Here are 15 electric sports cars you should know about

You’ll likely be familiar with Croatian entrepreneur Mate Rimac by now, if only because of his electric sports car company Rimac Automobili. And if you are, you’ll likely also be familiar with his Rimac Nevera hypercar, the name for which comes from the Croatian word for an electrically charged storm, nevera, which has been known to batter coastlines at speeds of up to 155mph. Breezy.

But the road-going Nevera can top even that: courtesy of a 120kWh battery, four electric motors, 1,914bhp and 1,740lb ft of torque, it’s capable of 0-60mph in 1.85 seconds, 100mph in 4.3s, and 186mph in 9.3s, on to 258mph. Less a storm, more a hurricane, then…

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“The Pininfarina Battista is a triumph for what it set out to achieve. It’s beautiful, and so violently fast you will never get used to it,” concluded Jack Rix when he headed to the rich person’s playground, aka Miami, to test the Pininfarina Battista. 

Under the Italian-sketched skin you’ll find the same electric gubbins as in the Nevera (the Croatian company supplies them), similar mind-blowing performance, and a limited run of just 150 units – plus a price tag of around £2 million apiece. But be honest, you weren’t expecting zero-emission performance to come cheap, were you?

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Say hello to the Maserati Gran Turismo Folgore, the Italian firm’s first ever pure EV. Maserati has plenty of history when it comes to GTs, of course, and the Folgore – which roughly translates as lightning or thunderbolt – promises much, including a 0-62mph time of 2.7 seconds, 750bhp from its tri-motor setup, and up to 280 miles from its 83kWh battery. 

“This is a car that has real cachet, that feels, acts and drives expensively and comes across as better engineered and developed than any Maserati in living memory,” Tom Ford concluded when we were finally allowed a go. Maserati’s electric future looks very promising indeed.

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First teased in concept form back in 2021, the MG Cyberster finally made its debut as a fully fledged production model at the 2024 Geneva Motor Show. It more than looked the part too, with its classic roadster design, scissor doors and four cockpit screens.

Fast forward to today and we’ve driven it both in China and the UK. Two versions are available, the single motor, rear driven Cyberster Trophy (335bhp/350lb ft, 0-62mph in 5.0secs, 316 miles of range), and the dual motor, all-wheel drive Cyberster GT (496bhp/535lb ft, 0-62mph in 3.2secs, 276 miles of range).

It doesn’t come cheap mind, with prices starting at £54,995 for the Trophy, or £59,995 for the GT. But if you’re after an electric sports car that's available here and now…

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Lotus is amid its latest grand revival, spearheaded by both its combustion-engined Emira, and this: the electric-only Emija. Set to cost a heady £2.4m, it promises four motors, four-wheel drive, 1,972bhp, 0-62mph in well under three seconds, 0-124mph in six seconds, and a top speed of over 200mph.

Just 130 are set to be built, and a couple of years back we were allowed a go in a prototype – complete with TG-designed livery – albeit limited to just 1,600bhp, 1,250lb ft of torque and a capped top speed of 140mph. Which, as we found out, was plenty...

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We’ve been waiting for the Tesla Roadster since 2017, when we were promised such mind-boggling performance figures as 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds, 0-100mph in 4.2s, the quarter-mile in 8.8s, and a top speed somewhere above 250mph, courtesy of three electric motors. Oh, and a reported 620-mile range, thanks to a hefty 200kWh battery.

But the original sale date of 2020 came and went, when it was pushed back to 2021, and then 2022, and then 2023… you get the picture. Come early 2024, Elon then announced that it would be capable of 0-60mph in less than a second, and it will absolutely definitely enter production in 2025. We can but wait...

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Caterham isn’t going anywhere in our new electric era, and the Project V concept is our biggest clue yet of what its future might look like. Measuring just over 4.2m long, 1.2m tall and a little under 1.9m wide, the biggest story here is it gets a tin top roof. Quite the departure from the skeleton Seven, but don't run for the hills just yet.

That’s because Caterham is putting the driving experience first and foremost, with the British firm targeting a weight of 1,190kg – unprecedentedly light for an EV and on par with an Alpine A110 – with a single motor sending 268bhp to the rear wheels and a 55kWh battery good for up to 249 miles of range. Consider our interest well and truly piqued.

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We first got wind that Porsche’s next generation Boxster and Cayman were to become pure electric sports cars back in 2019. Our best guess at the time was an arrival date of 2023, but development hasn’t been as straightforward as hoped.

In 2022 Oliver Blume, Porsche CEO, told us he was hoping the duo would be here by the middle of the decade, but come 2025 we’re still waiting. Spy shots of the cars out testing suggest their completion isn’t too far off, so hopefully we don’t have too long to wait.

Concrete details are also thin on the ground, but we do know that both Boxster and Cayman will position the batteries behind the seats as opposed to under the floor, retaining the classic low slung driving position and mid-engined feel.

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Render: Andrei Avarvarii

We’ve already seen the Alpine A290, a hotter version of the Renault 5 supermini, and coming up in Alpine’s roadmap is an electric version of the A110 sports car.

