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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: 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.)