DeLorean Is Being Revived (Again), This Time As Electric Vehicle (bloomberg.com) 82
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The newest entrant in the fight for EV market share is going back to the future with an all-electric DeLorean. The infamous gull-winged car is being resurrected in Texas by a group of executives who most recently spent time at China-backed EV startup Karma Automotive. They're working with Stephen Wynne, who acquired the DeLorean branding rights in the 1990s and supplies parts for the 6,000 or so remaining vehicles. [...] The new company is called DeLorean Motors Reimagined LLC and its chief executive officer is Joost de Vries, Texas business records and LinkedIn postings show. The firm will set up a headquarters and an engineering outfit in San Antonio, with potential to bring 450 jobs, the city's development arm said in a statement.
It's not the first time the idea of a DeLorean redux has surfaced -- web searches turn up stories every few years about how Wynne has tried to revive the brand or produce low-volume models -- but using an electric powertrain is a new twist on the idea. The original car gained notoriety in the early 1980s both for its quality problems and for the legal woes of its creator, the late John DeLorean, before the "Back to the Future" film franchise turned it into a pop-culture icon.
It's not the first time the idea of a DeLorean redux has surfaced -- web searches turn up stories every few years about how Wynne has tried to revive the brand or produce low-volume models -- but using an electric powertrain is a new twist on the idea. The original car gained notoriety in the early 1980s both for its quality problems and for the legal woes of its creator, the late John DeLorean, before the "Back to the Future" film franchise turned it into a pop-culture icon.
Are you telling me that this sucker is NUCLEAR? (Score:5, Funny)
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* jigawatts
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curious.
is the factory rebate under the back seat
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Sure, you can link to Wikipedia, who in turn reference the US Metric Association, but that hardly makes it authoritative. Other than this one pop culture instance in Back to the Future, does anyone use the soft-g? In particular, does anyone in the sci/tech field, who use SI prefixes as a matter of course, use the soft-g? (As opposed to the hoi polloi that don't know the difference between a WiFi router and a car radio.)
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It's okay, comes with a Mr. Fusion.
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Honestly, The Delorean as an EV makes more sense than trying to revive the original crappy drivetrain and engine it had.
Like everyone (out side of back to the future fans) knows the car was nothing special, and it's really only known for it's unpainted metal exterior and gull-wing doors, which, is the reason why it was used in BTTF. It looks like a "space ship" not a car.
Hell, I'd even buy one if it was an EV at the right price. I think Tesla's are rather cool, but also I'm not the target market (I'd never
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Great Scott. This is heavy. So, finally it can time travel.
I want one with an lightning rod mod so I can chan (Score:3)
I want one with an lightning rod mod so I can change for free in an storm
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The rod only comes up when it sees a Cybertruck.
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i r t f a.
so how much is this vehicle
Accessory kits. (Score:3)
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I already look like Doc Brown, just need a lab coat.
Did they retrieve the body dies? (Score:2)
Did they retrieve the body dies that were sunk in the ocean many decades ago?
Re:Did they retrieve the body dies? (Score:5, Funny)
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the de lorean is a timeless design... IE at no time did anyone like it
A lot of people liked it a lot, starting on July 3rd, 1985.
Re: Did they retrieve the body dies? (Score:1)
I like it now. I liked it back when it was new. But I freely admit I tend to like weird things.
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Seriously, it's not a good design for a modern car. It's extremely low and relatively small, not easy to get in and out of. It will need major work to come up to modern safety standards.
It will be interesting to see if there is a market for impractical, uncomfortable but iconic shape EVs.
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If this happens at all, the new car will probably have zero in common structurally or mechanically, except perhaps a few design cues. "Reconceptualizing the classic DeLorean into a model that will change our future with elements of our past"
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It's extremely low and relatively small.
"Low" [realfunny.net] can be taken care of.
Why not (Score:2)
There's probably room for a low-end muscle car with gull wings. Gull wings are cool.
Hold up! (Score:2, Troll)
I like that it's electric but I'm very concerned about the funding. You see, things have changed since the 80s and I just don't think there are any companies out there to get this operation properly financed by trafficking uncut cocaine.
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Underpowered (Score:2)
Re: Underpowered (Score:2)
Will it go 88mph
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There is a show on British television, called: Vintage Voltage. In that show they take old cars and make it like new and usually with one or more custom battery packs for the commonly used Tesla engine.
Guess what?
They did have an original DeLorean in their shop. Engine was taken out, electrified, new interior, fixed up the outside as well and custom battery packs for (much) better weight distribution, of course.
160 miles per charge, I believe, it could do. But it was mainly meant as a commute car for the ow
Already been done (Score:2)
See here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
for the documentary of the project.
