Caterham Project V concept previews lightweight electric sports car

Caterham on Thursday revealed an EV that holds true to the light-and-lean formula that some might say is part of what defines a sports car. 

In the age of electric cars, those are serious challenges, and we haven’t seen an electric sports car that’s truly light and doesn’t have a supercar price since the original Tesla Roadster. 

Enter Caterham’s Project V, which measures 167.5 inches long—about a foot longer than the Mazda MX-5 Miata or Tesla Roadster. It’s 74.5 inches wide and rides on a 101.6-inch wheelbase. But above all, its 48.3-inch overall height is perhaps most noteworthy, in this era of challenging skateboard-platform proportions. Based on the layout illustration provided by Caterham, it’s separated the battery into two sections—one just ahead of the passenger cell, one just behind it, but both within the axles. 

Caterham is targeting a weight of just over 2,600 pounds for the project. A battery pack of just 55 kwh and recent gains in energy density made it at least possible on the drawing board. 

The rear-wheel-drive sports car will have just one 200-kw electric motor mounted at the rear axle. The concept runs on a double-wishbone suspension, front and rear, and uses staggered-width Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires biased to the rear. The UK sports-car maker plans a chassis made of carbon fiber and aluminum, plus composite bodywork.

By keeping the car light, what’s seen as modest power today will be plenty to move quickly. Caterham anticipates a 0-62 mph time of less than 4.5 seconds and a top speed around 143 mph. Meanwhile, the modest mass will help with range for this sports car, too—with a targeted 249 miles WLTP, which might figure around 200 miles for those of us who go by the EPA cycle. 

Caterham is targeting a 20-80% charge in 15 minutes, on a 150-kw DC fast-charger. That’s another aspect in which keeping the battery small pays off, with no requirement to seek out the highest-power 350-kw or 400-kw chargers for a quick road-trip stop. 

The car keeps it simple with seating, too, with a 2+1 seating layout standard and 2+2 as optional. That helps allow more comfort and make that one rear position usable, and the company says that it’s exploiting the packaging benefits of an EV. In front, the interface is driver-focused and simple. Caterham promises smartphone mirroring—which to most shoppers means Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. 

If this all sounds like far more detail than a concept car needs, that’s because Caterham emphasizes it’s a lot more than a concept—perhaps in the same way Porsche has seen its Mission E and Mission X concepts. Full engineering and manufacturing feasibility analyses were conducted during the development process, and if the pieces land right a production model could arrive in late 2025 or early 2026, according to the firm. 

The EV would be a global model, according to Caterham, built by Italdesign and created by Caterham’s chief designer Anthony Jannarelly. Caterham would like to sell the production version in the U.S., it told Green Car Reports, but separate crash-test approvals would slot its arrival later than that for the market. 

The electric coupe wouldn’t replace the niche brand’s signature Seven but complement it, said Caterham Cars CEO Bob Lashley in a release about the car ahead of its Thursday debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. 

Caterham’s already deep enough into the project to have a target price for it, too: 80,000 British pounds (about $103,900 at today’s rates).