100 miles would be enough to get me to work and back the whole week, I could charge at the company and buying groceries would be fine with this size of car, too.
Totally reminds me of my smart, which was basically the same size and also this cheap. Buying an electric smart sets you back 21k € and you have to rent the battery on top (65 € per month), so it´s no real option...
I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg). In my mind, there's absolutely nothing "smart" about a gas powered two-seater with no frills that costs several thousand more than a four-seater with all the options from Nissan (Versa, $12k, 36mpg) or GM (Spark, $13k, 39mpg), especially given comparable gas mileage and more power in the latter vehicles. The only advantage the Smart ForTwo ever had in this country was easier parking.
That said, this new EV in the same form factor as the Smart, at that insanely low price, is a no-brainer for city commutes and perhaps even for suburban/semi-rural. I know I could easily get a week's worth of daily driving out of it, and like you, my company would allow me to charge at work. While we would definitely take the traditional sedan on any long trips or vacations, local trips would be fun and practical in a little EV.
Unfortunately, just like the Smart, it would be horribly overpriced if it ever came Stateside.
I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg).
I'd toyed with the idea of buying one when they first became available. But the fuel efficiency wasn't as good as some other contemporary vehicle models. And I'd be giving up a whole back seat. And performance was certainly anemic, even by sub-compact car standards.
I'll probably just get a Prius next year. 50 mpg, as actually measured by outside firms like Consumer Reports. That's so impressive. I'd love to get an electric, but they're just too expensive still.
You know what's really impressive? Back in the early 2000s I bought a 1991 Honda CRX HF from a friend, and it got about 48 mpg even with 150k miles on the odometer. That wasn't a hybrid car, just a hyper-efficient gasoline engine in a lightweight body, and it still had enough pep to safely merge on the highway.
One would think a modern plug-in hybrid would get well over 70 mpg.
At steady highway speeds you gain nothing and need to haul extra weight.
The weight penalty isn't as bad as you might imagine. On the Toyotas, the hybrid design replaces the regular transmission, flywheel, and torque converter (if automatic) or clutch (if manual).
So the big weight penalty is mostly the battery pack.
Cars from the 80s and early 90s are not really comparable to modern vehicles. Modern safety regulations add a lot of weight.
A good example of this is the Mazda MX-5. The original model from 1989 weighed 940 kg (2,070 lb). In 2009 Mazda made a special lightweight MX-5 to celebrate the 20th anniversary. It was made of special materials and even removed the windshield to save weight. The resulting car weighed 130 lbs more than the 1989 model.
> That wasn't a hybrid car, just a hyper-efficient gasoline engine in a lightweight body. One would think a modern plug-in hybrid would get well over 70 mpg.
Including the electricity usage, or without it? Because my old 2013 Volt gets a real-world 150 mpg, if you don't count the electricity.
But if you run it on gas alone, it only gets ~40mpg. Largely because, adding 1,000+ pounds of battery means the car will always be way heavier than a "lightweight body" 1991 subcompact.
The fuel efficiency is inexcusable for a car that light and making that little power. The ford fiesta gets the same combined mileage while weighing nearly a thousand pounds more.
There are all kinds of tradeoffs you can make with regards to power output, size, weight, time to market, and cost for an engine for a given vehicle. Also, what sells in one market (in the case of the Smart, Europe) may not work so well in another market (USA). IIRC, a lot of the Smarts back then (this was 10 years ago approximately) were diesel, which wasn't going to work in the North American market either.
As far as I understood the article the low price seems to be due to Chinese government subsidies which may not be applicable if sold to another market.
> I've never been a fan of the Smart line of cars, if only because they are so damned expensive here in the US ($15k for the base model, 39mpg).
I was surprised that their mileage was so low. Some sources point at values close to 60mpg but somehow US-based estimates nearly halve those values.
It's very weird, or even unbelievable, how a 2-seat 730kg car with a 0.6l engine is shown has having worse mileage than a 5-seat 1100kg car with a 1.5l engine. Things don't add up.
The interesting part about the smart for me was insurance and taxes. I don´t know where you are from, but in Germany there are some twists to that.
As a young driver you have to pay premium charges to the insurance companies, like five to six times of the normal price if you are an unexperienced driver. Cars which are "unpopular" (especially with young people) are also cheaper...
Due to the small engine, taxes are also very low for smarts.
All in all this made up for the rather high gas use...
It starts from EUR 15900 (or EUR 11900 if you discount the federal "E-Prämie") and production will start next year. (Disclaimer: I'm indirectly affiliated with e.Go)
Ah yeah, I know those ones. I find them quite interesting, but they are also not very cheap at all.
I mean, you can buy used Renault Zoe models for around 10k Euro. Even if you have to rent the battery, you can probably pay 100 months of battery rent with the price difference...
From my expectation, electric cars should just be cheaper as the whole engine system is so much cheaper.
But yeah, batteries are not yet cheap at all and there are lots of development costs and so on...
I´m really looking forward to cheap electric vehicles, those will be such great times. :-D
I crashed with my smart once (hit a massive pole) and nothing at all happened. Those small cars are built around some kind of monocoque which keeps you safe.
The plastic obviously crashes but also absorbs energy just like some shock elements which every smart has...
Well, this can happen to you in Germany, too. Normally a trip of up to one hour is "acceptable" for administrative bodies etc. so lots of people also have to commute quite long every day.
100 miles would be enough to get me to work and back the whole week, I could charge at the company and buying groceries would be fine with this size of car, too.
Totally reminds me of my smart, which was basically the same size and also this cheap. Buying an electric smart sets you back 21k € and you have to rent the battery on top (65 € per month), so it´s no real option...