What you see above is a gist of what Detroit Electric claims its debut duo based on the Proton GEN2 and Proton Persona will be able to achieve. You will also be able to choose between two battery packs of different capacities, for a total of 4 models.
The batteries use Lithium Polymer, which makes Detroit Electric the 2nd manufacturer to announce the use of the battery technology in a production vehicle. The first was the Hyundai-Kia Group. Two different capacities are given – one with 25kWh and another with 40kWh. The 25kWh is referred to as the city model while the latter is called the long range model. Maximum range per charge was given as 180km and 320km respectively, but of course if you whack the car during a weekend drive to Genting Sempah and back I doubt it’s going to last that long, just like the quoted mileage figures for a petrol car.
The battery is not developed in-house but it will be licensed from a major manufacturer, which has yet to be decided although discussions with a few are already in progress. DE intends to be able to source the batteries here if possible.
The electric motor, which is their very own patented design that they call “Axial Magnetic Flux” is said to have a nominal power of 75kW continuous power which is the equivalent to 100 horsepower, and a peak power of 150Kw, or 200 horsepower. Torque figures are very nice – 350Nm to 380Nm.
As for charging, the 40kWh battery is said to take 10 hours to get from a 0% to a 80% charge on a regular 13A 240V household socket.
Detroit Electric says an estimated price tag for the cars in the US market would be US$23,000 for the city model and US$33,000 for the long range model – that’s a whole US$10 grand more for the extended battery capacity, which means the most expensive thing in the car is the battery! Converting these amounts to ringgit would put them out of reach for most people here really. The 40kWh model figures are quite far from the RM80k that Detroit Electric first mentioned during their test drive session last year.
