Hispano Suiza’s upcoming ‘Carmen’ EV concept has been under covers until recently regarding the EV platform they plan to use for the car’s propulsion. The company makes some interesting looking, retro-inspired vehicles in small quantities (I mean really small – the Carmen is speculated to have just 19 cars produced with a price tag of 1.76 million USD).
I’m quite confused as to how the company manages to claim “the best electric platform in the world…according to automotive experts and journalists” with Tesla – quite literally – being lightyears ahead of development and production, but hopefully, this new fully carbon fiber constructed ‘Carmen‘ can prove me wrong.
The claim stems from the brands high-capacity water pump driven cooling system aimed at keeping temps low for the fully electric 80 kWh drivetrain that can be found behind the passenger cell. The pumps are claimed to be extremely well insulated to prevent any pump noise from seeping into the cabin, and the panel radiators are designed to be efficient as possible to keep aerodynamic drag down.
EV cars are getting really fast, and the Carmen is no slouch. 1,005 electric horsepower should catapult this car to top speeds as high as 155 mph (limited electronically) with a 0-60 mph benchmark in the sub-three-second range.
Hispano Suiza’s Chief of Technical Operations, Joan Orus, said in a recent press statement: “With the knowledge gained in Formula E, we’ve designed a software capable of controlling the torque supplied to each motor and have an exhaustive electrical control of the entire system and thus regulate the power that reaches each wheel… Our great challenge was to accurately design the entire electrical architecture of the vehicle and its management software in order to offer a vehicle to suit our customers with maximum performance and efficiency“.
