A Chinese sports car wants to be the new Lotus Elise, and it might get here
This is not a concept. Small Sports Car Company says the SC01 is actually coming to Europe this year
The SC01, a lightweight electric two-seater originally developed in China, is heading to Europe under the banner of the UK-based Small Sports Car Company, with left-hand-drive cars expected before the end of 2026. AutoNext covered the SC01 on our What's Next In Cars podcast before it had a confirmed European route to market, so this is the part where the car most people had not heard of starts becoming a car people can actually order.
Where this car actually comes from
The SC01 was originally developed by Tianjin Gongjiangpai Auto Technology, a company affiliated with Xiaomi, before development passed to JMEV. It has been on sale in China since last year. The Small Sports Car Company, led by Mark Cotton, a former Bentley, BMW and McLaren executive, now holds the rights to bring it to Europe, with assembly planned at a facility in Italy specifically to avoid import tariffs.
The numbers behind the lightweight claim
Dual electric motors produce 429 hp, with power distribution switchable between front, rear and all-wheel drive. At a kerb weight of 1,365 kg, that works out to more than 314 hp per tonne, and 0-100 km/h takes around 2.9 seconds. A 60 kWh battery is rated at 500 km under the Chinese CLTC cycle, which translates to roughly 400 km under the stricter WLTP standard used in Europe, with peak DC charging at 120 kW.
Built like a Lotus, priced like one too
The design and engineering brief leans hard on Lotus, with proportions closer to an Evora or Exige than anything mainstream, a steel space frame chassis, a mid-engine layout and adjustable double-wishbone pushrod suspension. There is no central touchscreen and no driver assistance systems, a deliberate omission rather than a cut corner given the car's low production volumes. Founder Feng Xiaotong summed up the philosophy plainly: "Driving should be about lightness, simplicity and connection between driver and machine." In the US, Small Sports Car Company has pointed to a launch price around 66,000 dollars, which converts to roughly 60,000 euro, though nothing official has been set for the UK or the rest of Europe yet.
What it means for Belgian and Dutch buyers
With annual production capped at just 200 to 360 units worldwide, this is a car that goes wherever demand is loudest first, and neither Belgium nor the Netherlands has been named as an early market yet. Anyone here who wants one should expect a long wait rather than a local dealer visit any time soon.
AutoNext Take
A steel space frame, a mid-engine layout and a dashboard with no screen is a genuinely unusual set of choices for a Chinese EV manufacturer to make in 2026, when the entire industry's instinct is to add more of everything. Whether Small Sports Car Company can actually deliver 200 to 360 of these a year at a Lotus-adjacent price point is the real question, not whether the concept is appealing. It is. Getting a low-volume driver's car through European homologation and into driveways is the harder part, and that is the part nobody has proven yet.
