All-Electric Alcraft GT — Another 300 Mile, Powerful Electric Car

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Welcome yet another 300 mile electric car to the game, this time from the British startup Alcraft and its GT lineup.
The Alcraft GT EV
The Alcraft Motor Company hails from Great Britain, with David Alcraft as its founder. David’s loves of vintage and classic automobiles led to investigating steam cars that were setting speed records at the turn of the past century. Steam engines are well known for being very energy dense. I managed to get a ride on a 1902 steam speed world record car in Nice, France, on the amazing Léon Serpollet’s Gardner-Serpollet. The ca was called l’Œuf de Pâques, or Easter Egg, and I can attest to its phenomenal torque. Although we didn’t reach anywhere near the same record speed, I can also vouch for the courage and pioneering spirit these daredevils had. They sat up high from the road with shoddy road surfaces and piloted those cars using many levers and pedals, sometimes all together. I won’t explain how vodka played a big part in the development of the Alcraft GT and Alcraft’s business model. You can go and see it on their website.
Although the Alcraft GT is only at the concept stage, the company has surrounded itself with well known British automobile talents. The company is considering a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) version of the GT. And if you’re afraid of this being yet another startup reinventing the wheel, note it has already partnered with heavy hitters in the electric drive industry. Delta Motorsport will be in charge of the drivetrain, Continental will be working on the security systems, and finally Michelin will be onboard for the tires.
Meet The Alcraft Team
The Alcraft team is a who’s who of the British car scene. You’ll find prominent names on board, such as Charles Morgan as the Director of Innovation — he spent about 30 years at Morgan. Yes, that is the car company Morgan. As the Strategy Director position and MD at Morgan, he was incremental in the adoption of new technologies, such as aluminum and electric powertrains. Mark Carbery will be in the Brand & Marketing Director position with 25 years of experience in industry communications. He is well known for having been an important part of the launches of Lexus and Daewoo. He also worked with Michelin, launching its last Formula 1 program.
The Alcraft, Technically Speaking
The Alcraft GT aims for an honorable performance, with no fewer than three electric motors and a four-wheel drivetrain setup. The company says 0–100 km/h (or 0–62 mph_ will be reached in 3.5 seconds. Pushing the Alcraft is 600 HP, with a mouth-watering 1,139 nm of torque (940 lb. ft). If these numbers sound familiar, that’s because they are very close to Tesla’s top-of-the-line Model S PxxD variants.
The Alcraft GT also boasts a 500 liter load space capacity, or about 132 US gallons, and what it calls “a slide-out loading platform giving access to a 500-liter luggage area which can accommodate two golf bags and trolleys.” This is what is known in Great Britain as a shooting brake-style rear. Ah, the freedom EV design offers!
The modular approach to the Alcraft GT also means it can accommodate a two-seater or a 2+2 configuration. We can easily imagine how it will be offered with a top-down version, as well.
Besides that, the company claims that the Alcraft GT is “about driving involvement rather than specification-sheet numbers, torque rather than power, light weight, and dynamics rather than straight-line speed and Nurburgring lap times,” which is a refreshing break from horsepower numbers. This could finally spell a new era of torque numbers instead of HP, a transition most car buyers will have to make at some point. The company does release an interesting number — the weight of the GT will be only 1,700 kg, about 3,748 lbs. Alcraft boasts this is about 75% of a Tesla Model S.
Designed by Matthew Humphries, responsible for the Morgan Aeromax car, and in parallel with an engineering team from Delta Motorsport, the GT will have full connectivity and apps for what the company calls a more seamless experience. This also allows performance software updates on the fly, as with Tesla.
How Much & When For The Alcraft?
The company claims that even with spirited and enthusiastic driving, it will be able to squeeze a “typical 200–250-mile weekend trip on one charge, with 300+ miles possible.”
Designing and building a car from scratch is always a tricky thing and costs millions of dollars. Although, Lucid showed us that its team was able to design and build the Air in three years and with fewer than 300 people. Alcraft is trying to secure €650,000 (~$736,000) for its first running prototype by 2019.
Speaking of Lucid, we can’t help but notice the resemblance to the Lucid Air. And how the company is choosing to raise that money is the go-to crowdsourcing platform Indiegogo. The company hopes to sell its electric GT for about €142,000–158,000, or roughly about $166,000 to $185,000.
Are We Seeing Too Many Performance EVs & Not Enough Affordable Ones?
Is this yet another performance EV when it seems there is a need for more entry-level electric cars? This seems to be a recurring question we often see on the comments of our articles at CleanTechnica. New technologies are notoriously difficult to introduce at an affordable price. It also seems that most startups and companies are leaning towards the performance market, itself less finicky in regards to price and with deeper pockets around to introduce anything new. Overall, it’s better to have performance EVs than none. The really good news is that it definitely puts EVs in the performance category and thus pushes Porsche and other exotic internal combustion engine carmakers on the offensive. It also makes EVs a technology of desire, which drives purchases further down market.
You can keep in touch with Alcraft through its social media channels: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
It’s good to see new players with seasoned talent pushing the EV envelop, and we wish the Alcraft GT the very best. We’re also available for a long-term review once development moves along. The car can be airdropped into my parking space in Long Beach, California, when ready.
Chip in a few dollars a month to help support independent cleantech coverage that helps to accelerate the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica's Comment Policy