You know, there haven't been a great many truly stylish locally-made electric cars. Things like the Blade Electron areserviceable, yet not quite the kind of thing that will convince people to leave theirLamborghinis(which of course we all own) at home in the garage. Having said that, Varley recently showed off their brand new electric vehicle made in Queensland, and my my, it's a looker.
We've known this car was coming for a little while, but it was only recently unveiled semi-publicly late last week in Brisbane, for the Australian Electric Vehicle Conference hosted at the Sebel & Citigate Hotel.
Of course, it's all still pretty secret and hush-hush until January when it 'officially' launches - no one's taken it for a test drive, or even taken photos of what's under the hood.
But what we do know is that it performs pretty nicely. The evR450 goes from 0 to 100 in 3.8 seconds, with a top speed of 200 km/h. Of course, the problem there is if you're actually cruising at that top speed, you won't even manage an hour, given the range of the thing is only 150km (although there will be a 300km version made available as well).
Varley are shooting for a price below $200,000, which obviously isn't loose change, but it's also not that bad for a sporty-model electric car, especially one that's made locally.
“You could expect seeing our EVR450 driving on Queensland roads as early as January 2012,” said Varley's Electric division manager John Bettini in a press release.
“We are proud of its technology based on Varley’s long experience in
electric vehicles and our close relationship with Tritium and Ultramotive, two other local technology companies”.
