The Return of the Sparrow Electric Vehicle?

H0NGK0NGPH00EY writes "I have been keeping my eye on the Sparrow electric vehicle, following last year's bankruptcy of its creator, and recently noticed that the brightly-colored three-wheeled electric commuter car has been reborn. Myers Motors will begin selling an upgraded version this summer, after having acquired the rights and tooling from Phoenix Environmental Motors, who mention this on their official homepage."

Comments

Range?

[Man of E]

The first site gives the range as 40-60 miles, but Myers Motors says 20-40 miles. That makes a huge difference! Basically, if you drive 20 miles to your job, you might not have enough juice to make it back home according to Myers!

In any case, note that since top speed is 70mph, you'll only be able to drive 20 to 30 minutes at that speed. That hardly even qualifies as a commute by many people's standards!

It's a neat idea, but the batteries just aren't there. Still, I'm sure that battery technology has advanced a bit since 2000, right? Maybe they'll produce yet another upgraded version soon.

Re:Ew

[EtherAlchemist]

The Merlin Roadster is also a three wheel drive, but not as ugly and has an ICE. A mini review is here.

REVA-Electric car from India

[earthstar]

Hey ppl! Chk out this electric car -REVA -from India.
Features Grab:
This elegant, light-yet rugged, two-door sedan comfortably seats 2 adults in the front and 2 children upto a height of 5' and 6" (165 cms) in the rear. It has a range of 80 kilometers in stop-and-go city driving, and a top speed of 65 km/h.
you can read a review about it Here
It costs somethin like Rupees.2.20 lakhs (which is abt $5300).

Re:A good idea

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

#1 - I wrote the article summary. I know what it says.

#2 - They're taking money, and they have stock on hand. Delivery will be within the year. This is a lot more solid than your average Slashdot vaporware.

A grand total of one Tango exists. The single prototype. The inventor is in the process of developing an $85,000 kit-car version, but even that doesn't yet exist. So yes, the Sparrow is being sold right now, and the Tango isn't.

I have actually been following these things pretty closely. I didn't just happen across some press release and submit it to Slashdot. Alternatives to the dinosaur that is the ICE have been a keen interest of mine for quite some time now.

Re:You people with your electric cars crack me up.

[bear_phillips]

According to this site, electric cars produce less emissions even when you count the power plant emissions.

In a study conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, EVs were significantly cleaner over the course of 100,000 miles than ICE cars. The electricity generation process produces less than 100 pounds of pollutants for EVs compared to 3000 pounds for ICE vehicles. (See Table 3)

Engine Type CO ROG NOx Total
Gasoline 2574 262 172 3008 lb.
Diesel 216 73 246 835 lb. Electric 9 5 61 75 lb.

An actual sparrow owner speaks!

[The Asylum]

We saw the sparrow in CycleWorld in 1998, ordered one immediately, reservation number 38. Got it in March '00, after much design/redesign/rework by Corbin. It is absolutely the coolest vehicle we've ever owned (and we've owned more than a few vehicles.) The fit and finish was excellent, and it really looks better in person than it does in photographs. We do all our own maintenance, and have upgraded quite a few things on our bird. It'll do 100 MPH, has about a 40 mile range (which is rough on the batteries, 20 gives lots more charge cycles), carries 6 Kilowatt-Hours in its 13 batteries (i.e. it'll run your laptop _and_ your cellphone both for about 2 weeks - motive power takes orders of magnitude more juice than bit-flipping, a good freeway ramp acceleration can easily draw 300 amps at 160 volts - that's 48 KW, enough power to run ten average houses).

We've talked to (literally) over 2000 interested people in the last four years of driving, and have had hundreds of people say they'd buy one "tomorrow" if Corbin were in business, or if it was made by GM, or if it got a little better range. The big problem is battery technology. Lead acid batteries are big and heavy - even the expensive hi-tech spiral-cell units are tempramental and basically hate being discharged. Better batteries exist, like NiMH or Li-Ion, but right now they would add $4000 to the price of the vehicle - once those prices come down, the.Sparrow with a Li-ion pack could have a 200 mile range. As it sits, having a plug at work is probably a good idea.

Corbin's big problem was they had a design concept, but didn't want to listen to the expertise of the engineers they had. (They employed Jeff James, Peter Senkowski, and Claire Bell at various times - all electric vehicle experts, all ignored and blamed to greater or lesser degrees) Eventually the company collapsed in a mire of pointy-haired-boss syndrome and financial impropriety.)

I'm pleased to see that Myers is looking to improve on the design, and fix some of the things which Corbin addressed with hand-waving. (Although I must say that early on, Corbin was great about supplying parts, fixing problems, and listening to our comments. Then the money got tight.) I'd also love to see the DOT decide that there was a place on our highways for a smaller vehicle - the reason the Sparrow is a three-wheeler is that it gets around thousands of expensive, heavy, or (for an electric vehicle) downright contradictory "automobile" design requirements by being classed as a "motorcycle". However, this put weight and size restrictions on the vehicle which forced compromises on range and stability. Other countries have the concept of a mini-car, which can go at speeds above 25 MPH but may not be allowed on the highest speed freeways.
I'm also glad that there's somebody to buy a replacement windshield from - I've been worried that we'll take a stone one day, and I'll have a $14,000 paperweight!

The ultimate answer, as a motorcyclist, an electrical engineer, and a dedicated geek: With knowing in advance what we'd go through finding insurance, fixing problems, breaking drive belts, changing batteries... I'd do it again in a heartbeat. The Sparrow has been an absolute blast, a total head-turner, the ultimate conversation piece, and it's won a trophy in every car show we've entered it in - even got "People's Choice" in our home-town once!

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