The 429PS SC-01 is a super-cute Chinese electric sportscar | GRR
Wondering where all the affordable electric sportscars are? Join the club. You’re spoilt for choice if you want to blow a million on a battery hypercar, but have a hankering to shell out £40k on a plug-in two-seater sportscar and you will be disappointed. There’s an answer in sight, however – and it might just come from China.
The pretty “mid-engined” coupe you see here is the Xiao Paoche, which is Mandarin for Small Sports Car, and this SC-01 is its first car. It’s not the only affordable electric sportscar being worked on in China but it is the newest, unveiled this week and due on sale there next year.
As the pictures show, there are European design influences here aplenty – a bit Alfa 4C around the front, and hints of Lancia Stratos in the wedge profile and abrupt tail with round lamps. But it all seems neat enough and the fundamentals are encouraging: a length of four metres, height of 1.16 metres and width of 1.82 metres, making it just a little bulkier than a Lotus Elise.
It’s almost twice the weight of an Elise course, at 1,300kg, and for that you can thank the bank of batteries behind the seats where an engine would be in a classic mid-engined sportscar (a layout, incidentally, that Lotus is planning for its forthcoming electric sportscar).
The SC-01’s battery is claimed to be good for a range of 500km (311 miles). Electric motors on both axles deliver a total system power of 429PS (320kW) for 0-62mph in a claimed 3.9 seconds. Price of the SC-01 in China is said to be the equivalent of £38,800.
Tempted? We have every other sort of electric car now, from hatches to saloons, SUVs to supercars, and even some retro-inspired track weapons, so why not a sportscar? Carmakers have tempted us in the past with concepts, but concepts are what they have so far remained. For sure they will be coming though, and while few may offer a traditional convertible body – there are precisely zero fully open-top electric cars currently available – there’s no reason to think an EV can’t be small, sporty, good fun and affordable. Who knows, China’s SSC-01 may even be among them.