The duPont Registry recently added green car categories to its list of the year's best cars. With a an electric powerhouse like the Tesla Roadster on the street and the plug-in hybrid Fisker Karma in the pipeline, it seems like the world is ready for green supercars.
The flipside, though, according to the registry's publisher, Tom duPont, is that the race for ever-higher horsepower many be over. Or, if not completely over, then a sideshow to the new main event: the latest in alternative fuel and technology.
"There's always going to be somebody, particularly in customization, to add chips, blowers, etcetera," said duPont in a phone interview in October. "But it'll be differentiated from manufacturers building a series of autos with 700-hp engines."
Rather than reaching for four-figure horsepower ratings, duPont said, "the new exotic car's 'exoticness' will be based on green automobiles. There are relatively no fast alternative-fuel vehicles now," he acknowledged, "but they're becoming faster. Eventually, the speed question goes away."
MPH vs. BHP
The measure of a car's desirability will still be measured in mph, but maybe not so much in bhp. Right now, it's easy to determine that a car has a big engine just by looking at it when it's parked near the country club's dining room. New technologies and design can serve the same purpose, according to duPont. He mentioned Ronn Motors' hydrogen-powered Scorpion and the fact that showing people the hydrogen tank is just as good an arguement for its 'exoticness' as opening the hood of a conventional car.
There's an increase in people's interest in tech rather than horsepower, too. Not only are people into the lowered gas consumption of alternative-fuel vehicles, but they're interested in the technological breakthroughs that make them possible.
"Tech people are making the money these days," duPont said, "and are more likely to purchase a high- tech luxury car. A 30-year-old who just sold his tech company wants a car that does something no other car can: 75 miles per gallon, maybe, rather than 0-60 in 2.5 seconds." Both car and consumer, according to duPont, are more technical in the 21st century.
Low Mileage, High Price
As for price, batteries and hydrogen as power sources were long considered to expensive. "That's turning out to be rather untrue," duPont said. While the price makeup is difficult to predict for these new technologies, the luxury market is talking about appointments and distinction--both ideals that are going to cost big bucks, no matter what makes the car go.
The three green cars on the duPont Registry's 2008 best-of list are good examples of the wide range of prices we can expect to see for exotic alt-fuel cars in the future. Best Green Exotic went to the Tesla Roadster, which duPont praised for its "mainstream exotic styling," starts at $109,000. Ronn Motors' Scorpion earned the registry's Best Green Car Innovation award and is estimated to start at $150,000 when it goes on sale in mid-2009. At the tippy-top of the range is the E85-fueled Koenigsegg CCXR, with its approximate price of $2.4 million.
Price is hardly an issue for many of the duPont Registry's readers, though. "Green is the new status symbol," duPont says. "I recycle more today than I did four years ago. Our environmental consciousness is more enlightened than it has been. A successful car collector would natrually shift to what's rare, unusual, and exciting in the car business, like a car that'll do 200 mph on a half-gallon of gasoline. But the cost of gasoline doesn't make much of a difference in a $400k car."
