After Uncle Dave’s introduction [yesterday] of TV run amok to the 30′ x 20′ screen, I felt it appropriate, this morning, to offer a glimpse of a “smaller is better” piece of automotive reason.
THERE is a map on the wall of the office of GoinGreen’s offices in Southall, West London, which shows the spread of emission-free motoring. It looks like the early stages of a virus, with coloured pins marking the address of every owner of a Reva G-Wiz.
So far, the map is restricted to Greater London. The armies of pins have outposts as far as Chislehurst and Beckenham in the south-east, and Wimbledon in the south-west, stretching as far north as Barnet. There are a couple in Ealing.
The big battalions are clustered in the leafier parts of north London, with high concentrations of colour in Primrose Hill and Hampstead. One of those pins is said to belong to Jonathan Ross – a man with a penchant for eccentric vehicles. Since they went on sale in summer 2004, more than 500 of these impish electric cars have been sold.
The G-Wiz was conceived in California by Dr Lon Bell, an engineer who made his fortune making airbag sensors and seatbelt tensioners, before becoming intrigued by the way cars work.
In designing an electric car, he decided to ignore the assumptions of conventional construction. His first thought was to ask what was necessary in a car, from which he concluded that it needed wheels, with tyres, something to steer and a windscreen. Most of the rest was luxury and got in the way of making a nimble, no-frills electric vehicle for non-polluting urban travel.
Alastair Mackay’s “road test” is witty and to the point. This is a vehicle designed to be “all that it can be” — and no more.
It costs about $14K to own [with heated and cooled leather seats] and requires about 75¢ a day to run. Maximum round trip 42 miles.
I want two…….
I think this car was the prize at the bottom of a box of Honeycomb cereal I ate a couple of weeks ago 😉 One of the inescapable problems we have with SUVs is that it can be downright dangerous not to drive a similarly sized vehicle. When you have an accident because some guy was distracted while talking on his cell phone, soccer dad driving the SUV wins! Until Congress rolls back the favorable tax treatment that encourages business owners to buy vehicles weighing over 6000 pounds instead of appropriately sized cars, behemoth SUVs will continue to rule the road.
If we’re not going to embrace mass transit, these small commuter vehicles are a great alternative, though. Reading the description, I was hoping it would make up for all its inherent goodness with something really out of character, like baby sealskin seats. Disappointingly, the seats are mere bovine leather. Oh, well…
In Canada we have only one choice. The Chrysler SmartCar which is a great alternative vehicle but Chrysler has only made the two person models available and the price of these cars is TOO HIGH! $20,000 base price.
I wish there was a rebate or at least shipping and handling rebates for consumers who wanted to bring an alternative vehicle into their respective countries.
But I think governments are serious about getting consumers to switch. After all. If we all start using eletric vehicles and then start generating our own power (solar, wind) it would be just TOO disruptive for those poor “struggling” energy companies.
I think consumers are going to have to DEMAND a reasonable and cost effective way to switch to alternative anything that involves the same rebates and tax breaks that energy companies have been getting for decades!
Does this car make a sound like the Jetsons’ car? If it does, I’m sold..
Chrysler got the licence for the SmartCar in North America huh?
In the UK it was BMW…
Problems with electric cars…
Heating inside SUCKS the motor dry.
You still have to plug them in and charge them, and electric prices keep going UP.
Living in a windy area, you WIL NOT want to drive it, its VERY LIGHT..
Didn’t read the article, eh? Using less electricity is why this critter doesn’t use a space heater.
The smart car was a collaboration between Daimler – Benz (Mercedes) and Swatch ( the watch company )
Daimler – Benz owns Chrysler so they may sell it though their dealer network.
has nothing at all to do with BMW
That’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. How do you haul the plywood? Or the boat? Or the ATV?
It does specify urban travel so I don’t have to ask if it can maintain 80mph with a full load on a freeway for 6 hours non-stop. Then again urban travel means you have to have one of these and a real vehicle for useful travel. The only kind of travel anyone should want to do in an urban area is to get the hell out. Urban areas are a place to work, not to live.
7.
you dont think,
that BECAUSE we have to plug it in, and CHARGE it, that the ELC company wont raise rates??
does it come with a jaws of life (or, at least a can opener) when you get crunched by a Hummer?
G wiz We would like to get one for our Renabil fuel station
Here in Goodwick.
love it want one
I feel sorry for most of the people posting here. They are not understanding what this vehicle is for. Its not for you overwieght suburban bobble heads, its for urban people who make short jaunts in something like that, and trips in trains and airplanes, not minivans and pigged out status symbol SUVs………backwards thinking is what keeps the wheels of progress slowed down by couch potatoes that believe everything they see on the sh*tbox in their livingroom……
Get out of your Lazyboy Lazy Boy…….go to Europe and see what all those countries have been doing to conserve on energy( gas 6-8 a gal since you first watched All in the Family…) I work as a professional musician and commercial artist….I, like many people think our work is more important that a manicured lawn…….the sidewalk in just fine when I walk out of my $120,000 condo loft……… I look good when I walk out the door……I can get in a goofy little car and feel great…….I would love one of these little critters to tool around town and do my shopping and bar hopping…….not everyones reality is so mundane……..Judge, I rest my case.
would like to make contact via email with Buzz Knapp-Fisher who posted here in May 2006.
Hope he still looks at the site or someone may know his email address
Judy from Australia sent to
juba7 ———-I am @bigpond.com