Meet the TEEWAVE AR.1, a one-off, two-seat electric sports car designed by Gordon Murray’s design company. The car, which weighs just 1878 pounds, has been designed by Murray for Toray Industries, a Japanese company that specializes in carbon fiber and lightweight material production. As such, the small roadster’s all-new monocoque chassis, crash structures, seats, and body are all rendered in Toray-sourced carbon fiber. The TEEWAVE isn’t simply a T.25 city car with a different body style—that car and the similar electric T.27 utilize steel chassis and plastic body panels.
In addition to the low weight figure, the rest of the TEEWAVE’s chassis specs say “sports car.” The car rides on coil-sprung double wishbones at all four corners, and there are anti-roll bars front and rear. Steering inputs are made through an unassisted rack and pinion setup, and stopping duties are handled by electrically assisted disc brakes. The two-seater has traces of Tesla roadster and Pagani Zonda in its look, but its buggy head- and taillights and tallish proportions set it apart. The AR.1 is also smaller than the Tesla, in addition to weighing about 900 fewer pounds than that EV.
The TEEWAVE’s performance specs, on the other hand, say “wheezing economy car.” Despite the roadster’s light weight, Murray and Toray claim only a 11.4-second 0-to-60 time and a 91-mph top speed. The AR.1 is held back by its mid-mounted 63-hp electric motor, which is said to be sourced from a “commercially available” EV. The motor is fed by a lithium-ion battery pack that can be fully charged in six hours and gives the car a range of 115 miles. There are no plans to put the TEEWAVE AR.1 into production at the moment—Toray had the concept built to showcase the advantages and possibilities of lightweight materials in automotive applications.
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