Green Automotive and Liberty Electric Cars Rekindle Hope for A Full-Electric Range Rover

Green Automotive Company has signed an agreement to acquire Liberty Electric Cars Limited who presented us with an interesting project, turning a Range Rover into a full-fledged electric car.

Liberty Electric Cars is a vehicle design, engineering and manufacturing company specializing in clean transport solutions. Green Automotive, a company working on producing all-electric intra-city and municipal mass transit and school buses will purchase Liberty Electric Cars Ltd. and its subsidiary LEC 2, Limited. So what does this mean for the electric Range Rover?

Liberty’s E-Tech Division. Liberty’s E-Tech division’s aim is to develop next generation of EV solutions, including the "Deliver" venture with Volkswagen, as well as with Fiat and Michelin. Thankfully, the much-anticipated "Motore" project, which includes Cranfield University, Rolls Royce Electric Machines and Protean aims to develop a "rare earth" free electric motor technology, should continue its progression. But you might remember best Liberty for its electric vehicle, EV drivetrain platform used on its flagship Liberty E-Range, which was/is the world’s first, pure electric, luxury 4x4, based on a converted electric Range Rover. So where are the companies headed now?

Commercial And Public Transportation. According to Fred Luke, President of Green Automotive’s press release: "Liberty's technically rich team and their focus on larger platforms from 4x4 through to commercial vehicles is completely consistent with the our business objectives and direction. I believe that producing dependable small to mid-size electric buses is an emerging market of mammoth proportions and there is no doubt that Liberty's technical team gives us a big advantage."

It sounds as if Green Automobile will use Liberty’s expertise to further their electric truck program, while tapping into the fairly new electric car market. Their E-Care service gives them fully trained and highly skilled engineers equipped with the required diagnostic tools and experience.

But the real question on everyone’s mind is, is there a market for a $250,000 electric Range Rover? Liberty has been working for a few years on making an electric-vehicle conversion system for high-end SUVs. Unfortunately for at least four years, nothing much has trickled out of the company and Green Automobile might just change all of this. Liberty expected the E-SUV to sell at an estimated price of $147,000 for its converted Range Rovers, the E-Range and other larger SUVs could fetch as high as $194,000. While the E-Range showed honorable performance with a 200 mile range, its top speed of 100 MPH would have put it in a realm of its own. Unfortunately, the price exploded to $248,000 and another contender stole the limelight. Tesla announced it would build its Model X, an all-electric SUV built on the Model S platform, at a much more advantageous price.

It’s not too difficult to see where Green Automotive is going with the acquisition of Liberty Electric Car, as it gets a company with expertise in electric vehicle maintenance, and a fresh team of engineers.