Category: Blogs

Bensport unveils La Sarthe E concept for pre-order at the London Classic Car Show

• All-electric La Sarthe E combines elegance, refinement and sustainable zero emissions motoring
• Bensport partners with UK-based AEM to integrate world’s most sustainable EV motor
• La Sarthe E is based on a reconditioned period Bentley chassis and featured hand-crafted aluminium bodywork

Producer of one the world’s most exquisite coach-built Bentleys, Bensport, has today unveiled its all-electric La Sarthe E concept. The marque’s first zero emissions creation will be available to pre-order from 25 June, when Bensport attends the London Classic Car Show.

As well as being zero emissions, Bensport was also determined to ensure the La Sarthe E is as sustainable as possible. As a result, it has partnered with UK-based EV motor manufacturer Advanced Electric Machines (AEM), to integrate its pioneering technology. AEM’s motors do not use rare earth materials, removing the need for harmful mining practices and aiding recyclability. This, coupled with a 54kWh battery pack delivers a refined and responsive driving experience, befitting to a vehicle of its calibre. It is expected that the La Sarthe E will be capable of achieving a total range of around 200 miles.

As is the case with Bensport’s 4.5-litre petrol-fuelled straight-six La Sarthe, the La Sarthe E is built upon an original Bentley Mk6 or R-type chassis, which is meticulously reconditioned. Similarly, the La Sarthe E’s sculpted all-aluminium bodyshell is produced in-house by Bensport’s highly skilled craftspeople. Its expertly trimmed interior uses the highest quality leather and offers customers considerable opportunities to customise dashboard layout, veneer types and colour palettes.

Bob Perry, Managing Director of Bensport, said: “When we created the La Sarthe we wanted it to optimise elegance, refinement and dynamism.  Our La Sarthe E takes this ethos to a new level, offering an almost silent drive, while also drawing our focus to sustainability. We’re delighted to be working with AEM to integrate what we believe to be the world’s most sustainable electric motor in the La Sarthe E as a statement of our intent.”

The Bensport La Sarthe E is available to pre-order from 25 June 2021 by visiting www.bensportltd.co.uk.

About Bensport

With combined Rolls-Royce and Bentley experience totalling more than 100 years, Bensport has distilled its considerable knowledge into producing the La Sarthe. Featuring a coach-built aluminium body designed and produced in-house by Bensport, the La Sarthe is based upon a comprehensively reconditioned Bentley Mk6 or R-Type chassis.

Located in Ilton, Somerset, Bensport employs a small but highly skilled team of expert craftspeople, enabling it to complete all body, mechanical and trim work in house.

We are very pleased to announce, that last week we successfully passed our first ISO 9001:2015 surveillance audit.

After a year of immense challenges, we are incredibly proud to see our commitment to quality and continuous improvement continuing to drive the growth and success of Advanced Electric Machines.

Our team works extremely hard to achieve the high standards we set for ourselves, and as we go from strength to strength, we are excited to see what comes next.

As the academic year gets underway our COO Mike O’Neill (on the right) is delighted to welcome our first apprentice George Cram (centre) to the business. George will be studying at Sunderland College and will be joined by Jonathan Cook (left) one of our existing employees who this year is starting an HNC in engineering.

George said “ It’s a great opportunity. When I heard about AEM it sounded like a great company to get involved with and work around top class engineers,… it’s exciting to be the first apprentice of AEM”. Jonathan, who has been with us for 2 years said “ I’m really excited about starting my HNC, it’s great that AEM are supporting me to study at Sunderland College who have a great engineering facility”

AEM have been working closely with Sunderland College to provide opportunities for an apprentice and are looking forward, as the business continues to grow to build on this relationship and offer more positions in the future.

Today, our partners Bentley Motors, have released a press release describing the next stage in bringing SSRD to market (https://www.bentleymedia.com/en/newsitem/1128-bentley-motors-looks-to-the-future-of-electric-drive). 

OCTOPUS, an Innovate UK funded 3 year programme to industrialise the design developed during APEX, brings together the best UK science and engineering facilities with a team of highly innovative UK SMEs to deliver the ultimate EV powertrain system. 

