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BREAKING NEWS: VANCOUVERSUN.COM | Friday, July 3, 2015
Electric Vehicles
Beetle of the 21st century
ElectraMeccanica plans to build three-wheelers in Lower Mainland
Andrew
Mccredie
I
have driven the future, and it
is now.
Well, maybe.
In a world of two-buck-a-litre
gas, this single-seat, all-electric enclosed three-wheeler is a
game-changer. Throw in a provincial/federal EV rebate of five
grand or so to offset the $19,888
price tag, and the ambitious
plan to build thousands of them
each year in the Lower Mainland seems even more grounded
in reality.
Talk with ElectraMeccanica’s
president/CEO, and it seems all
but inevitable.
“This is the Volkswagen Beetle
for the 21st century,” Jerry Kroll
declared in the Westin Bayshore
parking lot during my pre-test
drive briefing. “After 30 minutes of driving it, you feel like
you are wearing Robert Downey
Jr.’s Ironman suit. You’re wearing the car. It’s the way driving
should be.”
As Sun business writer Bruce
Constantineau reported recently,
ElectraMeccanica (EM) has
designs on building these vehicles right here in B.C. for sale in
Canada and around the world.
Kroll is an entrepreneur who
has spent his life around cars —
racing them, building them —
and for the past five years has
been developing electric drive
systems in race cars at the NASA
Research Park in Mountain
View, Calif.
He’s the brains behind ElectraMeccanica, while the brawn
comes from Henry Reisner, the
Vancouver-based owner/operator of custom car-builder Intermeccanica. As chief operating
officer, it will fall on Reisner to
oversee production of the single-seater at a facility Kroll estimates will employ between 500
and 1,000 “clean-tech workers.”
A site for the factory has yet to be
selected, but Abbotsford is leading the pack so far.
“The (Abbotsford) mayor drove
this and said ‘I want one!’ ” Kroll
said.
So what exactly is it?
If it looks somewhat familiar,
that’s because this pre-production model is based on the Sparrow, first built by Corbin Industries way back in 1999. Kroll
worked with Corbin back then,
“trying to bring it into Canada,”
and earlier this year EM bought
the rights and existing assets of
Myers Motors, which took over
Sparrow production in 2004.
But the EM Sparrow prototype
that I tested is different from
the original in a few ways. First,
lead-acid batteries have been
replaced by a state-of-the-art
lithium-ion drive system; secondly, due to that powertrain
upgrade, gross weight has been
slashed from 725 kilograms to
just 578 kg. That translates into
more nimble performance, and
more importantly, an increased
full-charge range from about 40
kilometres to more than 100.
Kroll says the plan is to have
15 or so of these pre-production
models built for sale by the end
of the year before switching over
to the EMV17 model, which uses
the exact same lithium-ion drivetrain as in the fibreglass prototype, but is housed in a made-inB.C. carbon-fibre body penned
by car designer Rod Trenne (see
pictured sketch). The Detroitbased Trenne worked on the
Corvette C5 and designed the
Mosler MT900 supercar. The
use of carbon fibre, according to
Gerry Kahrmann/PNG
ElectraMeccanica president and CEO Jerry Kroll describes the Sparrow as feeling like ‘you are wearing Robert Downey Jr.’s Ironman suit.’
“
After driving it,
when you get
back into a normal
vehicle, it feels like
you are driving
a motorhome.
Jerry Kroll
ElectraMeccanica President/CEO
top: andrew mccredie; above: submitted
The cockpit of the Sparrow prototype features a wide and comfortable
seat. The EMV17, shown in a sketch by Rod Trenne, is a carbon-fibre
three-wheeler ElectraMeccanica plans to manufacture in B.C.
Kroll, will bring the gross weight
down to less than 400 kg, meaning a longer range and even better performance. The plan is to
produce and sell 120 EMV17s
in 2016 and more than 1,200 in
2017.
The first EMV17, says Kroll,
will be road-ready by the end of
this year.
Last month ElectraMeccanica
received registration approval
from the B.C. Ministry of Transportation (under category 97
for three-wheeled cars), “which
means we can sell them now and
people can drive them around.”
