Shifting Gear: Luxury Car Brands Moving to More Powerful Electric Motors

It’s taken a long time for the masses to be convinced they should buy an electric car over a traditional petrol engine. However, with technology moving faster than a speeding bullet, electric vehicles (EVs) are quickly establishing themselves as the motors to own. And where there’s demand, there’s competition, so car manufactures, including luxury brands, have been busy transforming their cars into highly desirable and power-packed EVs to get a piece of the pie. What’s more, with the UK government bringing in a ban of sales of petrol and diesel cars now is the time to park an electric motor in your garage. Statistically, ‘regular’ cars are still considerably outselling new EVs but the thirst for battery-powered motors is growing fast.

In 2030 if you want a new car in the UK you’ll have to buy an electric one as that’s all that’ll be on display in showrooms (however you’ll still be able to buy second hand petrol and diesel cars and even hybrids until 2035 before they’re phased out). It is plans such as these that have led to automotive brands building their portfolio of eco cars, and they’re coming up with some outstanding vehicles that rival anything else on the road. Take Italian car design company Pininfarina for example. It pledged to create all-electric sports and luxury vehicles of ‘unmatched performance and unprecedented heritage’, resulting in stunning hyper vehicles that are akin to road legal F1 cars. The fact that an iconic brand like Pininfarina, which has worked with Ferrari on the production of the sensational F50 and with Maserati on the beautiful GranTurismo, is taking electric car production seriously is a prime example of luxury brands moving into the electric car space.

Other luxury brands are quickly getting in on the electric car boom, which you’ll find easier to get your hands on. The Porsche Taycan Turbo S is the German brand’s first all-electric offering and motorists couldn’t be more excited for the launch, which is currently being teased in phases announcing electrifying new features. Prices start at around £135,000, a lot of money perhaps but when it has features like being able to park it from outside the vehicle using your smartphone, who are we to judge? And if speed is what you’re looking for you’ll be interested to know that the Porsche Taycan Turbo S shattered the previous indoor speed record earlier this year when it reached 102.65mph inside New Orleans’s Ernest. N Morial Convention Center. Not bad for a car you plug into a wall.

We can’t mention luxury electric cars without speaking of Tesla, and soon the highly-anticipated Model S Plaid will be among us, which is an eagerly awaited refresh of the very successful Model S. It’s an upgrade on the original offering a tremendous 520 miles per charge – which the company says is the longest range of any electric vehicle in production. Tesla also claims that the EV has the quickest acceleration of any electric car taking just 1.98 seconds to do 0-60mph en route to its top speed of 200mph. That’s just a fraction shy of the Battista Anniversario, which you could argue is more suited to an racetrack than a country road.

Then we have EV start up company Lucid Motors soon introducing its debut vehicle, the Air Dream Edition with a steep price tag of £123,000 for both its Performance and Range models. The Performance has an incredible 1111bhp and the Range isn’t far behind with 993bhp both will give drivers 503 miles on a single charge, so you won’t have to worry about being stranded and your ice cream melting in the boot on the way back from the supermarket. The price might seem high for a car brand you’ve probably never heard of but with a top speed of 168mph (for both models) that alone should be enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Perhaps more importantly the inception of Lucid Motors is evidence of the sands shifting towards luxury electric motoring. The company is based in Silicon Valley, the Mecca of tech start ups, and is being headed up by the former chief engineer of the Tesla Model S, Peter Rawlinson, so you can bet your last penny Lucid Motors are taking this EV game seriously. And in fact we all should. We don’t need a crystal ball to tell us electric cars are the future of motoring and, if the truth be told, we shouldn’t be looking too far into the future as the new generation of luxury EVs are already upon us and with so many beautiful options to choose now has never been a better time to go green.

By Nick Watkins