Woking, England - The wealthy elite are buying more expensive cars than ever before but the future of the super sports car appears bleak in an era of climate change, according to market analysts. The established sports car companies are reacting to the trend by using new materials and creating concept cars with lots of horsepower but zero emissions, market analyst Nick Margetts from Jato Dynamics says.
"These are the first of a new generation of sports cars," Margetts believes.
Ferrari, with its Millechili study, is showing which direction the trend is going in and the experimental vehicle is smaller and lighter than the top model, the Enzo.
"The best way to reduce consumption is by downsizing," says Ferrari engine developer Jean-Jaques His. Together with an electronic brake, a reduced periphery and direct injection performance can still remain the same despite lowering the CO2 emission by 15 per cent.
Lamborghini development engineer Maurizio Reggiani is also convinced "that we have to change some things if sports cars are to survive". One way is to give the vehicle a dual drive system with two different types of fuel or engines.
"For daily use the vehicle could run on maximum economy and low fuel consumption and at the press of a button switch to race track performance," Reggiani says.
Paul Mackenzie, who is responsible for the super sports car, the McLaren SLR in Woking, England, says light materials such as carbon make the new SLR Roadster about 10 per cent lighter than the SL with a similar engine. If the entire construction is switched to carbon, another 20 per cent in weight is saved. But at present it is still too expensive to produce the SL or SLK entirely from carbon.
Mercedes safety engineer Clemens Belle also sees many safety advantages by using the material. "New safety regulations for pedestrian safety and side-impact will result in huge changes to the sports car design," he says. For weight reasons, he adds, this can only be possible by using light materials.
According to Margetts, several projects currently underway in Britain and the United States demonstrate that much conventional thinking will have to be dumped.
"Meanwhile there are several companies that give the sports car a green coat and promise alternative drive concepts so that you can speed without a bad conscience," Margetts says.
Most progress in this sector has been made by Tesla Motors based in California. The US firm is developing a sports car in cooperation with Lotus that is powered by an electric motor supported by a 7,000 lithium-ion battery that gives it an output of 185 kW/252 hp. Acceleration from zero to 100 km/h is four seconds. The top speed is listed at 210 km/h.
The GT, which is built by the British company Lightning, also runs on electricity. The engineers are working on a new generation of batteries with electric engines fitted to the wheel hubs that together produce more than 515 kW/700 hp.
But of course the electric sports cars will not come cheap. The Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera has an additional price tag of 30,000 euros (42,296 dollars) compared to the conventional model. The SLR is three times more expensive than the SL and the 100,000 dollars for the Tesla Roadster is just the first instalment.
