With a curb weight of under 1,900 pounds, and total electric motor output of 430 horsepower and 563 lb-ft (to all four wheels), the Aspark Owl—developed by a mysterious Japanese company that, as far as I can tell, is primarily a technical consulting firm—promises an absurd zero to 60 time of two seconds. Flat.
I saw the Aspark Owl tucked away in a corner of the Frankfurt Motor Show today, and I’ll say right away: it’s sexy. Sadly, the person manning the booth couldn’t tell me a whole hell of a lot about the low-slung (it’s only 39 inches tall!) silver beauty.
But I did a bit of digging on the company’s website, and learned that the Owl has been under development by the Aspark Co. Ltd. R&D Division since the spring of 2014, with the aim to produce “the world’s fastest accelerating electric car.”
To get there, the team apparently seems to be prioritizing weight over range, as the car only promises 93 miles of total driving distance per charge. Between the resulting light curb weight, a 4.44 final-drive ratio, and enormously wide tires to take all that torque (275 section fronts and 335s out back), the recipe for success seems like it might be there.
And in case this all seems like just theory, have a look at this article from Japanese blog Gigazine. It includes copious photos showing the car undergoing development testing. Based on the pictures, it appears the Owl’s structure consists of some sort of space frame wrapped in a carbon fiber body.
Aspark says that body only weighs 110 pounds, leaving the remaining 1,790 pounds to the chassis, powertrain and drivetrain.
Also in that link are a bunch of videos showing the prototype ripping a few acceleration runs. Here’s a look at one of them:
So yes, a random Japanese company appears to be building a lightweight electric sports car, and plans to make it the quickest one in the world.
The whole thing seems awfully ambitious for a company building its first car, but there’s nothing wrong with coming out of the gate strong, I guess.