Which electric car is best?

Oct 10, 2006 57 Replies
S

judging from this OLD article it looks like they want a handout for each vehicle. Big shock there...

Japan hands REVA $2,600 welcome note - Narayanan Somasundaram, Bangalore, 12 December

REVA Electric Car Company has secured a $2,600 subsidy per car from the govern­ment of Japan. Following this, the company is demonstrating its electric variants in select cities of Japan and hopes to ship out cars to Japan in the next two months. This type of subsidy is similar to the one ob­tained from the UK govern­ment. In UK the REVA has firm orders for the supply of 500 cars, the subsidy offered to cus­tomers stands at 1,000 pound sterling.

Chetan Kumaar Maini, deputy chairman and CTO Re­va Electric Car Company said, "In the short term export mar­kets will be crucial. But in the longer run the brand image gained from overseas exports will hold it in good stead in the changing Indian market." He added that the subsidy gained from Japan is apart from the tax concessions for non-polluting variants.

The foray into Japan will test the REVA, as Japan did dabble with electric variants before giv­ing up because of high prices.

The company has already appointed a distributor who has a dealer base of around 35 across Japan. To start with, Re­va will be offered in selected cities and based on the response extended to other areas. Chetan Maini said that, to in· crease capacity utilisation, or­ders from overseas market will matter. REVA has a 6,000 car annual capacity. Besides a few hundred units exported to UK, the company has put on Indian roads under 900 vehicles since its inception.

Apart from interesting the general crowd in Japan, the company expects to benefit from the government regula­tion. The regulation mandates 10 per cent of all government vehicles should be electric variant by 2005. The success in Japan will boost the brand image of REVA globally. Added to it, the com­pany is working out a brand­ing/promotional strategy, which it expects to unveil next year.

Also market acceptance will assist the company access much needed global funding. The company for quite some time now has been negotiating a $15 million private equity funding. Chetan Maini hopes to conclude this within the next couple of months.

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A

That should pay for itself in savings about . . . . . . never.

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E

Who does this ?

You're from Norway it seems. Greetings. It's a lovely place if somewhat expensive ! Whereabouts do you live ?

Graham

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E

The electric Smart will make more sense. Deliveries commence shortly in the UK but supplies are very limited.

Graham

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L

It's a glorified Golf Cart. If you don't want to get run over by a field mouse or a rabbit, I would put lights all over the thing to make it VISIBLE.

Lg

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M

Its closer to $8000 US , and heres the bad part, the conversion completely voids your prius warranty. The replacement battery comes with just 2 years warranty and costs approx $7000 to replace.

Its interestting to note that Toyota actually have made a number of Plug in versions of the Prius , but they wont mass produce them stating that battery reilability is simply not good enough.

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E

Have you actually been in a Smart ?

It's is not small at all in fact it's quite a bit taller than the average car.

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Graham

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A

Eeyore wrote: ...

... I think the electric Scion Xb looks like a winner, though I think it would be better with wheel motors like the electric mini. I like the idea of being able to plug my house into it during power failures.

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Anthony

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T

Theese guys:

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"Enviromental cars Grenland"BTW: If I remember correctly, they use SAFT batteries with operates at3oo(?) degrees celsius Think they sell at about u$ 30.000 at the moment. They are also planning on geting gliders from other manufacturers aswell.

Also in Norway:

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Nice to hear that you like Norway. I live in Bergen, second larges city with about 250K inhabitants.

It's true that it's expensive here, but the salaries are high. We dont have minimum wages, but the defacto minimum vage is about u$12-15/h

If you ever hav the possibility, you should visit Bergen, lofoten and svalbard. (bring lots of cash or a loaded credit card.:-))

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J

I wasn't saying it was necessarily good or bad. But the price of electricity in many areas is no longer a set rate fixed by a local public utility commission. Consequently the cost of charging up an electric car could be quite high.

At one time providers of electricity were considered to be a quasi public entity, or a privately owned company providing a public service. In exchange for having a monopoly over a given market the price of electricity would be set by a governmental entity. In a burst of de-regulatory fervor the tightly controlled structure was scrapped and market-based pricing of electricity was phased in. In theory opening the business of generating and delivery of electricity to the market was supposed to have attracted lots of competitors and held prices down. What has happened is that there has not been an increase in suppliers.

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M

I have too , and you can get LiIon to last longer. Thats not the problem. The problem is that the battery manufacturers wont provide any kind of long term warranty on their batteries, even if they claim they will last 10 years. Given that most existing car manufacturers arnt in the battery business, they have to buy the batteries from 3rd parties and if the battery manufacturer wont warrant the batteries it means the car maker has too, and thats a huge risk when the batteries cost from $5K to $20K each. Just recently, Dell Computers had to recall 4 million lap top computers to replace their defective Lithium Ion batteries. Fortunately Lap top computer batteries dont cost $5K to $20K each .

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A

... ...

There seem to be a number of companies coming out with better lithium batteries that last longer than older ones and are less likely to catch fire and explode. Hopefully they'll offer warranties if they ever start being used in EV's.

This is one of them, I believe.

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That said, it's unusual to find any manufacturer that will warranty their cars for 10 years. Most of them that do offer 10 year warranties use weasel words to limit the coverage dramatically.

Anthony

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H

If you can believe the press, the Tesla has to be near the top.

400 km on a charge, 3 hour recharge time, and powerful performance. How can you beat it? (if it is true)
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E

Look at the price ( $80,000 ) !

Check this one out too.

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Graham

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N

It is not intended to run around highways. It is a city runabout. Perfect for its intended use.

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N

Very objective and scientifically based.

>
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Y

I was in one a couple years ago as a passenger. I found it to be a very enjoyable ride. Maybe after a while it would be small, but the diesel version gets good mileage.

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E

If I had the parking space and a bit more spare cash, I'd unquestionably run a Smart for town / city use and quite happily for 20-30 miles trips too.

They're very nice little cars in fact. And very spacious inside since they're designed just for two. Great view of the road too.

Graham

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