It’s been on the cards ever since Alpine and Lotus signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ to explore how feasible it would be to work together on a fully electric sports car back in 2021, before going their separate ways a couple of years later.

Back in 2022 we also saw the A110 ‘E-TERNITÉ’, which used the Megane E-Tech’s electric setup with a 268bhp electric motor allowing for a 0-62mph time of 4.5 seconds and a 60kWh battery allowing for 261 miles of range, while weighing in at 1,378kg.

There’s little clarity on what the production version will look like, but we do know that Alpine is laser focused on keeping it lightweight and it’s aiming for a release date of 2026.

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Pictured: Alpine A110 ‘E-TERNITÉ’

Like Alpine, Lotus too has confirmed that it is working on an all-electric sports car, which is currently known by the codename Type 135.

Though we’ve only got this sketch to go on so far, we’re told that the new two-seater will replace the Emira, and it’ll sit on a new flexible architecture called ‘Project LEVA’. Lotus says the platform will allow for single and twin motor powertrains with outputs of 469bhp and 872bhp, plus battery packs positioned behind the passenger compartment of 66.4kWh and 99.6kWh in size.

We also know that it’ll be priced from £75,000 and Lotus reckons it can shift between 10,000 and 15,000 cars per year worldwide. More as we have it.

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You might not have heard of Longbow before, but you surely will within the next year or two. That’s because the British startup is hoping to launch not one but two sub-tonne all electric sports cars, priced from just shy of £65,000.

Founded by Daniel Davey and Mark Tapscott, who have Tesla, Polestar, Lucid, Uber and BYD between them on their CVs, the Speedster is scheduled for production as early as 2026, priced from £84,995 and with 150 examples set to be built. Longbow says it’ll do 0-62mph in 3.5 seconds, up to 275 miles of range and weigh 895kg. Wowsers.

That’ll be followed by the Roadster, which comes with the appealing £64,995 pricetag. That’s Alpine A110 territory. With its fixed roof it’ll weigh in 100kg heavier, but we’re told still be capable of 0-62mph in 3.6 seconds and 280 miles of range. Consider us intrigued.

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Meet the Aspark Owl. The all-electric, butterfly-doored Japanese hypercar has been a long time coming – we first saw it in 2018 – but in 2023 a prototype took to the streets of Monaco to remind us of its existence. Because, y’know, there’s only been the small matter of a global pandemic in between to distract us…

Aspark claims that the Owl can accelerate from 0-60mph in 1.69 seconds, 0-186mph in 10.6 seconds, and on to a top speed of 249mph courtesy of four motors unleashing 2,021bhp and 1,345lb ft. Spotting one will likely be as rare as spotting its namesake too: a grand total of just 50 are set to be built.

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Like nothing you’ve ever seen before, right? The Ariel Hipercar (the spelling’s correct, it’s a contraction of ‘High Performance Carbon Reduction’) is a 1,180bhp electric car that gets an optional jet engine range extender. Yep, you read that correctly. It exists to charge the 56kWh battery, with drive to the wheels coming solely from up to four electric motors.

Ariel says it’ll be capable of 0-60mph time in sub two seconds, and 0-100mph in under four, while two- or four-wheel drive variants will be available. The jet engine? Optional. A full carbon fibre body and aluminium underpinnings contributes to a targeted weight of under one and a half tonnes and a claimed range of around 150 miles. Batman, where you at?

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Back in 2019 a Spanish company by the name of Hispano Suiza revealed its new electric hyper GT at the Geneva Motor Show. A former maker of luxury automobiles between 1904 and 1946, it was called the Carmena after the current president’s mother.

Radically styled to look like a modern, electrically powered incarnation of Hispano Suiza’s 1920s racers, the two-seat, two-door streamliner boasted 1,005bhp, could see off 0-62mph in 3.0secs, and weighed in at 1,690kg. And it wasn’t just a flashy concept either, with a total of 19 planned for production, some of which have reportedly found their way to owners.

In 2020 it followed up with the lightweight 1,098bhp Carmen Boulogne, which shaved off 50kg, itself followed up in 2024 by the big winged 1,115bhp Carmen Sagrera built to commemorate Hispano Suiza’s 120th anniversary. What comes next… is anyone’s guess.

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The Nio EP9 made headlines back in 2017, when it smashed the Nürburgring lap record with a time of 6mins 45.9secs in the hands of former Le Mans and DTM racer Peter Dumbreck, a record that would last… two months. Still a mighty achievement nonetheless.

And more track records would follow, thanks to one whole megawatt of power, which translates into an astonishing 1,341bhp, enabling 0-124mph in 7.1 seconds – quicker than a Mazda MX-5 will complete 0-62mph – onto a vmax of 195mph. 

In 2018 it made its debut at Goodwood Festival of Speed, recording a 44.32 second time in the hill climb. A total of 16 were built, the first six of which went to Nio investors, before 10 additional EP9s were then made available for sale to the general public. 

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