Sri Lanka's Vega is a 900 hp all-electric supercar
When it comes to electric vehicles, perhaps Tesla is the name that most often pops up in conversations. In fact, when it comes to cars in general, majority of the names and brands are located in the West, with a few notable exceptions. Sri Lanka, however, doesn't want to simply accept the status quo and wants to prove that the tiny South Asian nation can also innovate and deliver in that field. And this Vega luxury sports car may very well be the proof that it needs.
The Vega falls squarely in the category of a supercar, with a 3.5-second record from 0 to 60 mph. It has dual electric motors that drive the rear wheels and deliver a 900 horsepower figure with a torque of 530 lb-ft. You'd think that with the components needed to power this vehicle, especially the lithium-ion batteries, the Vega would weigh a ton, and yet it only clocks at 3,000 lbs thanks to carbon fiber materials. And if its engineering team gets it right, it will boast of a range of 150 miles and speeds of up to 150 mph.
While those numbers might be impressive by themselves, what's even more impressive is that this is coming from a country not exactly known for technology, let alone electric supercars. At the same time, Sri Lanka is trying to show itself in a new light, one that is making great progress in big strides over little time. The country was the first in the region to adopt mobile broadband and has seen its cellular users population grow more than five times from 2005 to 2010. It wants the world to see that it is a country with a lot of promise, and what better way to prove that than with a high-end, high tech, electric supercar.
The Vega does have some clout when it comes to the people behind it. It was conceptualized by Harsha Subasinghe, CEO of travel software makers CodeGen, who has also funneled more than $500,000 into the project. The Project Manager for this rather ambitious endeavor is Beshan Kulapala, an electrical engineering Ph.D. who had a 13-year stint at Intel.
Of course, creating one Vega is one thing. Producing a whole fleet of them for sale is a completely different story. Sri Lanka still doesn't have the manufacturing and the experience in this area. But Kulapala is confident that, with the help of the Internet, they can quickly learn the needed knowledge to make it happen. And if Sri Lanka stays on its track, it might indeed surprise us in just a few years' time.
SOURCE: BBC