Tesla isn’t even close to putting its recently revealed Tesla Roadster into production and yet there’s already a wave of companies trying to outpace it. On one end, you have Rimac, with a more traditional electric road car, and now on the other end there’s this Taiwanese company called Xing with a cute little off-road thing.
Xing has been touting what can be loosely considered a Tesla Roadster competitor since November, but I only caught on today after the company released more information following some initial testing. It seems like they’re going for a happy mix of Audi Quattro and Tesla.
The upcoming Xing Miss R is described by the Taiwanese automaker as a “rally-inspired supercar,” and is based on the company’s modular electric car platform. Xing claims the car utilises a battery pack that offers one megawatt of power, which would translate to approximately 1,340 horsepower. That seems like a lot.
Xing also claims that the massive power output paired with four 350V motors is good enough to get the Miss R from zero to 62 mph in around 1.8 seconds, and to 125 mph in 5.1 seconds.
Compare that to Tesla’s Roadster pre-production claims of hitting a zero to 60 mph time of 1.9 seconds, and the Rimac C Two’s claimed zero to 60 mph time of 1.85 seconds. It’s going to take some incredible tire engineering to get any of these cars to peak performance claims, but we’ll see what happens.
The car’s battery is a 52 kWh lithium-ion pack, and the company plans to engineer a way to swap out the battery in around five minutes – a concept Tesla once teased and subsequently abandoned. Xing’s intentions for battery swapping are more motorsports oriented, rather than for consumer convenience, though.
The Miss R is said to be designed for both on-and-off-road performance, and the company’s latest testing was a simple “shakedown” at tame speeds over various surfaces, with a full-performance test promised to be conducted sometime soon.
The company is also developing an electric light-duty commercial truck concept nicknamed “Mr. T” which also showcases the modular battery powertrain technology. The company hopes to partner with other automakers looking to outsource electrification of their lineups.
Despite the gnarly Ariel-like bare structure design of the current prototype of the Miss R, the company says the bodywork is still temporary and will be updated in the future.
I think I’m going to sit back and wait for more updates on the Miss R before buying into their claimed performance figures, but I’m excited to see the results of their upcoming performance tests. It’s nice to know that somebody, somewhere is keeping the rally and off-road enthusiasts in mind when working on their EV technology.
Via AutoGuide