WrightSpeed

NZ sheep farmer turned e-car entrepreneur Ian Wright features in an AFRMagazine story on the rise of the electric car. Wright’s prototype vehicle — the Wrightspeed X1 — is a stripped down Aerial Atom street racer capable of accelerating from 0-96 kmh in just over 3.5 seconds. More importantly, it boasts around 71km per litre from one charge of its lithium-ion batteries, which are similar to those used in laptops. “The definition of success for my company, five years from now, is 1,000 cars a year at $US120,000 each,” says Wright. He is aiming at the high-end market, as opposed to fellow e-car pioneers Tesla Motors. “[Tesla] want to be Toyota,” he says, “And I want to be Porsche.” He has good reason: in 2005 the Wrightspeed X1 beat a Porsche Carrera GT by 20 car lengths at California’s Sears Point Racetrack.