So, apart from Ironman wannabes, who exactly is the target
market?
“Eighty-three per cent of all
commuters in North America
drive by themselves 60 kilometres or less each day,” Kroll said.
“In Canada, that’s 14 million
people. If we sell these cars to
just one-tenth of one per cent of
those, it’s $280 million a year.”
He noted that’s not including another segment he sees
as a natural for the car: courier
fleets. In addition to the obvious operational savings, Kroll
says the vehicle’s small footprint
allows it to be parked in spots
suited for a motorcycle or even
a bicycle. Other possible buyers
include municipalities and catering companies.
“The company is going public
as ElectraMeccanica,” Kroll continued. “We’re currently doing
round one of financing, so I’m
spending all my time these days
meeting with people interested
in investing in the company.”
We’ll leave it to the Sun business desk to follow that side of
the story; now let’s drive this
thing.
Entering the Sparrow from the
right hand-side door — the only
door apart from the rear cargo
hatch — and settling into the
wide and comfortable seat, the
driver’s view is not unlike that of
a regular car. Steering wheel (a
sporty Momo, no less). Two foot
pedals. Stalk turn signal. Speedo.
Climate controls. Windshield
wiper switch. Air vents. Smartphone holder.
The handbrake, located on
your left and seemingly sourced
from a Triumph TR7 parts bin, is
the first tip-off that something’s
amiss. Turn your head to the
right and you realize you’re not
in Kansas anymore.
Things return to normalcy as a
key gets this vehicle going, albeit
one installed on the left side of
the steering wheel. A full turn of
it emits a beep that fills the tiny
cabin, and when that stops, it’s
time to turn the switch to put the
Sparrow in drive.
Like any EV worth its battery
pack, the only sound on acceleration is a whirr from the electric
motor.
Unlike any other EV, the sensation of accelerating is akin to
taxi-ing a fighter jet down a runway. With no body mass to the
right of you, it takes some getting used to, but once mastered
it is truly liberating. Motorcyclists know the feeling of lots of
room to roam in a single lane,
and the Sparrow captures that
essence, but with none of the
wind and engine noise of a gaspowered bike.
Despite no power steering or
brakes, I never felt labouring
over either duty, though Kroll
did share some useful pre-drive
advice: “Test out the brakes first
thing to get a feeling for them.”
Like Beetles of old, the pressure
you exert to slow down or stop is
more than pampered 21st-century drivers are used to, but still
not onerous enough to bring on
thigh cramps.
The only times I felt uneasy
occurred when distracted pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in
hulking subcompacts took slackjawed interest and veered into
my path, in attempts to either
stop me outright or at least get a
quick selfie. If I had a dollar for
every thumbs-up I received, I
could buy my very own Sparrow
(without the rebate!).
The one time I did stop, for an
impromptu photo shoot in Stanley Park, I was besieged by the
curious and peppered with questions. Even the horse-drawn carriage guy reined in his steeds to
allow on-board tourists to gawk
and capture the moment.
“What the heck is that thing?”
drawled one.
Back inside my safe cocoon I
sped away, feeling like a futuristic traveller caught in the horse
and buggy age. Marty McFly can
keep his DeLorean.
Like a dream that ended
before it began, my 30-minute
test drive was over, and I found
myself standing outside the
Sparrow looking at it and feeling the same disconnect I felt
when I first drove a SmartCar
at 120 km/h. I was driving that
thing that fast? It sure didn’t
feel like it looks.
In other words, driving the
Sparrow was very similar to driving a small car.
It’s low centre of gravity and
three-wheeled stance — Kroll
pointed out three-wheels provide “the most stable platform
known to humankind” — translate to a very confident handling
feel, and the quick acceleration
gives you the confidence to play
in Vancouver’s infamous dodgy
traffic.
“After driving it, when you get
back into a normal vehicle, it
feels like you are driving a motorhome,” Kroll told me before my
test drive.
As I drove home in my compact, I had to admit he was
right.
As to if he’s right on ElectraMeccanica being Vancouver’s
first high-volume car manufacturer, only time will tell.
And gas prices.
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