The British manufacturer of niche but extremely fun machines, Ariel Motor Company, has just announced that it will build an electric version of its popular off-road Nomad model to help it gauge consumer reaction for a full production version.
Not ones to conform, Ariel has dabbled in motorcycles and e-bikes with its fabulously powerful and girder-forked Ace and Dash models. Although the badge was arguably immortalized when Jeremy Clarkson famously had his face rearranged by the extreme, open-top Atom in an episode of Top Gear.
The Nomad builds on the Atom’s banzai concept but adds a roll cage, chunky off-road tires and enough suspension to soak up lumps, bumps and serious jumps.
Ariel’s recent decision to venture into electrification adds a completely new dimension to its off-road offering, matching the acceleration of its internal combustion engine sibling and providing the same muddy thrills without the emissions or, more importantly, the noise.
The company says the E-Nomad will hit 60mph from rest in just 3.4 seconds and deliver 490Nm of instantaneous torque, which its makers say gives the rear-wheel drive car exceptional performance on-road, while remaining “stable and controllable” on challenging terrain.
But the Ariel experience has typically been about a stripped-back, no frills drive, with weight kept to a minimum in order to maximize performance. This same ethos has been carried through to the E-Nomad, with the team able to keep weight below 900kg (it tips the scales at 896kg).
This is, in part, thanks to the fact that the E-Nomad uses twelve Pegasus V3 battery modules with a total capacity of 41kW, which sees the pack weigh in at just 300kg.
Regardless, it still offers a predicted all-electric driving range of around 150-miles, while delivering 210kW (281bhp) to the rear wheels.
For longer adventures, the E-Nomad is capable of DC fast charging for a 20-80 per cent top up in 25 minutes, while use of regenerative braking means plenty of power is fed back into the system and drivers can effectively use a single pedal to navigate tricky terrain.
Silent but violent
Ariel CEO Simon Saunders told Autocar that the E-Nomad would cost around £10,000 more than the combustion engine version should it go on sale, placing it around the £78,000 /$102,000 /AU$152,000 mark.
Despite the fact the company has made clear that customers will have to wait for one, it looks like an incredibly finished package for a mere concept car.
Even down to the fact that Ariel has carefully selected natural flax fibers for the body work in order to reduce the overall CO2 footprint of the vehicle and match the electric powertrain’s ‘green’ credentials.
Given that Ariel only really deals in seriously fun vehicles, the E-Nomad is likely to be just as much of a hoot as the rest of its line-up. But turning to electrified powertrains for this model arguably makes more sense than anything else.
The Nomad was always designed to venture off-grid and this is becoming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world due to strict emissions and noise regulations.
Silently bashing dunes or exploring green lanes is a more socially acceptable pastime and one that has already been exploited by motorcyclists, with the likes of KTM, Sur-Ron and Stark producing machines that will happily rival petrol powered bikes on the trails, without attracting all the attention.
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