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Perfect! (Score:2)
This solves one of the major problems with the Delorean. Namely, even when equipped with a mister fusion, you still must provide hydrocarbons to power the engine in order to get it up to 88 MPH. Now, that problem is no more! The whole thing can run off the electrical system. I'm sure the power train's needs are nowhere near 1.21 jigowatts, so there is probably no need to even add excess generating capacity.
Cocaine compartment (Score:1)
Will it come with a compartment for stashing 55 pounds of cocaine?
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You do know that cocaine is traded in kilos, don't you? That'd be just under 25kg, of cocaine just in case you have difficulty making yourself understood to the Colombians.
It was a joke about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In October 1982, DeLorean was charged with cocaine trafficking after FBI informant James Hoffman solicited him as financier in a scheme to sell 55 lb (25 kg) of cocaine worth approximately $24 million.
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deja vu? (Score:2)
I swear I've either read this before or someone has done this in their garage
Just as long as it can reach 88 MPH (Score:2)
I'm good with it.
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Here come the EV grift companies (Score:3, Interesting)
On the one hand the simplified powertrain of EVs means more companies can get into the car business (You don't need the miles deep supply chain to produce modern ICE engines) but the question I have for any startup like this is "Where are your batteries coming from"?
If the answer is anything but "We're making them ourselves" or "we own a stake in a manufactuer" then you are a glorified kit-car manufacturer, just making pretty shells and leaning on the existing supply chain of parts to assemble everything else. Issue is every other EV company like this without those partnerships with battery makers or existing auto companies is competing for the same pool of batteries and parts. Is DeLorean going to design their own airbag systems? No, they're going to buy them.
These companies are going to pop up everywhere soon and I expect 3/4 of them to collect some fat VC checks, produce a couple protoypes and quietly fold under.
While Tesla kick started this EV boom everyone looks at the easy sales numbers they have and forget about all the issues they had (and still have) setting up an actual factory that procudes cars. The Model 3 is like 5 years old now and people are still seeing body panel fitmet issues to this day and they are just recently having to do a recall on practically their entire fleet.
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Re:Here come the EV grift companies (Score:4, Insightful)
An OTA to disable a software feature is not the same as fuel tanks leaking and causing explosions.
The pedestrian warning issue is quite trivial, and rolling stop at stop signs is something every human driver does. Only NTHSA could not recall every damned human driver. When traffic fine cameras tried to fine people for rolling through stop signs, there was a hue and cry and the cities quickly rolled back. Fair is fair, let us install traffic fine cameras at all stop signs and fine human drivers too.
Brilliant solution (Score:1)
Where are your batteries coming from?
I was thinking about this too- what if the makers of this Electric Delorian did two things:
1) Get various electric car parts (including batteries) from Tesla.
2) Got the stainless steel outer body from the same stock SpaceX uses.
Two tie-ins to make a really cool retro vehicle with Tesla and SpaceX links, that they would seek branding permission to exploit... I think it would sell like hotcakes.
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I don't see the market for "EV skins" as necessarily a bad thing. Why shouldn't people be able to get exactly the car they want, built on a (somewhat) standardized internal platform?
That's pretty much how PCs are sold these days, and nobody considers e.g. Dell to be grift because it doesn't produce its own CPUs and hard drives.
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Are you saying there's anything wrong with kit cars?
I'm pretty sure DeLorean said a while ago that they are basically building electric versions of the old cars, using leftover parts, and they are not selling them as new models. They won't even be making multiple thousands of cars. Anyone interested in buying into a low-volume run probably knows what they are getting into.
These companies are going to pop up everywhere soon and I expect 3/4 of them to collect some fat VC checks, produce a couple protoypes and quietly fold under.
That's the retro market in a nutshell. However, DeLorean has already been around and servicing cars for decades using new-old-stock par
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Keep in mind that Tesla got their start by taking a Lotus Elise [wikipedia.org] and turning it into an electric roadster. Don't get me wrong--they did a lot of R&D to get things working well. They didn't just throw in some batteries and an electric motor and say "Done." But they didn't start by designing their own cars and building their own batteries.
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Most manufacturers rely on third parties for key components of the car. Bosch makes a variety of parts of ICE vehicles, including the ones that VW screwed with to cheat on emissions tests. One of the reasons why many Japanese manufacturers have been slow to adopt EV tech is because their suppliers are all heavily invested in hybrid drivetrains and are having trouble pivoting to a technology that makes most of their components superfluous.
