DS Automobiles seems to be investing heavily in EVs. From 2024, every new DS Automobiles design will be only 100 per cent electric. The French company was an early entrant into Formula E, the battery powered, single-seater series with world championship status. Today DS Automobiles pulled the wraps off its E-Tense Performance concept car with strong links to its racing activities. This low-slung concept could showcase an upcoming production model. 

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High-tech and powerful

The E-Tense Performance concept car boasts a carbon monocoque with the drivetrain taken directly from a Formula E single seater. Under that slinky shape are two electric motors that provide a combined power output of 600 kW (250 kW at the front and 350 kW on the rear axle). Peak torque is rated as 8 000 N.m at the wheels. 

Formula E will be coming to South Africa in 2023, as you can read here.

The cockpit features a pair of bucket seats and a Formula E steering wheel. This isn’t some static display model, it has been designed to be driven and to gather data while doing so. The E-Tense Performance concept will be tested by Jean-Éric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa. Both Formula E champions, will take turns at the wheel of the prototype to finalise its development, before beginning tests on tracks and open roads. 

In his own words

“Our objective is to apply the experience acquired in Formula E and the expertise that we’ve taken from our international titles to a project which predicts the high-performance electric car of tomorrow. It is a laboratory that we will use to analyse the behaviour of components and to develop them with a view to future manufacturing. The idea is also to find solutions to lower costs, make them easier to manufacture and explore implementations in production models. The next generations of the E-Tense range will benefit from these developments,” Thomas Chevaucher, DS performance director.