Taiwan already reckons it’s got a Tesla-killing electric supercar

Well, that didn’t take long. Only a week after Elon Musk shocked the car world by revealing plans for a 250mph+, 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds Tesla Roadster, the rivals are popping up. And claiming to be even faster. This Caterham/Lamborghini lovechild is the product of a Taiwanese outfit called Xing Mobility. It’s called – no kidding – ‘Miss R’. What the ‘R’ stands for, we’ll leave up for debate. Rapid? Racer? Ridiculous?

Electric motors at all four wheels purport to develop a combined 1,341 horsepower. One megawatt, in other terms. While Tesla hasn’t offered new Roadster power figures for comparison, the Miss R does indeed claim to be faster. Elon says the Tesla will be the world’s quickest acceleration road car, capable of 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds. Xing Mobility say Miss R gets it done in 1.8 seconds.

Xing also touts a 0-124mph run in 5.1 seconds – an entire second quicker than the daddy of all pub fact benchmarks, the Bugatti Chiron. Again, there’s no exact Tesla comparison, but given the new Roadster is supposedly good for 0-100mph in 4.1 seconds, surely it won’t need a whole extra second to add another measly 24mph? Not when the top speed is set at over 250mph…

Of course, neither of these cars is in production yet, and won’t be for several years (if ever). But isn’t it interesting that no sooner has the world’s most famous electric car brand attempted to rewrite The Big Book Of Fast Car Rules, the young pretenders arm themselves with renders and try to topple it…

Range is where the Xing properly loses out to the Tesla’s claims. Compared with the American car’s target of 620 miles on a charge, Xing says Miss R will last for 155 miles on its 52kWh lithium-ion battery, using the same cells as Tesla uses in its current four-door cars. 

Then again, Xing says it wants Miss R to be the world’s first electric supercar with off-road ability, thanks to adjustable magnetic-ride suspension and the outboard wheel layout. See, there’s a niche for just about everything. Not even Elon Musk thought of that.