New car companies would be slightly mad to start making their own batt
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DeLorean was never more than a glorified kit-car manufacturer, and what's worse, they were never a good one. They never had their own motor, and what's worse, the motor they wound up with was a total shitpile compared to the motor they designed with, so the performance of the car was garbage. The suspension is shit, the body design is shit, the stainless is just screwed onto the outside of the vehicle which means it's unnecessary shit that just makes the car heavier (and since it's fiberglass underneath, it
EV is old hat (Score:3)
We've been able to buy production EVs for years. I feel like something as iconic as a DeLorean should reach for something more exotic. Spring wind-up clockwork, rubber band powered and of course the perennial favorite, fusion [imgur.com]. Really, anything that can make a stainless-steel gull-wing monstrosity stand out in the crowd of bizarre EVs. [tesla.com]
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I think I'd want to go with the 1.21 GW theme. Since they didn't say gigawatt-hours, I guess we have the storage capacity - even for the total energy in a bolt of lightning which only lasts around 200 ms. Supplying 1.21 GW takes about 336 Wh per millisecond. The capacitors to do this even for 200 ms could fit in a typical frunk and be fully charged one time by a 75 KWh battery pack.
So, we need to find some feature that could utilize 336 Wh in a millisecond and incorporate it. There's got to be something use
Google already has one (Score:2)
Zombie brands (Score:2)
A Delorean? (Score:2)
Great Scott!
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Tesla Should Buy Them (Score:2)
This would be a great company for Tesla to acquire. The Delorian would be a perfect car to build using the same techniques as the Cybertruck. Of course, Tesla is probably two or three years away from being ready to add something like that to their lineup. Maybe they'll buy them if they look promising in a year or two.
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This would be a great company for Tesla to acquire.
Right; nevermind why.
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Stainless steel, just like starship.
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no one wants a cramped 1980s subcompact. 35 inches of headroom in Delorean vs. 40.3 in Tesla. Tall drivers in DeLorean had to recline seat to near lying-down levels. Front suspension was godawful and subject of a lot of complaints, buyers with money had it custom redone.
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They were already advertising factory EV converted DeLoreans literally years ago and statistically nobody took them up on it.
So we already know this is a failing business plan
Electric You Say (Score:1)
Then just do't touch that bare steel body!
Expedition: Back to the Future (Score:2)
Somebody did the same thing (Score:2)
In both cases these were off the shelf hardware with software to back it up, specifically games. There is no way in hell anything is going to come out of somebody resurrecting the DeLorean brand except a bunch of investors scammed.
A lot of times the investor in q
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Reusing the brand name of a defunct company to evoke nostalgia has been a thing for quite a while. Hell, your local Walmart is probably well stocked with Victrola record players (because if most people still driving around in gas-powered vehicles in 2022 wasn't enough to make you feel like we're living in some twisted steampunk-esq version of the future, there's also Walmart selling vinyl phonographs).
then and now (Score:2)
When it collapsed in 1982 DeLorean was not the first automotive startup to fail against The Big Three [wikipedia.org]. Tucker [wikipedia.org] had failed about 32 years earlier, around 1950. Circumstances were similar at both DeLorean and Tucker: Both were startup companies with innovative designs challenging the large manufactures and both collapsed as a result of unsuccessful lawsuits brought by the U.S. federal government. Both Tucker and DeLorean prevailed in court, but the legal fees, loss of reputation and diminished investor tr
This isn't the first DeLorean EV (Score:2)
This isn't the first time they've pitched this. I saw the same company in Texas that makes all the DeLorean parts show an electric model at a car show, I think it was NADA, many years ago. The engine compartment was packed full of batteries - they looked like lead-acid batteries, so perhaps it was more of a demo/concept car than a real product, but they were pitching for pre-orders. They wanted a lot for it - betting on the coolness of the concept (an electric "Back to the Future" car). It sure looked cool,
Saw that on YouTube a decade ago (Score:2)
Well, there goes the whole plot of BTTF3 (Score:2)
BTTF1 was all about trying to get the 1.21 GW necessary to go back to the future.
BTTF2 was just fixing screwups they caused.
BTTF3 was about trying to get back given there was no gasoline available at the time to power the engine. But given it had a fusion reactor, an EV would've been a perfect platform.
Oh sure, more stuff blah blah blah happened in the movies, but that was unnecessary fluff when you wanted to see the time machine in action.
Of course, gas would become somewhat available around the turn of th
Hopefully, it has some speed (Score:2)
Hopefully, they get some ideas from Tesla or Rimac on how to make fast cars.
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DeLorian looked great, but absolutely SUX on the track.
What's the point of taking it to a track? It's a DeLorean, you want to cruise around town looking awesome.
1.21 GW (Score:2)
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I'ld buy one... (Score:1)
When it's ready to fly. IF I can afford it and it seems like a reasonable purchase.