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Lightning strikes blow for innovation
IT is sexy, exciting, green and it's British – words that Chris Dell, managing director of Peterborough-based Lightning Car company uses to describe its electric Lightning GT sports car.
IT is sexy, exciting, green and it's British – words that Chris Dell, managing director of Peterborough-based Lightning Car company uses to describe its electric Lightning GT sports car.The prototype car wowed the crowds at last year's British Motor Show. In fact, it stole the show and generated a staggering 130 orders of intent, and scooped MSN's Most Impressive Car of the Show award, achieving 24 per cent of the vote, outgunning the launch of Lotus's Evora.
All good news then and the green light to continued development for Lightning. Not so, as Mr Dell has been frustrated in securing supportive funding from The Technology Strategy Board, in a bid to "accelerate the project forward." The technology Strategy board is a business-focused organisation dedicated to promoting technology-enabled innovation across the UK.
Mr Dell's enterprise is a "relatively small operation" in the world of motoring.
"We require a relatively small amount in total – 20 million – to produce a wholly European homologated car," he said.
"We have demonstrated to the world what we can do with a small team and limited investment – the best innovation and project delivery often comes from such an approach.
"The Lightning GT platform has been designed to be modular and, in doing so, we can, potentially, develop four further vehicles. These would include a SUV-type vehicle, a four-door saloon, a small sports car and a limousine. To demonstrate this further, we simply need to be able to take part in the TSB 'competitions', but for various 'technicalities' we've been unable to do so on the last three competition calls, which is hugely frustrating.
"Without the next tranche of funding, or further investment of 1 million to 'prove the technology' employed in the electric Lightning, the Peterborough-based project will move along with less pace."
The Lightning Car Company is working on two further "mule" vehicles and, in doing so, is generating valuable intellectual property in respect of new ways of overcoming engineering challenges and maximising the vehicles' performance, ensuring innovation is alive and well in Peterborough.
The future could see the company manufacture 100 or so cars in its first full year of production, rising to numbers in the "low thousands" in year five and bringing with it the economic boost to the local area.
In the recent past, the company has benefited from funding from the East of England development Agency (EEDA). In particular, it was given support from the Finance for Innovation portfolio.
"It was a crystal ball approach," said Mr Dell, as he explained the inspiration behind the company's unique product – one of the UK's first electric sports cars.
"The founders could see the market was changing. With the spiralling cost of fuel and consumers placing a higher demand on 'greener' products, there was clearly going to be a gap in the market for a product such as Lightning. Moving quickly to develop a new brand and a 'no compromise' package was always going to be the key."
It was at this point that the Peterborough-based performance car developer turned to EEDA to seek finance opportunities.
Having secured funding matched funding, in excess of 200,000 through EEDA’s Grant for Research and Development programme, the Lightning team set about developing a working prototype of their vision and they achieved this from initial sketches to a fully-fledged running prototype in just nine months – a phenomenal achievement in the automotive industry that has won them great respect and praise from their industry counterparts.
And the crystal ball approach has clearly served the Lightning Car Company well, as demonstrated by its success at the motor show.
Being “green” makes the Lightning GT no less mean. Its performance intent is impressive – with a 0 to 60mph sprint time of less than five seconds and a limited top speed of 130mph, the Lightning GT packs quite a punch against any of its petrol-fuelled rivals.
And in that respect, Mr Dell remains bullish about the company’s ambitions for the Lightning GT: “Lightning has the market potential to compete with the very best, and when your ambition is to rival the likes of Aston Martin and Bentley in terms of pitching for ‘share of pocket’, you have to get it right. It appears from the feedback we’ve received to date that we’re doing a good job so far – but clearly there is still much work to be done.”
The Lightning GT uses state-of-the-art NanoSafe batteries, which can be charged in just 10 minutes to give, the company hopes, up to 180 miles of motoring on a single charge.
Because there is no engine, the Lightning GT is almost maintenance-free and will likely continue to be up to 10 times cheaper to run than the standard petrol equivalent when it comes to market. In fact, when comparing the Lightning GT to its petrol counterparts for a typical London company car commuter, the savings were calculated to be in excess of 17,000 a year. And that’s on the basis of a target price of 120,000 for the Lightning GT.
The Lightning Car Company is another example of a regional company remaining ambitious during tougher economic times, and Mr Dell and his team are already planning for a bright “green” future.
He added: “Designs for Lightning models 2 and 3 have been under development for some time and we hope to be able to showcase these soon. When we do, you’ll clearly see our vision and ambition to expand the brand into a wider market where ‘need states’ and ‘premiumisation’ continue to dictate the sorts of vehicles that the industry must now build”.
With such development work opening up new and fruitful market opportunities and the increasing pressure by both consumers and global Governments to produce energy-efficient products, (The Lightning team are also in dialogue with the UK Government on issues such as charging infrastructure requirements for the future) Lightning’s surge of success could quickly establish its business around the top end of the automotive market.
But that remains a fair way off without the necessary funding. . .
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