In a show of sheer engineering talent, after the American Tesla Roadster it time to be wooed by Britain’s Lightning GT electric sports car. The prototype of this one is expected to hit the streets by this year end. The Lightning’s power figures read 700 horsepower, and 4 second 0-60mph times rivaling Tesla’s 3.7 seconds. With battery technology advancing so quickly, it’s hard not to be bullish about the prospects of electric motoring as a serious alternative to the combustion engine. The battery has always been the limiting factor with electric vehicles; they’ve traditionally been too heavy, too large, too expensive. They took too long to charge, they didn’t offer a good enough charge range, and some of the better-performing Lithium variants were prone to dangerous overheating spirals that threatened driver and passenger safety.

Lightning GT is an exciting electric car with good looks to match, with nifty regenerative braking; this electric car uses a selection of Nanosafe batteries, by Altairnano. These batteries replace the graphite structures within the traditional lithium-ion cell with nano-engineered titanate materials which are much more effective along several axes. The stronger nanostructures resist breakdown over time far better than graphite, leading to a greatly increased life expectancy of more than 15,000 charge cycles before the cell drops below 85% of its original capacity.