Why Does The 1180bhp Ariel Hipercar EV Have An Exhaust?

Ariel, the small UK company known for its missile-fast Atom sports car and its hilarious Nomad off-roader, has decided to take on the big-boy supercars with its new near-1200bhp Hipercar. It’s not finished yet, but this is a good indication of what the car will look like and how it’ll perform.

And what does it look like? We’ll leave you to decide whether it’s attractive or not, but there are some dystopian metropolis vibes to its unusual design. Not to mention the bizarre photo of it in front of a scrapheap. Like the Rodin FZero and McMurtry Spierling, it wouldn’t look out of place on the streets of Gotham City.

If you’re wondering why it’s spelt ‘Hipercar’, Ariel says it actually stands for ‘High Performance Carbon Reduction’. With its carbon fibre body and immense power figure, the brand is set to take on the hypercar elite.

The Hipercar will be available in either two or four-wheel-drive. The dual motor version will be capable of 590bhp and 664lb ft of torque, but the most powerful quad motor variant will have 1180bhp and 1327lb ft, which seems appropriately punchy. It’s capable of 150 miles of range on a single charge, so we’re told.

At first glance with its gullwing doors up, the Hipercar looks like a corrupted McLaren-Mercedes SLR. Sharp angles and gashes in the front bodywork, combined with piercing headlights and shark-like fins, give it a seriously mean look.

The rear of the Hipercar is just as evil with three fins designed to aggressively slice through the air, a massive rear diffuser and rear lights that looked like they were plucked directly from the Terminator’s face. Slightly confusingly, though, in the centre above a set of four cooling fans there’s what appears to be a large exhaust despite the fact the car is fully electric…

That’s because there’s also the option of a Cosworth turbine range extender which can generate up to 35kW of power to charge the batteries on the move. It runs on petrol or ‘other fuels’ according to Ariel – irradiated water or perhaps the blood of its enemies? Ariel also says this makes the vehicle ‘independent of any charging infrastructure’ – presumably this will have been obliterated at the turn of judgment day.

The Hipercar’s interior is yet to be finished, so we haven’t seen pictures yet, but Ariel says it’ll accommodate two tall adults comfortably, and will make extensive use of physical buttons and steering wheel controls as opposed to virtual ones.

Ariel has been quite vague about pricing, stating that the Hipercar will cost under £1 million (including taxes). Although the Ariel Hipercar looks like it was conceived in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, there’s no word yet on whether the company will be taking payments in bottle caps…