The confusing but cute 3 wheel Solo EV is finally in production:
It's taken years, but it's finally happening: the Solo, the adorable three-wheeled electric vehicle from Electra Meccanica, is entering production.
As Electrive points out, news of the Solo first surfaced about four years ago, and deliveries were supposed to commence two years ago, but nothing happened — until now.
According to an announcement from Electra Meccanica, the company that designs and makes the Solo, the car is today entering production. It will be produced under contract by manufacturing partner and investor, Zongshen Industrial Group, in Chongqing, China.
[...] As you might expect given its name, the Solo is a one-person electric vehicle that's targeting itself hard at individual city commuters.
It has 100 miles (161 km) of range and a top speed of 80 mph (129 km/h), which is more than you'll ever need in the confines of a crowded city. It's all powered by a 17.3 kWh battery that feeds electricity to a 82 bhp motor that drives the single rear wheel.
[...] It's quirky, different, and it's way smaller than a car, which makes it great for use in cities where space is at a premium and conventional cars aren't getting any smaller. I'm not sure it really makes sense, but we'll get to that.
Electra Meccanica has said it wants to produce 75,000 of these, which seems ambitious, especially given that it didn't meet its previous delivery date.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PhilSalkie on Wednesday September 02 2020, @03:04PM (2 children)
Pre-ordered a Corbin Sparrow [wikipedia.org] in 1998, received the 38th unit made (Lime Green, "Jellybean" style) in March of 2000.
At that time, it was about the same price as a really nice Harley (around $13K US), for a hand-built three-wheeler which qualified as a motorcycle, but in most states didn't require a motorcycle license or helmet use.
The community that grew up around the vehicle dove deep into the science of battery management, charging, and motor control - several small companies were started by hobbyists making add-on hardware for the Sparrow and other EVs.
The company eventually went under, sold the design and parts to Meyers Motors, they sold it off to someone else. (The wikipedia article's a bit out of date, it seems.) Mike Corbin, the original manufacturer, is trying again with the Sparrow 2 - some more history here: https://www.makesthatdidntmakeit.com/corbin-sparrow [makesthatdidntmakeit.com]
The launch of the Sparrow inspired a number of companies to look at designing and producing three-wheeled enclosed motorcycles - Electra Meccanica, Aptera, and several others all floated prototypes over the years.
Mine's still on the road, I've swapped out a lot of parts over the years, added a Lithium battery pack from Enerdel and a more capable charger, and it's still a total head-turner - no regrets. We call it our "Tesla Egg", because it's the thing from which the modern EV movement hatched. I'm still amazed at how many people ask me where they can buy one (often for their high school student, or college-age kid).
At this point in time, though, the necessarily high pricing of a small-batch vehicle like this makes it cost about the same as a used Nissan Leaf, which I suspect would be a much better deal. If one of the big motorcycle manufacturers were to bring out a high-volume vehicle with similar specs, they could probably sell it below $10K US, which I suspect would generate a lot more interest.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 02 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
I was in California near Hollister when the Sparrow was being produced, and I stopped in to give it a test drive. Their plant was located on the end of a circle. Their driveway opened on the circle at nearly a tangent, so the gutter was at an angle. I had visions of one front wheel being propelled up out of the gutter just as the other front wheel was dipping into it, causing the car to roll over. They were a little jittery about a test drive, mentioning that someone else had already crashed one of their Sparrows earlier in the day. Um. I didn't ask for any details about the crash, but it certainly wasn't the kind of thing to inspire confidence.
And that's all the further I went. A community, huh? There aren't that many Sparrows in existence. About a thousand of them in all, isn't that right?
(Score: 2) by PhilSalkie on Thursday September 03 2020, @07:21AM
Wow, that's neat! I've never actually seen any other but ours. Production between Corbin and Myers was more like 400 or so all told, I believe - but the online group's still attracting members 20 years later. They show up on ebay fairly regularly, and there's enough folks with knowledge to help keep them running.
As for crashing - they're not super tippy, the batteries are heavy and low - but they can fairly easily spin if the rear wheel loses traction when cornering on wet pavement or wet leaves. Once it spins, then going over sideways is much easier. (Mine's now 400 lbs lighter since the lead->lithium swap, but it's still not a top-heavy feeling while driving.)