The hypercar business must be booming because we’re getting the impression a new ultra-high-performance vehicle is announced every other week. Case in point, a new name in the business is Elation Hypercars based in Northern California. Its first product goes by the name of Freedom and forgoes the combustion engine to embrace a fully electric powertrain.
The silent hypercar was previewed precisely a month ago in official renderings, giving us an idea of what to expect from the production model. There’s still a long way to go, but Elation now says it’s been making progress with its speedy EV that wants to compete with big names such as the Lotus Evija, Rimac C_Two, and the Pininfarina Battista.
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To speed up the process, Elation says it won’t build a fullsize mockup and instead channel its efforts towards engineering a fully working prototype. It even has its own nickname, Dogo 001, which takes after the Dogo Argentino – a dog breed created in Argentina for big-game hunting such as wild boar, according to Wikipedia.
We’re not going to see the production car until early 2022 when Elation promises to bring the road-going Freedom to the Geneva Motor Show. Meanwhile, further updates about the Dogo 001 are planned for next year when the company will commence static and dynamic prototype testing. Once it’s ready for production, each of the 25 cars planned will take more than 4,000 hours to complete.
As a reminder, the three-motor variant will pump out a combined 1,427 horsepower and 1,440 Newton-meters (1,062 pound-feet) of torque while the beefier derivative with a fourth electric motor will take the total output to a whopping 1,903 hp. That will be enough electric punch for a 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) in an incredible 1.8 seconds en route to a top speed electronically governed at 260 mph (418 km/h) or about the same as the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.
Both versions of the Freedom will have all-wheel drive and a proprietary two-speed gearbox. Feeding the electric motors will be a large 100-kWh battery or an optional 120-kWh pack with up to around 400 miles (644 kilometers) of range between charges.
Should you want an “old-fashioned” hypercar, Elation is engineering a separate Freedom Iconic Collection model that ditches the EV powertrain in favor of a 5.2-liter V10 producing 750 horsepower. “Developed to honor the history of the internal combustion engine,” the ICE model will send power to both axles through an Audi-sourced S Tronic seven-speed, dual-clutch automatic transmission.
The company doesn’t say whether the V10 is the same naturally aspirated unit used by the Audi R8 and Lamborghini Huracan and we also don’t know whether the AWD system is the Quattro. Performance-wise, it aims to do the sprint to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 2.5 seconds and reach a limited 240 mph (386 km/h).
Oddly enough, the V10 model kicks off at an eye-watering $2.3 million whereas the EV model is $300,000 cheaper.
It all sounds pretty exciting, but history has taught us to be cautious whenever a startup announces it’s trying to be the next Pagani or Koenigsegg…