LONGBOW TARGETS DRIVER APPEAL WITH NEW SPEEDSTER

British EV start-up unveils roofless prototype with a 'timeless' design

- STEVE CROPLEY

UK EV start-up Longbow has revealed what it calls a 'full-speed driving prototype' of its incoming ultralight electric sports car and claims to have created it in about one-third of the time it would have taken for a conventional car manufacturer.

The first car, an £84,995 Speedster due to reach its first customers at the end of next year, was taken from two-dimensional design sketches to running prototype in just six months - by a company that was only incorporated in 2023.

A coupé version of the car, called Roadster, will be built in much higher volume than the Speedster's initial 150 units and will reach the market about a year after at a lower price of £64,995.

Orders for both are being taken now, and the first year's run of Speedsters is understood already to have been allocated.

Longbow's founders, Daniel Davey and Mark Tapscott, both of whom have previous connections with EV pioneers Tesla and Lucid, call their design the world's first FEV - for Featherweight Electric Vehicle - that embodies what they refer to as "the Speed of Lightness.

The Speedster will weigh just 895kg at the kerb, even with a 52kWh battery, an inverter and a single rearmounted electric motor fitted. Power output has yet to be finalised, but it will be "at least 200kW", so 270bhp, the pair revealed Autocar.