Jaguar desperately needs a BMW 3-series fighter priced
between $30,000 and $40,000. While we continue to wait for that rumored
announcement, Jaguar is using the très chic Paris
auto show to unveil an eleventy-billion-dollar, two-seat,
twin-turbine, quad-electric-motor-powered 205-mph slingshot that should be in
production in about, oh, never. Cue theStar Wars theme. Did we mention
that there was British government agency money involved in this project?
The C-X75 is at heart a research project designed to fuse
aerospace and automotive technologies. The car was developed over a nine-month
span and paid for by Jag, while the powertrain springs from a joint project
with the British government–sponsored Technology Strategy Board. On the most
basic level, the car’s complex powertrain is a range-extending hybrid that
operates roughly like the Chevrolet Volt's. In the Jag, a 19-kWh, 330-pound cache of
lithium-ion batteries provides up to 68 miles of pure-electric AWD propulsion
from four 195-hp electric motors. Mounted inboard, each drives a single wheel
through a 3:1 gear reduction, and together create a claimed 1180 lb-ft of
torque. (Four electric motors? Maybe Jaguar should have called it the XJ440.)
When the battery pack is exhausted, two miniature gas
turbines weighing 77 pounds each and making 94 hp at 80,000 rpm provide
recharging power and also can boost the electric-motor output when high
performance is required. The turbines, made by the English company Bladon Jets
and housed in a box behind the two seats with inlet air channeled through ducts
around the occupant’s heads, extend the range to 560 miles.
Jag is claiming 0-to-62-mph times of 3.4 seconds for the
3000-pound C-X75, about as quick as a Ferrari 458 Italia, with the quarter-mile
accomplished in 10.3 seconds at 156 mph. Under hard acceleration, its runs
solely on electricity to 60 mph, then one turbine kicks in to assist up to 120
mph. Beyond that, both turbines assist the C-X75 to its top speed. All of this
is theoretical, since nobody has driven this machine at a speed faster than a
crawl. The brakes are from the supercharged XFR sedan, though, so the
5-to-0-mph stops are surely furious.
Either way, it’s a stunning, road-sucking, mid-engined
machine that looks like a windblown sliver of mercury, yet another attractive
opus from the Jaguar design shop run by Ian Callum. Befitting Jaguar, the
chassis is an aluminum spaceframe. The outer panels are fiberglass. A moveable
airfoil on the underbody Venturi tunnel directs airflow according to the car’s
speed, while the turbines’ hot exhaust gasses flow through vectored nozzles to
increase downforce. Also, the grille and brake-cooling ducts seal themselves
when not needed.
Inside is a nearly all-glass cockpit consisting of high-res
LCD touch screens for gauges and information displays and electroluminescent
lighting.
source: http://www.caranddriver.com/news/jaguar-c-x75-concept-auto-showsby Aaron Robinson
http://www.boscheuropean.com
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