The famous Russian Defense company, Kalashnikov, is now expanding from making weapons and has started making cars. In a recent military expo in Moscow, the company displayed a car which is designed to compete with the world famous electric car company, Tesla. The car is named CV-1. The car’s design is similar to the Soviet-era Izh 2125 Kombi. It was a station wagon which was released in 1972.
The car has an old design, but it has a modern electric engine and a 90-kilowatt-hour battery. Kalashnikov claims that the car can get 217 miles of range. The company unveiled the car at the international military expo Army 2018 where more than 1000 companies were displaying their products and technologies. CV-1 is a concept currently and no launch date, manufacturing schedule, or a price has been planned for it.
Although the car is designed to compete with Tesla, however, its manufacturers are not sure themselves if they can beat the giant company in this field. Kalashnikov representative, Sofia Ivanova said, “The car is competing with Tesla because it’s currently a successful electric vehicle project. We expect to at least keep up with it.” When RBC, a Russian media outlet, asked what advantages does CV-1 has over Tesla, Ivanova was unable to answer any specifics. The company states that CV-1 cannot keep up with acceleration and manages to reach 0 to 62 mph in six seconds. This acceleration is far behind most of the Tesla cars. Kalashnikov should take into consideration to install a gun in the car which undoubtedly will give it a spec which is not present in any Tesla so far. What do you think?