Solo motor car

midlifecrisis

Member
Messages
16,102
Saw one of these bombing round Vancouver's CBD. It was fairly rapid and makes sense for city dwelling. according to the spiel it'll do 100 miles on a 3 hour charge.

Yes there's not much chance in a crash but we're experienced drivers with 6 senses and the issue of battery disposal/reprocessing is being largely ignored by environmentalists but it's not a bad concept. Not sure on price.

https://electrameccanica.com/solo/

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
 

Ewan

Member
Messages
6,757
I test drove a Twizzy a couple of weeks back, in Northampton, with the thought of using it for my three mile daily commute in the summer. But the maths didn't really stack up, as after buying the vehicle (at about £7k) you then have to lease the batteries at £50 a month, meaning an annual "fuel" bill of £600 (excluding the cost of the electricity to charge them), and I'd only be covering maybe 600 miles a year. So, it would cost me less, in fuel, to commute in an Aventador-S. No wonder Renault don't actually sell many Twizzy's.
 

dickygrace

www.richardgracecars.co.uk
Messages
7,309
Good friend has a Tesla Model S, P90D, which is about the fastest accelerating car I’ve ever been in. He loves the fact that it costs him very little to run for his 35-40k miles per annum. I don’t think he’ll be loving it when he realises that the fuel costs pale into insignificance when he gets a figure to trade it in in 2 years time. Fuel is dear in the U.K. as we are all too aware, but still not a patch on depreciation costs.
 

lifes2short

Member
Messages
5,821
No point having an electric car unless they sort out the charging points in the UK, apart from the odd Tesla points I've seen at the odd motorway service stations I see no public points, imagine getting stuck with no where to charge:road_rage-28:
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
I saw a Tesla (haven't a clue what model) last year on the M6 coming back from Liverpool to Ashford. It accelerated like a rocket, and sat at 100, er 71 mph for ages, with me in my Merc E350 Diesel behind him (when I'd caught up because of traffic).

Just before Silverstone on the M1 it pulled off into a service station.

I thought nothing more of it until the next morning I saw the exact same car in Ashford (number plate spelt Tesla or something). It occurred to me that the Tesla must have run out of electricity. Whereas my Merc still had half a tank of diesel left.

Until the range is 500+ miles I won't even consider one.
 

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,764
There were more than a few Brits with Teslas at Le Mans, so longer excursions are possible with some planning, a bit like the SM trip.

From what I understand that they are more than capable of 200 miles on a charge which is more than enough for most people, very rarely do I do more than that in a day. So even without charge points they are useable and I would be tempted but they are still £40k plus
 

Mattp

Member
Messages
501
I test drove a Twizzy a couple of weeks back, in Northampton, with the thought of using it for my three mile daily commute in the summer. But the maths didn't really stack up, as after buying the vehicle (at about £7k) you then have to lease the batteries at £50 a month, meaning an annual "fuel" bill of £600 (excluding the cost of the electricity to charge them), and I'd only be covering maybe 600 miles a year. So, it would cost me less, in fuel, to commute in an Aventador-S. No wonder Renault don't actually sell many Twizzy's.

I tried the maths too... and much like yourself, the twizzy came out more expensive than the Maserati for commuting! infact all the Renault electric cars have batterypacks that lease out at more than the cost of liquid dinosaur…
equally, I don't mind paying as I drive, but the car costing as much when its stationary, as when is moving, I find deeply unnerving!
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
There were more than a few Brits with Teslas at Le Mans, so longer excursions are possible with some planning, a bit like the SM trip.

From what I understand that they are more than capable of 200 miles on a charge which is more than enough for most people, very rarely do I do more than that in a day. So even without charge points they are useable and I would be tempted but they are still £40k plus

By all accounts a few minutes in 'insane' mode (or whatever they call it) put your usage to less than 50 miles! rendering the car pretty much useless.
 

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,764
By all accounts a few minutes in 'insane' mode (or whatever they call it) put your usage to less than 50 miles! rendering the car pretty much useless.

No doubt but it is all about using what you have in proportion of what you want to use it for.
 

Mattp

Member
Messages
501
I saw a Tesla (haven't a clue what model) last year on the M6 coming back from Liverpool to Ashford. It accelerated like a rocket, and sat at 100, er 71 mph for ages, with me in my Merc E350 Diesel behind him (when I'd caught up because of traffic).

Just before Silverstone on the M1 it pulled off into a service station.

I thought nothing more of it until the next morning I saw the exact same car in Ashford (number plate spelt Tesla or something). It occurred to me that the Tesla must have run out of electricity. Whereas my Merc still had half a tank of diesel left.

Until the range is 500+ miles I won't even consider one.


Unless your doing hundreds of miles a day, then the ultimate range of your tank isn't so much of an issue, especially if you return to somewhere that has an electricity socket each night... our local petrol station closed for a couple of days and we ended up with range anxiety in the freelander! if that was electric it wouldn't have been an issue...

then, the occasions that you do need to do a trans continental voyage, the money saved on tax and general use fuel should nicely offset the cost of a hire car for such trips - I read somewhere that if you have an i3/i8 BMW will lend you a car if you need to rack up some miles in a trip.
 

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,557
By all accounts a few minutes in 'insane' mode (or whatever they call it) put your usage to less than 50 miles! rendering the car pretty much useless.

It will do, but I really doubt anyone drives it in that mode. It's a marketing stunt

C
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
Unless your doing hundreds of miles a day, then the ultimate range of your tank isn't so much of an issue, especially if you return to somewhere that has an electricity socket each night... our local petrol station closed for a couple of days and we ended up with range anxiety in the freelander! if that was electric it wouldn't have been an issue...

then, the occasions that you do need to do a trans continental voyage, the money saved on tax and general use fuel should nicely offset the cost of a hire car for such trips - I read somewhere that if you have an i3/i8 BMW will lend you a car if you need to rack up some miles in a trip.

For work I often do over 500 miles in a day. I'm sure thousands of others around the country do as well.
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
No doubt but it is all about using what you have in proportion of what you want to use it for.

But in a petrol or diesel engined car you can use all of the performance (should you wish) all of the time. When the fuel runs out, its a 5 minute refuel and you can do it all again.
 

lifes2short

Member
Messages
5,821
I assume if you own a tesla then most often than not you're probably going to give it some welly regularly to get that that thrill, I know I would and then before you know it your range has gone to nothing, like Geoff Capes I would never consider an electric car until they have at least a 500 mile "genuine" range
 

zagatoes30

Member
Messages
20,764
But in a petrol or diesel engined car you can use all of the performance (should you wish) all of the time. When the fuel runs out, its a 5 minute refuel and you can do it all again.

I suspect you are not the customer that would go Tesla or even Electric regardless but there are many that would and in the Electric world i think Tesla are much further down the track of getting a perfomant, luxury car using this technology. I still think they are expensive but then again is anything else in the same class regardless of fuel source. If it wasn't for the price I could seriously see one working for me 95% of the time.