Exclusive: full details on Ariel's 'P40', capable of 0-100mph in 3.8s

Ariel is building a hypercar. Yes, the company so far known only for its lightweights is making the jump to hyperspace. It’s hard to know where to begin with this, but let’s start with the numbers: 1,180bhp, 1,327lb ft of torque, 0-100mph in 3.8secs (well over a second ahead of a McLaren P1 or Porsche 918), 155mph top speed and a 1,500kg kerbweight.

It’s powered by four electric motors, “each of which delivers the same power as a supercharged Type R motor”, says Ariel boss Simon Saunders, “and they’re tiny, around 330mm in diameter”. But there’s more. Besides a 42kWh battery pack running 680 volts, the car codenamed ‘P40’ sports a radical range extender motor.

It’s a turbine. Jaguar promised it on the C-X75, but now it’s Ariel that looks set to make a turbine range extender a reality before anyone else. The turbine runs at 120,000rpm, delivering 35kw (47bhp) to charge the battery pack.

And that’s not the end of the radical engineering solutions. “The car delivers so much torque and power, the simulations show we could be wheelspinning at 100mph in the dry”, says Saunders. “We need downforce at a standstill basically, so we’re actually looking at using ground effect technology like the Brabham BT46 F1 car, using fans to suck the car to the road.”

The car is a closed cockpit two-seat design, built around a bonded aluminium monocoque with carbon bodywork. The electric motors sit inboard of the wheels, with their power inverters on top. The turbine is mounted above the rear motors and the battery pack runs in an upside-down T shape along the central spine of the car.

On the road Ariel believes that even in fast driving, the turbine will be able to keep pace with all power demands, topping up the batteries beyond the 120-mile range, while the plan for track driving is that the car should be capable of running flat out for 15 minutes before undergoing a 45 minute recharge. Whether it will target lap records is yet to be decided.

Ariel will market a 4WD version first, hopefully as early as 2020, but a 690bhp 2WD car will go on sale as well. As far as cost goes, “it’s likely to start with a two”, Saunders suggests.

The car is not only the work of Ariel, but has been developed in conjunction with Delta Motorsport (who are responsible for the battery pack and management system, turbine and torque vectoring among other things) and Equipmake (electric motor experts looking after the motors, gearbox, power electronics and inverters). Ariel themselves are working on the chassis, suspension, bodywork and aerodynamics.

The joint project is known as ‘Hipercar’ – short for High Performance Carbon Reduction - and is part funded (to the tune of £2 million) by the British government’s Innovate UK foundation.

“Why are we doing this now? Well, if we don’t get involved now we will be left behind, and we will be making antiques in a few years time” says Saunders. “Plus there’s a raft of things that aren’t necessarily pure automotive that this project could help with. And if we can develop this stuff in the UK, keep the IP [intellectual property] in the UK and bring work in, it’s all a good UK news story.”

England-based Ariel got our undivided attention when it announced plans to enter the electrified hypercar segment in 2017. The company hasn’t said much about the aptly-named Hipercar project in the past three years, though it remains ongoing, and it told us it will reveal what it’s accomplished since then by the end of 2020.

"You can expect something later in the year, before the Low Carbon Vehicle Show," a company spokesperson revealed to Autoblog. The annual event is scheduled to open its doors on September 9 in Millbrook, England. It’s where the original Hipercar broke cover as a bare chassis without a body covering its underpinnings.

Sketches released by Ariel in 2017 (pictured) depicted a wide, low-slung supercar with extreme aerodynamic add-ons; it looked nothing like the Atom. An aluminum platform helped keep the powertrain’s weight in check.

“Certain things will have changed,” the spokesperson warned without providing additional details.

For context, the concept unveiled in 2017 used an innovative gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain built around a turbine that sent the electricity it generated to in-wheel motors via a lithium-ion battery pack. Ariel quoted an output of 1,180 horsepower and 1,330 pound-feet of torque when using four motors, or 590 horsepower and 665 pound-feet of torque with two motors (and, consequently, two-wheel drive). The Hipercar was capable of reaching 60 mph from a stop in 2.4 seconds in its quickest configuration, a figure which put it in elite company.

Ariel originally planned to reveal the Hipercar in 2019. The representative we contacted couldn’t shed light on the nature of the delay, though keep in mind we're talking about a small company bringing a stupendously complicated car developed on a blank slate to market. Pricing and availability remain unknown, too, but we expect the British firm will share more information about its next model in the weeks leading up to its unveiling.

This is the Ariel Hipercar, the latest toy from the British sports car company behind the Atom trackday weapon and its Nomad off-road brother, and a vehicle that makes even those two seem vaguely sensible.

Called the Hipercar, though it will get a new name for production, this is Ariel’s first coupe and will be its first fully homologated car when it goes on sale around 18 months from now. But don’t go getting the idea that this is an Atom with a set of doors and a roof, because the reality is much wilder. How wild? Try almost 1,200 hp (1,217 PS) of electric muscle, zero to 100 mph (161 km/h) in just 4.4 seconds, and a gas turbine strapped behind the seats.

Instead of the Atom’s spaceframe chassis, there’s a bonded aluminum tub with detachable subframes and a carbon fiber body structure with butterfly doors. And that bodywork has so many interesting aero add-ons including three vertical fins on the rear end and a multitude of surfaces on the nose that it’s difficult to actually get an idea of the Hipercar’s basic shape.

But what really sets it apart from Ariel’s other cars is what’s going on under the skin. Ariel has had a long association with Honda powertrains in both naturally-aspirated and supercharged forms and even built its own V8 for a while. But for the Hipercar it moves into the electric age.

Each of the four wheels is driven by its own in-board electric motor, each one of those delivering 285 hp (220 kW / 299 PS) and 332 lb-ft (450 Nm). To save you the math that equates to a total of 1,185 hp (1,192 PS) and 1,327 lb-ft (1,800 Nm), which is enough to send the Hipercar to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 2.09 seconds, and accelerate it between 60-120 mph ( 97-193 km/h) in only 3.51 seconds, roughly the time a Bugatti Chiron takes to bridge the same speeds.

Fortunately, the Hipercar features an adjustable traction control system and sticky Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, with the options of even gripper 2R rubber, to help manage all that energy. But if the idea of marshaling 1,185 horses sounds a little too frenzied there’s also the option of a two-wheel drive model that generates a more modest 590 hp (440 kW / 598 PS) and 664 lb-ft (900 Nm).

The Hipercar draws its power from an 800-volt, 62 kWh battery that is good for 150 miles (241 km) of WLTP range, though that’s not the true range, because you need to factor in the optional Cosworth micro-turbine range extender. Weighing less than 110 lbs (50 kg) and generating 47 hp (35 kW / 48 PS), it is smaller and lighter than any combustion-engined alternative, says Ariel, and will eventually be able to run on hydrogen, for full zero-emissions driving.

If there’s a downside to all this new-fangled technology, which includes power-assisted steering and even air conditioning, it’s the weight. An Atom weighs just 1,312 lbs (595 kg), but Ariel says the Hipercar comes in at 3,408 lbs (1,546 kg) in all-wheel drive form. The sheer power of the electric drivetrain more than compensates when it comes to acceleration, but a 260 percent increase in curb weight means this is going to feel very different to an Atom when it comes to turning and braking.

Ariel says the Hipercar will be homologated in Europe and Australia, but it looks like North America might miss out. As for prices, the company isn’t revealing specific figures but told Autocar that it should cost less than £1 million ($840k), meaning it’s not just the performance that is supercar-sized.