What’s the best electric car for the super rich? – Top Gear

Lots of us pore over intricately assembled spreadsheets when it comes to a new car – even more so with the switch to electric. Juggling the slightly higher list price with the lower consumption, trying to work out which option offers the best blend of everyday practicality, good value and decent range. 

There’s an elite group of people out there who don’t need to bother with any of that. If you’re filthy stinking Scrooge McDuck-going-for-a-swim rich then the world truly is your freshly steamed oyster. You don’t even need to worry about going electric, you could probably just pay people to place newly charged motor vehicles along your route and swap into them like Victorian stagecoach horses, or perhaps even just take the helicopter and land it in a supermarket car park in a disabled space. 

But for those who like their consumption conspicuous – you know, the ginormo-yacht ordering, Monaco-lingering, open-shirted-no-socks types – they might want something a little grander, something that makes a statement. It’s not so much about saving the planet as aggressively parading how much you can afford not to care. 

There are options – you could get yourself the Lotus Evija if you wanted something expensive and British, the Rimac Nevera if you wanted something expensive and Croatian, or even the Pininfarina Battista if you wanted something expensive and sort-of-Italian-but-actually-German-and-a-bit-Croatian. Actually, if you were super mega rich you could get one of each and have people helicopter them to strategic locations along your route and swap into them like Victorian stagecoach horses. 

There’s one particularly exotic electric hyperstar that really stands out, though. It’s rare, but not in the will-this-company-still-exist-for-my-first-service sort of way. It also comes from one of the many start-ups that have revealed electric hypercar concepts and got them to market since well after Elon Musk first revealed his new Tesla Roadster and before it has ever got to market. So that’s got to be worth something, getting one over the recently Texan EV manufacturer. 

The Aspark Owl went into production in 2020, designed and conceived by Japanese company Aspark and built in Turin by Italian coachbuilder MAT. The same company that put together the Apollo Intensa Emozione and 430 Scuderia-based New Stratos. Cost? Well, about £2.5m, but as we’ve already established you find that very affordable. Why not get a few in different colours. For your money you get a car that has a healthy 2,012bhp and 1,475lb ft from its four electric motors (two front and two rear), has a 249mph top speed and will apparently get to 60mph in 1.72secs, albeit with a US-style one-foot rolling start and très sticky tyres. 

Range is said to be around 280 miles from the relatively small 64kWh battery, although presumably that’s not a distance you’d be able to cover in an hour and seven minutes at vmax. If you genuinely fancy one, Aspark said back in 2020 that it would only be building 50 (as if there are 50 people in the world who could both afford and want one) and you can start the application process on the company website. Although presumably you could also sail your yacht towards Osaka (lovely this time of year) and turn up at the company headquarters waving your gold card. Anything goes when you’re stinking rich.

Best EV for the super rich – Aspark Owl
Price: £2.5 million
Range: 280 miles
Engine: 2,012bhp e-motors
Battery: 64kWh
Top speed: 249mph
0–60mph: 1.7secs
Boot space: 50 litres 
Seriously: Yes. The boot is tiny