GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Techrules Ren

Interesting things happen when Italian flair, Chinese fervour and a new powertrain idea merge, and that interesting thing was the 1300hp Ren.

Arguably the wackiest of the wacky concept cars at this year's Geneva motor show, the Techrules Ren isn’t actually a concept car. What makes this three-seat supercar special is that it’s the final design of Techrules’ first production car.

This is the machine that is expected to take Techrules from a Chinese research and development company into a fully-fledged car-maker – and it isn’t taking the easy road.

Instead, designers Fabrizio and Giorgetto Giugiaro have given it a standard three-bubble canopy that lifts slowly on an array of hydraulic rams, a central driving position and a radical new propulsion system that hurls it to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds.

Pieced together by Torino motorsport house, LM Gianetti, the Ren will also come with two alternate canopies: one for the track and the other for two people.

Techrules debuted its Turbine-Recharging Electric Vehicle (TREV, which should make some people very happy) at last year’s Geneva motor show, but it’s insisting the series hybrid technology is now ready for production.

The modular TREV system on the Ren’s highest-output model combines two electric motors at the front and four (yes, four) at the rear to punch out 960kW of power. There are also two- and four-motor versions of the Ren.

Each of its YASA pancake motors delivers 160kW of power and 390Nm of torque, giving buyers (and Techrules isn’t exactly forthcoming about how many of those are knocking at its door) a choice of 320kW and 780Nm, 640kW and 1560Nm or the show car’s range-topping 960kW and 2340Nm.

The car had a shakedown test at the Formula 1 track at Monza, Italy, last month, and while details of its lap times and even its reliability are sketchy, it’s more than just a crazy design covering up radical technology.

By claiming a 320km/h top speed and a 2.5-second sprint to 100km/h, Techrules is pitching the Ren straight at cars like Lamborghini’s Aventador, Ferrari’s 812 Superfast, Pagani’s Huarya and Koenigsegg’s Regera.

At 1700kg, even with a carbon-fibre tub, the Ren has two 40-litre diesel tanks beneath the integrated passenger sidepods to fuel the turbines, which drive a generator, which feeds the batteries, which power the electric motors. Simple, right?

Though the TREV is technically classified as a range-extender arrangement, Techrules is also promising a plug-in hybrid version is under development.

In typical operation, the Ren’s generator never directly feeds the six electric motors, except when the battery is completely flat.

“Because turbines have always been a very inefficient way to convert chemical energy into useful, wheel-turning mechanical energy, only a few have tried to use a turbine in the powertrain system, and none have ever succeeded commercially,” said Techrules Chief Technology Officer Matthew Jin.

“In the conventional cars that dominated the 20th Century, the combustion engine that converts a fuel’s chemical energy into a useful mechanical energy is also the driving engine that turns the wheels.

“But, with electric vehicles, an electric motor is used to drive the wheels, which effectively frees the combustion engine to exclusively convert chemical energy into mechanical energy and finally into electric energy. This is a major breakthrough, making it possible for us to use the highly efficient turbine engine as a superb range extender on our vehicles.”

The Ren is running the second evolution of TREV and it will give buyers the choice of a 30kW turbine for greater efficiency and a 2000km range or an 80kW unit for greater performance.

In either case, Techrules believes the pure BEV electric range will be about 200km and while it uses diesel, the turbines can run on gas (like LNG) or liquid fuel, though hydrogen gas would generate no tailpipe emissions.

Besides the kooky way it generates its power, its production architecture will be scalable to take two, four or the show car’s six YASA electric motors, all axial flux and liquid-cooled, and all are packed inside the carbon tub itself.

The entry-level set-up has an electric motor driving each rear wheel, the four-motor system is all-wheel drive with one motor for each wheel, while the most powerful set-up has two for each rear wheel to add to the performance.

The battery capacity is also modular, ranging from 14kWh to 25kWh to 32kWh, with 1344 cells for the mid-range version, and can punch out 1200 amps of power.

Inside, the Ren’s cabin is crammed with Italian leather, with the seats trimmed by high-end Italian denim designer Pantaloni Torino (or, in English, Pants Turin).

It’s the highest profile car designed by the Giugiaro family since the Volkswagen Group unceremoniously dumped them out of their own company, ItalDesign Giugiaro, in 2015.