New EV from Optimal Energy in Cape Town, only 50km from where I live. It's called the Joule. Should be in production by end of 2010. Very cute.
That's a nice looking vehicle. It even looks like there's a fair amount of luggage space behind the rear seat.
That is a cute little car. Bring it over here and I'll take one. The sites lists "Maximum 400km Range" which - for those of us in the States - translates to a little less than 250 miles. Shoot, that's 6 round trips to and from work. Make that 5 and I'll recharge over the weekend. Now I mean it: bring it over here and I'll take it!
I just hope the developers can keep their momentum going and actually get it out the door and onto the roads. Perhaps we can even export a few. Electricity in SA is still quit cheap, but on the downside much of it is still generated using coal. We do have a lot of new development in the field of nuclear energy here though. A friend of mine who is very critical of car designs in general also called the Joule "cute". He liked it. I'm so pleased that we finally moved on from ugly as $hi] electric cars to vehicles that are even more desirable than their petrol fueled cousins. I still feel that a plugin hybrid is the best option for a person like me who commute a lot, but who also want to take that long road trip.
125-mile range with a single battery pack, or double that with two; 84 mph top speed. Okay, sounds great... But wait a minute! Nobody can actually buy one. This is yet another concept car. It's a great concept. But we don't even know if the car in the pictures is a real Joule, or if, like the Volt, they're just showing us a body style without working components. This is like a sci-fi TV program. Ten or fifteen different companies are showing us drawings or mock-ups of the car they promise to build "real soon now." And everyone's getting all wet and hot. But then it turns out they're all just waving it in front of us with no intention of putting out. We need to put all these news releases into a thread entitled "More Empty Promises."
Yep. It's true. That amazing electric car is always available "next year" or "once testing is completed" or "once batteries improve".
