www.commutercars.com/
This skinny car I like. Handles well and does a quarter mile in 12 seconds with a 0-60 of 4 seconds :-) At $85k it is a little steep but they do a $18k version which is a slower at 7 seconds 0-60 with a choice of front or rear wheel drive. The next one up from that at $40,000 is 4 wheel drive. Range is 80 miles so it is pretty decent.
At last something to make a petrol head go electric :-)
teabelly
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I'm sure it's not just me that thinks it would be unstable in high speed corners.....
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If a large part of the weight is very low down, batteries?, then the roll over stability may still be quite good.
One way to quantify this is to divide the track width by twice the height of the centre of gravity. This non dimensional number can be termed rollover threshold. Work done in the US shows a reduction in the real life rate of rollover accidents with increasing rollover threshold - although there is some scatter in the results suggesting there is some other parameter to be considered. Vehicles with a rollover threshold less than 1.2 (SUVs) showed a much higher real life rollover rate.
number_cruncher
Reference
Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics
Thomas D. Gillespie
Published by SAE, 1992
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I can see that they've also got incredibly wide and sticky tyres on it so perhaps it's ultimate grip and the weight of the batteries being low will keep it upright.
Doesn't look it though, and I wonder if the public will think the same?
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Looks a bit claustrophobic to me. I wonder how it fares in side crash tests. 0-60 in 4 seconds; that's supercar/motorbike territory. A more unlikely-looking performance car I have yet to see.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land
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It gets 5 stars in the US roll over test so I am assuming it has some sort of roll cage. I don't know how it would fair under the European ncap tests though.
teabelly
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You may not need to make a decision - this government and its political advisers believe/intend that your future commuter car should be either a Routemaster or a row of carriages that travel along two parallel rails.....
It will ensure swift and trouble-free Ministerial and cahoots' car transport journeys.
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Is it just me or do those photos look rather heavily photoshopped?
Call me cynical and all, but I wonder if the cars actualy exist.
Saw one of those 50cc bubble car things in Shrewsbury yesterday, caused a right stir (the type that was at the auction that HJ reported on) Young lad in it with L plates on, looked very happy with himself!
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They might need to get the price down too. $85K is a bit steep.
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