[Video] The ultimate EV showcase in Electric Avenue | GRR
It all began with an idea, the desire to give visitors to the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard the chance to get up close and personal with the very latest EVs in a relaxed, informal setting. No pressure to put a deposit down, nobody to hurry you along, just a space filled with new electric cars and knowledgeable individuals to chat to. Now Electric Electric Avenue presented by BP Pulse is in its third year, and we’ve been taking a good look around.
When the first Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard opened its gates to visitors in 1993 the entry list was small by today’s standards. There was a mixture of road and race cars, some old but some, like the Aston Martin DB7 (sat on a plinth outside Goodwood House, the origins of what is now the Central Feature), the McLaren F1 and the Light Car Company Rocket (driven by The Beatles’ George Harrison, no less), brand new.
Today the Festival of Speed looks forward almost more than it does backwards, with Electric Avenue showcasing the very latest electric cars and Future Lab presented by Randow displaying a broad range of future technologies, both in automotive and elsewhere.
This year Electric Avenue’s layout has changed, with similarly sized or comparable vehicles grouped together, an ideal opportunity for people to see competing products side by side.
The smaller end of the scale is represented by the Mini Electric Convertible, ORA Funky Cat, plus the sporty Smart #1 Brabus and the Abarth 500e Turismo Convertible in a very bright paint shade known as Acid Green.
Expanding the footprint ever so slightly, we have the Toyota bZ4X, BYD Dolphin, Lexus RZ 450e, Renault Megane E-Tech, Ford Explorer and Human Horizons HiPhi Y. The Megane E-Tech takes the familiar Megane name and applies it to a small SUV rather than a hatchback, and not too dissimilarly the Explorer is an old name on a car that in many ways replaces the Ford Focus and Ford Fiesta combined, neither of which are going forward into the electric age. The BYD Dolphin is a particularly interesting one, as it’s the first time a car from Chinese manufacturer BYD has come to Europe. The Human Horizons HiPhi Y follows a similar narrative, and we have to say it looks mighty fine indeed.
Cranking up the luxury dial, we have cars like the Polestar 3, Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo, Hyundai Ioniq 6, Mercedes-Benz EQS 450 4Matic and Maserati Grecale Folgore. The Ioniq 6 is a fantastic looking machine, but it’s the Maserati we find really fascinating. Maserati has given us some wonderful V6, V8 and V12 cars over the years, so to see electric ‘Folgore’ badge roll out across the model range, from the new GranTurismo to the Grecale, is truly exciting, especially when you consider companies that have historically offered sometimes similarly sporty vehicles, like Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin and Bentley, are yet to offer an electric car.
We can’t forget the Kia EV9, of course. We’ve talked about it before, but considering Kia entered the UK market with tiny sales volumes and effectively a pitch of ‘buy our cars, they’re really cheap’, look how far it has come. The EV9 is a seriously grown up piece of kit and, like its EV6 sibling, a really good looking vehicle.
If it’s fun or speed you’re after, you’re well catered for one more in Electric Avenue. There’s no Lotus Evija this year – it’s on the Hill instead, along with the Automobili Pininfarina Battista Edizione Nino Farina and Rimac Nevera – but there is the BMW i4 M50, Charge '67 by Charge Cars and MG4 XPower. Yes, you read that correctly, there’s a new MG sportscar, or at least an MG-badged car with the power of a sportscar. The MG4 XPower has all-wheel-drive, a 64kWh battery and 435PS (320kW), allowing it to accelerate from 0-62mph in 3.8 seconds. Three point eight seconds from a new MG. We can’t help but draw parallels between MG and Kia, both of which have come on leaps and bounds in the past decade. Of course the real MG sports car is on the Hill, the new MG Cyberster, with rear-wheel-drive, two seats, a drop-top roof and 313PS (230kW).
The Charge ‘67 is a curious one, an all-carbon, all-electric beauty in the image of the beloved 1967 Mustang Fastback. Not everyone’s cup of tea perhaps, but to our eyes a really brilliant way of combining classic looks with bleeding edge electric propulsion. It’s limited to 499 examples, uses a 63kWh battery pack to provide a range of 200 miles or so, and has four motors (one at each wheel) that provide 544PS (400kW) and 1,500Nm of torque.
If you haven’t been to Electric Avenue yet, make sure you rock down. And no, we simply won’t stop making Eddy Grant references.