km / h in ‘less than 4 seconds’. That is a lot more enthusiastic than in 2010. According to Lightning, the top speed is limited to 250 km / h and the range should be more than 500 km.
Finally, Lightning announced that it had entered into a ‘technical partnership for a platform and powertrain’ in 2019 and that it made plans for 2020. It must then be lightning fast if the company wants to realize it within a year.