How good would it be if this thing really happens? Longbow 895kg Speedster EV sports car hits British roads before planned 2026 deliveries

November 17, 2025November 17, 2025 Iain Curry 10226 Views 0 Comments ev sportscar, Longbow EV, longbow roadster, Longbow speedster

EV startups have a long history of over-promising and under-delivering, but UK EV sports car company Longbow seems to be bucking the trend.

Sketches and initial details on Longbow’s super-lightweight, sub-1000kg electric two seaters were only revealed six months ago, but there’s already a road-going prototype of its open-top Speedster.

Stats remain the same as our report in April. UK pricing starts at a palatable ₤64,995 ($135,000) for the Roadster and ₤84,995 ($177,000) for the Speedster; power will be “at least 200kW”; 0-100km/h arrives in 3.5 seconds and there’s an approximate 442km range (WLTP).

For those of us eager for a properly engaging, semi-affordable, light and involving sports car in the electric age, this bodes well.

But we mustn’t yet pop champagne corks.

2026 Longbow Speedster: Can it really be only 895kg?

The whole “Featherweight Electric Vehicle” (FEV) Longbow experiment needs much to go right. That includes nailing a supply chain for building the thing, fulfilling promises on production cars for customers, meeting price and lightweight pledges, and delivering decent build quality and finish.

Oh yes, there must be enough willing buyers for these intriguing EVs for the company to stay solvent. That’s where many startups have come unstuck over the years.

Longbow said it was on track for first customer deliveries in 2026, but sagely states on its website: “But we’re not over-promising so we aren’t sharing a date right now… We’ll be keeping our reservation holders fully in the loop.”

Pictures of the test mule Longbow Speedster appears to show it’s a fairly sizeable unit. At 4200mm long and 1800mm wide (reports Autocar magazine) it dwarfs a Mazda MX-5’s 3915mm x 1735mm’s numbers.

Call us old sceptics, but that makes the promised sub-1000kg overall weight appear optimistic.

As an aside, to our eyes, the side profile (below) shares some similar curves with the Japanese MX-5.

Said Mazda MX-5, which has a combustion engine but no heavy batteries, tips the scales at 1070kg. Longbow promises its production Speedster (like the one pictured) will weigh 895kg and the tin-top Roadster 995kg.

On its side are a bespoke Longbow aluminium chassis (engineered for minimal weight and maximum stiffness); a light, compact electric motor and ‘module-to-chassis’ battery technology.

No images of the prototype’s interior have been released, but you’d suspect it’ll be lacking heavy electronic luxuries. Good.

“We’ve managed to deliver a Dynamic Demonstrator in just six months,” said Daniel Davey, Co-Founder and CEO at Longbow. “No truer illustration of our Speed of Lightness approach.”

In a media release, Longbow said: “What would take most traditional Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) around 18 months, the Longbow team has achieved in just a third of the time. This was not an exercise in corner-cutting; it was an ambitious project to condense, enhance, and accelerate every step of the process.”

2026 Longbow Roadster has luscious curves in the renderings.

The England-based startup doesn’t mind leaning on a bit of national heritage, stating its car “offers a spiritual successor to British icons like the Lotus Elise and Jaguar E-Type.”

All Longbow models will be designed, engineered, and hand built in the UK, we’re assured.

Autocar magazine reports that at present “no deal has yet been signed for production of Longbow,” although it suggested the Lotus plant at Hethel, “which is nowhere near its full 5000-a-shift capacity making Emiras.”

The magazine was also told by Davey that initial production plans were for 150 Speedsters, then roughly 2000 Speedsters and Roadsters (combined) per year.

Then things get really optimistic, with a stated aim of 10,000 cars by 2030.

Wishful thinking perhaps, but the three-person team behind Longbow have solid CVs.

Daniel Davey began his career with Tesla in 2010 (when its original Roadster was developed) before moving to Lucid; Mark Tapscott developed Lotus Elise and GT race cars and had roles with Tesla, Lucid and BYD; while Jenny Keisu is former CEO of X Shore, a company pioneering electric transformation in the boating industry.

We’re also told Longbow’s engineering team brings decades of experience in road and motorsport including Formula E, Lotus, Aston Martin, Ariel, and Tesla.

Reservations are open on Longbow’s website, and there’s the promise of both right- and left-hand drive versions for international markets.

Best of British, chaps.

Iain Curry

A motoring writer and photographer for two decades, Iain started in print magazines in London as editor of Performance BMW and features writer for BMW Car, GT Porsche and 4Drive magazines. His love of motor sport and high performance petrol cars was rudely interrupted in 2011 when he was one of the first journalists to drive BMW's 1 Series ActiveE EV, and has been testing hybrids, PHEVs and EVs for Australian newspapers ever since. Based near Noosa in Queensland, his weekly newspaper articles cover new vehicle reviews and consumer advice, while his photography is regularly seen on the pages of glossy magazines.