Koenigsegg Looking to the Future
Koenigsegg recently sold 20 percent of the company to National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) for about $171 million. In case you don’t know, NEVS is a Swedish-Chinese company that also owns the rights to Saab. Now, it seems the two companies will debut an “affordable” supercar in 2020.
Top Gear reported that the new supercar will cost around €1 million (about $1,144,000). The slightly less expensive supercar will allow Koenigsegg to sell hundreds of cars as opposed to dozens annually. That’s where NEVS comes into the picture. According to Christian von Koenigsegg, the CEO of Koenigsegg, the car will be C02 neutral thanks to the company’s camless combustion engine design and hybrid technology.
“Given the freevalve technology, we can actually cold-start the car on pure alcohol, down to -30 degrees Celsius, so there’s no need for any fossil fuel mix then. The idea is to prove to the world that even a combustion engine can be completely CO2 neutral,” said Koenigsegg.
Koenigsegg said the new supercars will look similar to the hypercars the company is known for. However, he also said the cars will have a sense of style all their own. It will be interesting to see what the company comes up with. It may have elements of the Regera (pictured above) but it may take after the company’s other cars, too.
The CEO said the reason the car company plans to try to develop a C02 neutral hybrid powertrain is that everyone else is going fully-electric and there could be a battery cell shortage in the future. With this new hybrid design, it would make a lightweight powertrain with a small battery pack. That could help the company when there’s a shortage of battery cells to go around to all automakers producing EVs.
