Normally more of a place a car manufacturer might go to cold-test its latest sports car, Finland is sliding its name into supercar design in a rather big, bold way. The all-new Toroidion 1MW concept car was designed, developed and built entirely in Finland. The car wrestles the title of world's most powerful all-electric supercar away from the Rimac Concept One. At a full megawatt (1,341 hp), it's one of the most powerful supercars, period. Besides sheer power, the car showcases some interesting technologies with a wide range of potential applications, from a scalable powertrain to a fast-swap battery system.
Toroidion was founded in 2011 with the mission of designing a fully electric powertrain capable of competing in the world-famous 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race, where total driving distances of more than 3,000 miles (4,830 km) are the norm. Those distances are well over 10 times the limitations of even high-range electric cars like the Tesla Model S and Audi R8 e-tron. To get around that inherent shortcoming, Toroidion relies on a rapid-swap high-capacity battery that is "as easily replaced in the pit-lane as it is in the home garage." It doesn't provide any further details about the battery pack or the swapping system, outside of saying the pack, along with the car itself, is built to a lightweight standard.
Toroidion developed the electric drive to be scalable in power, meaning that it could theoretically show up in something besides a 1,341-hp track/road megacar that's sure to run well into the seven-figure price range. We're not anticipating an affordable Model 3 competitor, but at least it could slide down to a level attainable by the run-of-the-mill multimillionaire, not just oligarchs and oil barons.
Beyond those very general details, Toroidion is holding back further information about the 1MW's engineering and performance until it tests and tunes the concept car more thoroughly. So this week's reveal at Top Marques Monaco is more of a teaser than a full-on unveiling. A 1,341-hp supercar with a scalable powertrain and swappable battery is, however, a pretty satisfying appetizer.
Unlike in the typical car teaser campaign, Toroidion has driven the 1MW out of the shadows to give us a complete look at its styling. Frankly, it might have been better off keeping us in suspense until it could really wow us with performance details because the design, unlike the potential of the powertrain, is rather flat. The 1MW concept looks as though Toroidion mashed elements of a number of existing car designs, then rounded out all the edges to make it "modern" and called it a day. Considering the company's number one mission is in developing electric powertrain technology, not so much an entire car, we'll bet that's more or less how it went down.
The 1MW flashes a profile that looks very C5 Corvette, only with a cartoon-like, too-small-for-its-body cabin. The hood and front-end are a bit better, and if we're being generous, we'd point out that the rounded, flush-with-hood headlamps are somewhat reminiscent of a Porsche 928 or Lamborghini Miura. The similarity ends there, though, as the over-rounding of the 1MW's edges and surfaces leaves an "interesting show car, would not drive in public" feel, not dissimilar from the Ermini Seiottosei. There is a point where three-dimensional curves overwhelm a car design, and the 1 MW resides well beyond that point.
When looking the 1MW square in the face, the beady eyes and small oval grill lack the confident strength that any megawatt car should have. The Toriodion looks best when viewed from the other end; we like the way the large, smooth fender muscles flow into the digital display-like rear fascia. Unfortunately, a nice rear-end isn't enough to save the design.
We will give Toroidion credit for coming up with something fresh that doesn't look like any other supercar we can think of, and if it were a more basic sports car, we might just like it. But the design is just too flaccid for one of the world's most powerful and technologically-advanced concept cars.
The car's interior is equally uninspired. We like the idea of a minimalistic, race-inspired cabin construction in theory, but in this case it feels like they slapped some aluminum across the dashboard and center console and surrounded the steering wheel with a bunch of toggle switches that may or may not actually do anything. We like the curvy, skeletal metal handles on the butterfly doors, but otherwise, it's a cold, underdeveloped collection of race-inspired parts and materials.
While the 1MW's look leaves something to be desired, it's just an initial proof-of-concept, so hopefully it evolves into a more attractive sports coupe design worthy of what promises to be cutting edge electric powertrain technology. We look forward to seeing how Toroidion's story unfolds over time. In the meantime, you can take a look at all available interior and exterior angles in the photo gallery.
Source: Toroidion
