Niche sports-car maker Caterham bets on new EV as combustion engine bans loom

Caterham has previously tried without success to move away from the Seven, most recently partnering with Renault unit Alpine to jointly develop the car that became the Alpine A110. The deal fell apart in 2014 after Caterham failed to raise its share of the money.

Prior to that it tried to rebody the Seven as a coupe called the 21 in 1994. Production stopped in 2000 after just 48 cars were built.

Combustion engine bans

Caterham faces the prospect of halting sales of its combustion engine cars in 2030 in the U.K. when the government plans to ban the sale of fossil-fuel-powered cars, five years ahead of a similar ban in the EU. Britain is Caterham’s biggest market, accounting for more than half of its revenue.

The company lost 408,845 pounds in the 15 months ending March 2022, when it moved to a new financial year. The company has blamed supply problems for the loss.

Caterham hopes to do just enough to homologate the car under the European Small Series Type Approval for low-volume manufacturers without adding costs or spoiling its lightweight ethos.

“It sounds a terrible thing to say, but we will not be chasing NCAP ratings,” Laishley said, referring to the European crash standards where automakers aim to achieve high ratings. The NCAP standards are not legally binding.

The current Caterham Seven was homologated under European rules stretching back to the early 1990s. “Ideally that is what we would like to do [with Project V], but we cannot,” Laishley said.

The company has recently expanded its factory in the town of Caterham 30 km south of London that builds the Seven to clear an order backlog, but it is looking to make the Project V car elsewhere either in the U.K. or in continental Europe.