The team involved in the programme will use Diamond Light Source, the UKs most powerful x-ray source to peer inside the motor as it spins at up to 30,000 rpm while at the Hartree Centre in Daresbury we’ll be utilising Europe’s most powerful supercomputer available to industry to model all the details of the motor, power electronics and transmission system as they operate in harmony. 

Partners at the University of Bath and University of Nottingham are supporting with the latest thinking in test and simulation while Hieta, Talga and FD Sims are utilising the latest materials and manufacturing techniques to deliver even lower weight and higher performance. TTPi are continuing the work started in APEX to deliver an integrated power electronics system and of course we at AEMR are working to deliver even more efficiency and torque from our already market leading motor! 

As we move closer to production Bentley are now working to make sure we meet all of the test and validation points necessary for us to get ready for market and continue to set the bar really high in terms of power, torque and, of course, refinement!

It’s great to be on to phase 2 of the programme now and we hope we can continue the success of the APEX programme in delivering performance and innovation into what we believe to be the most sustainable motor technology in the world!  

Another of our systems, this time our HDSRM300T motor is waiting anxiously to begin its long journey to the other side of the world in the next few days. Part of an Anglo European consortium to supply axle systems suitable for the harshest environments, AEM are supplying a system for one of Australia’s leading providers of integrated logistics solutions to help improve the supply of raw materials from the country’s vast mining activities. 

Part of an innovative solution which uses e-axle technology to both reduce emissions and increase load capacity, the motor will be going on trial on some Australia’s most demanding routes, testing its rugged design to the limits – we’re all looking forward to the challenge and confidently expect to bring you some positive updates as the motor begins working down under.

AEMR completed its first Innovate UK funded programme this week with positive feedback from everyone involved. The programme focused on proving our SSRD motor technology could deliver market leading performance as well as world leading sustainability. Working closely with Bentley Motors and fellow SME, TTPi, AEMR has taken the system, originally designed to deliver cost effective and highly sustainable solutions to the mainstream passenger car market, and demonstrated its potential to deliver world class performance in a compact and highly efficient package. In completing the programme AEMR also managed to generate 10 new innovative ideas which we’re currently looking to patent pushing SSRD even further ahead of the field!

APEX is phase one of a programme that aims to bring SSRD to market in a quick and focused way… hopefully we will be able to tell you more about what happens next very soon!

We’ve been kept busy during lockdown delivering the first milestone in demonstrating the durability of our HDSRM300 system. Designed and built to meet the challenges of the Commercial Vehicle sector HDSRM300 has been shaped to deliver robust and extremely efficient performance over the typical drive cycles of trucks and other commercial vehicles. The engineering and test teams have been busy over the last few months building bespoke test systems and putting all our motors through their paces. While SSRD, our high performance passenger car solution has just entered its preliminary test phase, HDSRM has been putting in the hard miles building up our knowledge and confidence in a system designed to deliver over 100,000kms a year. We’ve reached the first target milestone of 500 hours (a mere 15,000kms) in just a couple of months and we’re now pushing ahead to our next target of 2000 hours before building an accelerated test programme to deliver 20,000 hours and more early next year.

Our first HDSRM300 has left the factory for distant shores today as we have shipped a system for light duty delivery trucks to Mexico. The system is part of an ambitious programme to electrify a fleet of up to 5000 vehicles for a major food distribution company across South America. Despite the challenges which COVID has presented, our manufacturing team has been able to prepare the motor on time to meet customer demands while our engineers have been working with colleagues in Mexico to make sure everything is ready for its arrival.

Well done to everyone involved, this is the first of several exports planned over the next few months with places as far away as Australia keen to join the AEM family… We’ll keep you updated with progress as we continue to move things forward.

We’re very proud to have been shortlisted for the North East Automotive Alliance SME of the year 2020. 

The award looks to recognise companies who, over the last two years have been successful in overcoming the challenges in driving forward their business plan and exceeding business objectives, as well as being able to demonstrate sustainable business and financial planning, all together with positive team engagement and, of course, a strong future growth ambition! 

As part of the incredible EV community here in the North East its fantastic to be recognised so early on our journey – thanks to the panel and the team at NEAA for their support.