Vehicle electrification continues to ease and inspire new entries in the world for automakers, many of which are focusing on big-buck supercars and hypercars to help jump start their businesses. One of the latest is Northern California-based Elation Hypercars. After six years of secretive development, the startup automaker has launched as a producer “of the first purist, luxury, electric hypercar handmade in America.”
The reference to American not only refers to its home base in the U.S. but also to Argentina, where development of the Freedom began.
At the heart of the company is the passion and the creative force of cofounders Carlos Satulovsky, CEO, and Mauro Saravia, CTO and CMO. In 2014, Satulovsky proposed that he and Saravia should meld their talents to build a car that could embody a shared passion. At that time, designer Pablo Barragan joined the Elation team.
“It was our dream to assemble a team of highly qualified passionate individuals to develop an automotive masterpiece which captures the feelings of great happiness and exhilaration: elation,” said Satulovsky.
Freedom is born
Inspired by decades of shared experience piloting aircraft and building championship winning race cars, and backed by an expert team of world class automotive engineers, they have developed “the first hypercar of its kind.” Called the Elation Freedom, it is built for speed, an exhilarating driving experience, and luxury.
To do this, the company employed the brightest minds from an unlikely place—the Argentinean racing industry. However, Elation Hypercars engineers have worked in Formula One, Le Mans, and other European racing series.
“By dovetailing the worlds of high-performance motorsport with luxury, we have developed a purely emotional driving experience,” said Satulovsky. “The goal of the Elation Freedom is to deliver just that.”
The team wanted to strike a balance between opulent luxury and a driver-focused experience—from fine leathers to Italian carbon-fibers. The Freedom incorporates key elements of luxury—space, line, form, light, and texture—along with a focus on aerodynamic contouring in the development process. Rear wing variable pitch active aerodynamics.
Spurred on by a design philosophy heavily influenced by racing, the Elation engineering team focused on making the Freedom as lightweight as possible. They designed the Freedom’s safety structures with advanced composite materials to ensure that our car exceeds the safety standards of both the U.S. Department of Transportation and Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile—the latter the highest authority in global motorsports.
The structures were subjected to digital load, vibration, and impact absorption studies followed by rigorous physical tests to verify the digital findings. The resulting carbon-fiber monocoque chassis achieves an impressive 65,000-N·m (47,940 lb·ft)/degree torsion rigidity and has a mass of only about 180 lb (82 kg).
The car is 4495 mm (177.0 in) long, 2000 mm (78.7 in) wide, and 1055 mm (41.5 in) tall on a 2700-mm (106.3-in) wheelbase. Its 1650-kg (3637-lb) curb mass is distributed 45% front and 55% rear.
Electrification development
Elation Hypercars’ leadership believes that engineering and building an automobile in-house produces a more cohesive design, so they established Elation Technologies as the innovations division. However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t major technical collaboration with external partners.
The Freedom’s high-performance electric-drive system was developed in partnership with Cascadia Motion LLC—a company formed by BorgWarner from its 2019 merging of acquisitions Rinehart Motion Systems and AM Racing. In acquiring the two Oregon-based businesses, BorgWarner recognized that the demand for electric and hybrid propulsion systems was growing rapidly and going beyond mainstream passenger and commercial vehicles.
“Rinehart Motion Systems and AM Racing are two established companies in the specialty electric and hybrid propulsion sector,” said Hakan Yilmaz, Chief Technology Officer, BorgWarner, at the time. (Yilmaz has since moved on to become CTO of Honeywell Aerospace.) “Bringing them together as Cascadia Motion will allow us to offer design, development, and production of full electric and hybrid propulsion systems for niche and low-volume manufacturing applications.”
Cascadia Motion is leveraging the proficiencies of both companies in a startup atmosphere designed to incubate new technologies. Rinehart Motion Systems has expertise in propulsion inverters and controls for electric and hybrid electric vehicles. AM Racing designs and manufactures single- and dual-core electric motors and gearsets. Both have served professional motorsports, motorcycles, specialty road cars, bus, and heavy-duty sectors.
