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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday September 02 2020, @07:25AM   Printer-friendly
from the easy-to-park dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Wednesday September 02 2020, @05:52PM (1 child)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Wednesday September 02 2020, @05:52PM (#1045508)

    Honestly I thought I saw a three wheel version of the C1 once, but I may have confused it with this Peugeot: https://image.xedoisong.vn/w1024/Uploaded/2019/bgtwae/2016_04_27/53fyeo_aili.jpg, [xedoisong.vn] although that seems to be a concept that was not put into production: https://newatlas.com/peugeot-hymotion3-three-wheel-concept/10195/ [newatlas.com]

    They made them, but without the roof, which seems like a shame. The C1 was very unique, and seemed like an excellent city commuter, even had storage behind the seat for larger load. According to wiki sales were poor, so they discontinued it. In fact, looking at the the general experience of these "micro cars", sales are consistently poor. Seems people just are not interested in them. The most successful was the "Smart car", which struck a good balance between size and practicality, and is similar to the original "mini" and "fiat 500", all of which have gotten much fatter lately.
     

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @09:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 03 2020, @09:18PM (#1046071)

    You may have seen one, it was probably just modded though. 3 wheel kits exist for a few bikes, and DIY is not too hard if you have a torch and knowledge.