Using a novel setup with quad motors and a battery pack working with supercapacitors, the Fulminea even has decent driving range.
We have seen some wild claims and six-figure prices by hypercar manufacturers, neither of which makes Automobili Estrema’s Fulminea unique among them. It’s how the automaker plans to make the Fulminea deliver a sub-10 second 200 mph run and 2,040 hp with its four-motor AWD system. Rather than just rely on a huge bank of battery cells to create its 100 kWh capacity, it’s going to rely on a mix of batteries and ultracapacitors to make a “hybrid” battery pack.
To make those ultracapacitors play nice with the batteries, the all-electric hypercar maker gets a Battery Management System (BMS) from Electra Vehicle called EVE-Ai. Electra claims that EVE-Ai—which is an acronym for “Energy storage Vehicle Environment Artificial Intelligence”—is capable of controlling not only the charging but also how the ultracapacitors and lithium batteries work together as their AI controlled BMS can work with dual chemistry storage packs and isn’t limited to just one type of cell chemistry.
Electra also claims the EVE-Ai can optimize for speedy charging by using a “dynamic thermal charging strategy” to “allow for fast charging with limited State of Health (SoH) impact.” It also can predict the owner’s charging habits and adjust charging through its Overnight Charging Optimization. With all of these utilizations and using the hybrid battery pack, Automobili Estrema claims the Fulminea will have a range of over 325 miles and will be able to charge from 10 percent State of Charge (SoC) to 80 percent in less than 15 minutes. Doing some rough calculations (by holding to a 15 minute time, a 100 kWh capacity, and 325 mile range), that’s nearly a 300 kW rate or about 15 miles of range per minute. Until we get exact numbers from an actual test, we can’t say for certain that these will be the Fulmineas DC charge rates, but it does make it sound more realistic versus other “solid-state EV hypercars.”
Automobili Estrema claims that this pack not only has a 100 kWh capacity, but will also have an energy density of around 227 Wh/lbs thanks to weighing only 661.39 pounds. The whole car—with the battery pack installed—will also only weigh around 3,300 pounds, meaning the battery is only about 20 percent of the Fulminea’s total weight. The rest? Each wheel will be driven by a single motor, much like the Rivian R1T is, the quad-motor setup results in 2,040 hp, so Automobili Estrema claims the all-electric hypercar will hit 200 mph in less than 10 seconds.
Automobili Estrema says that the initial production has begun and it will only produce 61 copies of the Fulminea. If you’re looking to purchase one for yourself, it’s going to cost you 1,961,000 Euros or about $2,116,243 with the exchange rate at the time of publication.
