Challenge on the Next City

GEM e2 electric cars – under $10k.

One of our readers points out that cutting carbon footprint at home, getting rid of the car, and emphasizing walkability is all well and good if you’re mobile, but what if walking is a problem? Sit home and mope?

While talking about automated mobility may be a slippery slope in the next city, let’s take a look at what’s out there. Actually we are now beginning to see the production of quite an array of electric vehicles for the next city (and without a $25 billion federal subsidy…).

We have many qualms. Though some are very inexpensive, small, and light, they are certainly not built with sustainable materials in sustainable ways – and none of the manufacturers is touting the cradle-to-cradle nature of their production (recycled, recylable, renewable) – but it strikes us as better than a Hummer, by some margin.

Electric Smart car. Just another car in a smaller package, or a new way of thinking? $35k.

Our favorites are the littlest, the lightest, and smallest. Kind of like golf carts that are enclosed. These are the ones that allow for local urban mobility without pretending that we can commute for two hours one-way, or make a weekend run from DC to Boston. For that, in the next city, we’ll need something else – not cars – like trains. If the next city is to be about people, and local life, and neighborhoods, and sustainability, and not cars and all their attendant destruction, then thinking really small seems like the only way at all.

Startlab’s Open Street model. A bit more than $22k.

There is one available soon, supposedly, called the Tesla. Hard to suppress a laugh at that name… Anyway, the manufacturers claim over 200 miles between charges and a top speed of 125 mph. Cost is north of $110 grand. This sounds more like substitution than rethinking – greenwashing if you will. Here we can see what we can do, but not necessarily what we should do.

Tesla: 0 to 60 in just over 3 seconds, top speed 125 mph.

Anyway, dear reader, there are options for those with mobility challenges, options that permit participation in the next urban life without pumping breathtaking amounts of carbon into the air. In the end though, these little electric devices need to be coupled with a new way of making our communities – destinations within your neighborhood that are just a few blocks away, not across town or out in the suburbs. For many, even city dwellers in most cities in this country, walking a half mile or a mile doesn’t get you to the garlic you need, or the trattoria where you want to be. This must be the highest priority as we reshape the places where we live and work. Mr. Kamen, we need a two-door Segway with wipers and a heater, please.

Myers Motors NMG (no more gas) one seat electric car – a tricycle. $30k.

Volvo Bringing Updated Electric C30 To Detroit, Will Start Trials in 2011

Last September, Volvo introduced a proof of concept version of its all-electric C30 compact car. That car was more of a novelty than anything else; but now Volvo has done up the interior and added a complete set of instruments to bring the C30 EV to the prototype stage of a distant production version.

They will be debuting the prototype at next month’s Detroit Auto Show, and plan on producing at least 50 of them for a group of “selected users” to start test driving in 2011.

With a range of about 93 miles (150 km), the electric C30 is on par with other soon-to-debut EVs such as the Nissan LEAF or the Ford Focus BEV. Since all auto manufacturers have limited experience with EVs, Volvo wants to start with small aspirations so that it can have the opportunity to see how users handle the unique aspects of driving an electric car.

“Our test fleet data will be valuable in Volvo Cars’ development of electric cars. It will also provide crucial input for the infrastructure planners and help define which services are needed to make rechargeable cars the most attractive choice in the future,” said Lennart Stegland, Director of Volvo Cars Special Vehicles.

Volvo says they will “need to spend a lot of time” developing a transmission system that “is both comfortable and safe for the driver to handle and at the same time utilizes the battery’s capacity optimally at different speeds.” I’m not sure what this PR speak means, exactly, but it can’t be that hard to build a transmission for an EV. I mean, really, of all the engineering and design considerations that go into developing an EV, it seems like the transmission is something that is a fairly robust technology at this point, no?

Volvo claims that the C30 will have all of the fun of a regular C30, but without the guilt of emissions. Look, I’m all for EVs—in fact, I’ve frequently said that when compared to hydrogen or biofuels, they are clearly our only real long-term solution—but I get sick of companies trying to claim they will be “just like” driving a regular car. The fact of matter is that these first generation EVs will take some sacrifices on the part of the driver. Initially they may not be as convenient as gas cars, they will have limited range, and they will take some adjustment. They are not meant for everybody right off the bat. When companies claim they are, it does a disservice to potential EV owners.

Why we can lead switch to electric cars

Yesterday Nissan announced plans to build a factory in Sunderland to supply batteries for a new generation of affordable electric cars, creating up to 350 new jobs.

And in 2012 the Japanese manufacturer is expected to build a new electric model at its car plant nearby, which would create hundreds of extra jobs and safeguard thousands more.

In the pipeline ... Ampera saloon Vauxhall plan to build

The Nissan move follows Toyota's decision last week to start building an electric/hybrid version of its Auris hatchback at its plant in Burnaston, Derbys, next year.

Vauxhall could complete a hat-trick of electric/hybrid models being built in the UK if it gets the go-ahead to build its new Ampera saloon at the Ellesmere Port factory on Merseyside.

Meanwhile the Government has confirmed that from 2011 it will offer motorists cash incentives of £2,000 to £5,000 to buy electric or hybrid cars.

And it is working with car firms, energy companies and local authorities to set up a nationwide network of city recharging points by 2012.

But to succeed, the cars must be reasonably priced, so Nissan and its partner, Renault, are promising an "affordable" range of electric vehicles to go on sale in Europe by 2011/12.

Next month Nissan will reveal pictures of its family-sized electric car, with a 100-mile range, which it says will be on sale in 2011, while sources say its Nuvu concept is a possible electric city car of the near future.

Electric cars have been around for the last century and have frequently been hailed as the future, yet they have never fully delivered.

However, it now seems that for the first time car makers and governments are determined to make it happen.