By Dean Larson

Photos: Screenshots, YouTube

The kit car and replica vehicle industry has always been one of the most promising areas in the evolution of electric vehicles. Before Tesla’s entry into the market in 2008, the majority of EVs available to consumers were soulless econoboxes, and that’s still not too far from the truth today. But replica vehicles usually have a sexy, performance-centered image, and their mechanical simplicity and light weight leads to winning combination when paired with modern EV components. So in the realm of affordable and exciting EVs, kits and replicas will probably be a developing market in the coming years. So it comes as no surprise that Superformance is looking for a piece of the action, and they’ve announced the development of the new MKIII E in a recent newsletter.

Details are slim on the project at this time, as the company has only put out a 30 second teaser video, but from it we can see that some sort of drivable prototype has been built. In the short clip the MKIII E drives silently along with only the sound of dirt under the grippy rubber and some slight electric motor whine. The following caption is included on Superformance’s YouTube link:

Still in the development and testing stages, our Superformance MKIII E will accelerate our customers into the new auto era of electric car propulsion where performance will not be a compromise.

It’s difficult to come up with performance expectations for a car like this one with so many unknowns, but we’d expect to see something in the neighborhood of a 4 second 0-60 mph time or better. For range, anything around a couple hundred miles would be a solid start. We’re not expecting Tesla levels of refinement at this point, but the lightweight Superformance Cobra should lend itself to good EV performance.

EV stigma aside, Superformance could have a winner on its hands with the alternative energy crowd, and if nothing else, it’s nice to see some variety in the EV market.