Australia’s claim to performance cars revolves mostly around V8-powered sport saloons such as the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon. Powerful? Yes, especially the Holden HSV models but they are as far from the world of supercars as Australia is from the North Pole.
Enter the world of Varley evR450. Billed as “Australia’s first-ever electric supercar”, the yellow-mellow sports car was unveiled at the third Electric Vehicle Conference in Brisbane on October 26.
If you’ve never heard of Varley, that’s because it’s not really a car company but rather an industrial group with a 125-year history that manufactures all kinds of vehicles ranging from airport tugs and hospital bed movers to urban search and rescue models and transportable aircraft landing systems.
This is about to change as its Varley Electric Vehicles division is going all Mad Max in the electric supercar arena with the evR450. Its specifications are quite impressive: 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) comes in just 3.8 seconds, top speed is electronically limited to 200 km/h (125 mph) and its range is 150 km (93 miles) or 300 km (186 miles) with the optional range-extension pack.
Moreover, this is not just a flight of fancy, but a real car that has a price estimate of around AU$200,000 or US$211,000 and is scheduled to hit the streets early next year.
“You could expect seeing it on Queensland roads as early as January 2012”, said John Bettini, Varley Electric Vehicles division manager. We are proud of its technology based on Varley’s long experience in electric vehicles and out close relationship with Tritium and Ultramotive, two other local technology companies.”
Story References: Varley Group via Autoblog.Green
