The UK's first four-seat, all-electric production car goes on sale

Very interesting, but...

The site shows 10 pictures of the car standing alone, not a human in
sight.

Why? It's a matter of scale; most probably the car is half the size of a
Mini.

No thank you.

 

WOW!!!!! FABULOUS!!! If I lived there I'd be at the dealer buying one today.

Not if you plug it into your 220-volt dryer circuit.

The video shows a man standing by the car and talking about it. Then he gets in and drives it. It's a small car, but not microscopic. Remember that cars in Europe are on average smaller than cars in the U.S. In London, the car would not feel smaller than the typical cars it shares the road with.

Hooray for them!!!

This is what I want to see. News of EVs actually being sold to the public. (Though it's too bad it's not being sold here.)

Thanks, Silver, for posting this.

 

Technology innovation has been coming out of Europe for decades. I know that's true in the plastics business. We are behind on most things except for computers. The Japanese are ahead in cars.

 

The electric version costs about 8,000 UK more than it's petrol counterpart. People paying UK fuel prices, let alone London congestion charges and parking will recoup that amount very quickly.

This is really the first car I have seen that is within the price range of most current new car buyers. About time ! I've known for a while now that my next car purchase is going to be an EV commuter. I happy to see that they will have time to mature, differentiate, and come down even further in price by the time I am ready to buy one.

 

It fits my needs perfectly. To bad it isn't for sale in the US, I would sell my Prius and buy one.

 

Only way this would be allowed to be sold here is with a 25MPH top speed limit a la Zenn. I don't think it would be too attractive then.

 

The Citroen C1 is a real car not a NEV. It meets Euro crash standards. This is basically an electric conversion. There is no reason a company in the US couldn't do the same thing. They could take a new Yaris or Aveo and convert it to an EV.

This has been done in the past. Solectria took a Geo Metro sedan and converted them to EV's. They called this converted car the Solectria Force.

 

I wonder if it has the safety equipment required here, though.

 

The Citroen C1 was not designed to meet US standard so that particular car could not be sold in the US. Again, all they would need to do is convert a car currently sold in the US.

 

Only thing I was wondering, was what with our 5MPH bumpers, airbags and other stuff if the extra weight might not kill the mileage/range. I'm all for a nice electric town car, too. It just seems that the only thing available is either a 3 wheel quasi motorcycle or a 4 wheel vehicle limited to 25 MPH which cuts out some of the required safety equipment. I've always thought it was one the extra safety equipment that was preventing a real electric vehicle from being available, as meeting all safety standards seems to require a more powerful vehicle with the incumbent greater battery power requirements.

 

The C1 meets Europe's version of our DOT standards. The C1 has airbags, ABS, crumple zones, etc. The issue is that Europe and the US have different little detail requirements.

The reason you don't see EV's that are real cars is because most EV's are made by small start-up companies. These companies don't have the money to make a car from scratch that meets the regulations and pay for the certification. So instead they go around the rules by making a 3 wheeled EV that is registered as a motorcycle or a NEV that doesn't really have any safety regulations.

 

Your research on this topic goes further than mine! Thanks for the info!! Maybe we'll see a real electric car someday for well under $50K and without really expensive batteries.

 

A standard household outlet in the UK is 220V & 13 amps

A standard electric dryer outlet in the US is 220v & 20 amps.

So if you plugged into a US dryer outlet the car would charge as fast if not faster than in the UK. (It depends if the charger has a amperage limit.)

 

Now you are just being difficult.

While you could make a very long extension cord to connect your basement dryer plug to your garage I have a simpler solution.

You or an electrician of your choosing could simply add an additional 220V / 20 amp outlet in your garage. I have (5) 220V circuits in my house:

1. Heat Pump (Main House)
2. Stove
3. Dryer
4. Hot Water Heater
5. Heat Pump (Workshop)

In order to add an additional 220V circuit you will need 2 empty spots in your fuse panel.