Elation Hypercars is capitalizing on Cascadia Motion’s over 40 years of experience designing electric motor technology, including for Formula E and kinetic energy recovery systems for Formula One.
The energy and power
The Freedom’s standard 100-kW·h T-shaped structural battery pack enables a 300 mi (482 km) range extendable to 400 mi (644 km) with a 120-kW·h battery pack upgrade. The 1000-V dc systems use lithium-manganese-nickel batteries, with CCS (Combined Charging System) fast and J1772 charge options. The packs are strategically located to keep an extremely low center of gravity to enhance stability.
In “base” configuration, its three liquid-cooled, permanent magnet synchronous (PMSM) electric motors produce greater than 1 MW—press materials list 1427 hp (1064 kW)—and 1440 N·m (1062 lb·ft) shaft torque. For customers thinking that’s not enough, they can specify four motors that produce up to 1.4 MW (1877 hp)—press materials say 1903 hp. Performance targets are acceleration from 0 to 62 mph (100 km/h) in less than 1.8 s, and maximum speed is electronically limited to 260 mph (418 km/h).
The Freedom uses two proprietary Elation Technology gearboxes coupled with a dynamic all-wheel-drive torque-vectoring system. Engineers chose a front-axle one-speed gearbox and rear-axle two-speed gearbox combination to “offer unencumbered acceleration at all speed ranges.” The combination of proprietary gearbox and torque-vectoring system enabled engineers in base configuration to use three rather than four motors to achieve a significant weight advantage over other electric hypercars.
The meticulous attention to weight reduction enabled a delicate engineering equilibrium and the vehicle’s proprietary suspension system. The Formula One-inspired front and rear double-wishbone, upright, pushrod suspension was designed and produced in-house by the Elation Technology team for maximum contact patch grip performance. Each component was built with design in mind—to be both stunning to look at and flawlessly functional.
Dynamic driving modes, with electrohydraulic active ride height and damping control, enable 100-mm (3.9 in) ground in the normal setting and 50 mm (2.0 in) in race mode. Ohlins provides the adjustable dampers specially developed for Elation Hypercars. Michelin supplies the Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires, with 285/35ZR-20 up front and 345/30ZR-20 in the rear. The brakes are Brembo CCM-R Carbon-Ceramic disc units with six-piston front and four-piston rear calipers.
Maximum lateral acceleration is more than 2.0 g.
2022 market anticipation
A Freedom driver directs all this power from a fighter-jet inspired wraparound cockpit that is promised to be a place to be experienced. With a mix of precious metals, spectacular gemstones, and full-grain leathers, the company’s jewelers and upholsterers will work closely with Elation collectors to customize their Freedom—making each one an “expressive work of art.” The company believes that cars lose their soul without a pilot behind the wheel, so you won’t find much in the way of autonomous or driver assistance in the Freedom.
The base price for the Elation Freedom electric vehicle when it hits the market in 2022 is expected at around $2.0 million.
In an interesting twist, Elation Hypercars has developed a Freedom variant known as the Iconic Collection to honor “the long, storied history of the internal combustion engine.” Base price for that ICE version, which is slower but lighter, is $2.3 million. The extremely low-volume version features a 5.2-L V10 FSI gasoline engine with a dual-clutch, seven-speed S-tronic transmission, and all-wheel-drive configuration. Outputs of 750 hp (559 kW) and 490 lb·ft (664 N·m) allows the 2850-lb (1293-kg) car to accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 2.5 s and max out at an electronically limited 240 mph (386 km/h).
VIP customers are now being offered online allocation reservations for the Freedom. Leasing is being done through Luxury Lease Partners LLC, but announcements on exclusive dealres are coming soon.
For additional information, visit Elation Hypercars.
