Italian-US EV start-up Aehra will launch its £155,430 SUV in early 2025, with on-road testing of development cars scheduled to get under way as soon as the end of this year.
The radically styled ‘SUV’ (its official name) is conceived as a performance-oriented and luxury-flavoured rival to top-rung SUVs like the Lotus Eletre and BMW iX, and will be followed a few months after launch by a similarly conceived and technically related saloon model to rival the Porsche Taycan.
Speaking to Autocar as Aehra revealed ex-Ferrari and Lotus engineer Franco Cametti would lead engineering development of the two cars, company boss Hazim Nada confirmed testing of the first prototype is “targeted towards the end of 2023”.
The confirmation comes as a sign that Aehra’s plan to begin production of the two cars in just two years is on track. Using ‘off-the-shelf’ components for the bulk of the platform and drivetrain will rapidly accelerate traditional development timeframes, Nada explained, and the testing process will be more about fine-tuning the supplied parts to work together cohesively – and competitively.
“We could have already commissioned a a prototype using currently off-the-shelf subcomponents, but we thought it was a waste of resources and time,” he told Autocar. “People do that mainly for fundraising purposes, to raise their profile. We think we already have something that’s attracting a lot of attention. We don’t see that need to do a prototype and then redo another prototype with all different subcomponents and rebuild the engineering resources.”
Aehra’s development plans have been detailed not long after the company revealed the interior of its debut model for the first time, touting a ‘home-theatre’ mode that turns the car into an automotive cinema.
This is made possible by a full-dashboard-width monitor – similar to the BMW’s top-rung iDrive system – that extends upwards to cover the entire windscreen when the car is parked up.
Other configurations of the near-800bhp car’s interior, shown here for the first time, include lounge and meeting room modes. All are only available to be used when the car is parked.
These interior features are made possible by the SUV’s 3m-long monobody chassis and short overhangs, which allows the car to focus on maximising interior space: it is big enough to carry four NBA basketball players – who average at just under seven-foot tall – “in comfort”.