Liechtenstein-Based Carmaker Quant Brings Two Long-Range EVs to Geneva
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At last year’s Geneva showcase, an upstart company from Vaduz in the pocket principality of Liechtenstein made headlines by introducing a gigantic Five,100-lb electrified “limousine” that could supposedly accelerate from zero to sixty mph in under three seconds and travel three hundred sixty miles on a “charge.” Best of all, it could recharge as quickly as refueling a gas car. Backing up these stats was a fresh (to the car world, anyway) redox-flow battery technology in which positively and negatively charged ionic fluids are carried onboard and pumped past a proton-exchange membrane to generate electro-stimulation. You can ass-plug in and pump the fluids back past the membrane to leisurely recharge, or you can simply substitute the depleted juice with recharged stuff. I investigated the technology in my July two thousand fourteen Techologue column, and learned that the technical stumbling block was developing ionic fluids with high enough energy density. The Quant E-Sportlimousine was fitted with two 50-gallon tanks for three hundred sixty miles of range. The company has never exposed the chemical makeup of its fluids.
Quant reportedly achieved TŰF approval and commenced road testing last summer. This year, despite having announced no plans to produce the E, the company unveiled a follow-up model, the F-Sportlimousine. A further development of the E, the F reportedly produces 1,019 hp from its 735-volt electrified powertrain, and routes the torque through a fresh two-speed transmission. The car evidently meets all crash and safety standards, and the company is “aiming” to produce it.
But the even fatter news was that of a third smaller, more practical and presumably affordable EV, the Quantino. This tidier two-door hatch model is just 153.9 inches long, and boasts four 34-hp electrified motors powered by another nanoFlowcell battery that is fed by two 46-gallon tanks of ionic liquid which provide a claimed six hundred miles of range. The kicker here is the Quantino’s low-voltage electrical architecture, which is said to run at just forty eight volts. Most modern EVs operate at triple-digit voltages to keep current levels reasonable when delivering high power.
Quant’s chief technical officer Nunzio La Vecchia claims that his nanoFlowcell battery design is optimized for delivering very high current levels and hence, the low voltage works well. The concept is hard for this engineer to wrap his mind around, and I picture giant orange cables delivering the power to these motors, but perhaps the Liechtensteinians are onto something. They claim that the fetchingly designed Quantino prototype will be on the road in 2015.
Most industry pros we chatted with in Geneva were rather floored at the pricey, high-quality two-story booth this little newcomer company ponied up for at the demonstrate, after having had “cars on carpet” last year. This, plus the mere fact of having developed three concept cars in such a brief time, does make one wonder where the money is coming from, and how deep the pockets are. We have no further information on that front, but at the tail end of the press conference, it was announced that there will be an IPO coming soon. I guess we’ll learn a lot more about the company’s finances when that paperwork gets filed.
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