FANTASY FLEET

MOBILITY OUTSIDE THE BOX words John Challen

Remember the days you used to hear “Electric cars are so boring”? A time when people who wanted to go green by choosing battery power were faced with a choice between a G-Wiz and a decommissioned milk float?

Oh, how times have changed – and a perfect illustration of how things have shifted dropped into my inbox as we were putting this issue of Fleet World together. The Nyobolt EV has been created by design and engineering operation Callum and Nyobolt, a business that is dedicated to the creation of ultra-fast charging batteries. And when I write ‘ultra-fast’, I really do mean ultra-fast –the two companies state that the 35kWh battery in the aforementioned EV can be fully charged in just six minutes! In case you were wondering, that’s not a typo – it really is six minutes. Around the time it takes to brew and drink a decent cup of coffee. Or, to put it another way, just five seconds longer than Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. For automotive-specific context, it’s the equivalent of charging at over 1,600mph, which is more than double the fastest charging possible on the road today (hello, Hyundai Ioniq 6!).

But instead of pondering what else you could be doing in the time it takes to charge the car, you might be thinking it looks familiar. That’s because the designer is Julian Thompson, who conceived the Lotus Elise in 1994 and has had a burning design to create a more modern interpretation. The Nyobolt is 100mm wider and 150mm longer than the original, but retains much of the overall appearance of the original model from nearly 30 years ago.

But, bringing it up to the modern day, there’s LED lamps front and rear, HD ultralow latency cameras and a Type 2 charging port seamlessly integrated into the B-pillar. Then there’s the cuttingedge battery technology, which enables the blink- and-you’ll-miss-it recharging experience.

Nyobolt says the ‘readyto-deploy’ technology –which will go into production in early 2024 – ‘unlocks the holy grail’ of charging using a proven 10C (six-minute) charge lithium-ion setup that is capable of both immediate application and rapid scale-up. Although it’s still a concept, a dynamic version of the Nyobolt EV will be revealed by the end of 2023, with volume production plans very much dependent on the level of demand for the modern-day Elise. Meanwhile, the company is working with OEMs to fulfil the potential of the ultra *ultra* rapid charging capabilities in a wide range of future models. Whether you’ll be able to take advantage of those sorts of speedy sixminute stops in your C-SUV, saloon or small hatch by 2026 remains to be seen, but there’s a chance...

Price: £TBC

Wheels: 19-inch

Weight: ‘closer to one tonne than two’

Battery: 35kWh

Driving range: 155 miles (250km)

Time to charge: 6 minutes

Twinned with: Lotus Elise

Likelihood of making it onto the fleet? 3/10