Would you buy a 3-wheel electric car? Hahaha … they remind me of the old Robin Reliant.
Starting a new car company is tough. In fact, it’s nearly impossible. Then Tesla pulled it off. As we transition from the internal combustion engine to electrification, startups and even a few established players are taking a chance on EVs. Building a three-wheeled autocycle isn’t revolutionary, exactly. But making an EV starting at $10,000, with all the usual amenities, makes it a car worth watching. Plus, it looks spectacular.
I got a chance to drive the $1 million prototype of this Italian-designed car in Malibu last week. The one-off vehicle isn’t street legal or ready for actual roads. It didn’t have working seat belts and couldn’t reach the speeds the company says the final production model will be capable of. But once I put it in gear and depressed the accelerator, it seemed like, with some fine tuning (not to mention passenger restraints), the car would be at home cruising through a residential neighborhood.
Behind the wheel, steering and braking worked as advertised, even if the car was poky off the line and I wasn’t able to do anything resembling freeway speeds. I got it up to a whopping 28 miles per hour in a beach parking lot, where I yanked the wheel left and right to test stability. Three-wheeled cars have had a bad rap since the Reliant Robin episode of Top Gear where they rolled a three-wheeled car every time it took a turn. Before you get concerned about the safety of future drivers, though, it’s important to remember that the Robin in question was actually set up to roll over when it turned.
So, yeah, the Sondors is stable even if it’s still in the prototype stage.
When the car does go into production — which the company expects to happen in April 2019 — the base model will have a range of 75 miles. Add an additional $3,000 for a range of 150 or $6,000 for a 200-mile reach. The zero-to-60 time will range from eight seconds to about five, which is pretty quick for a car that costs less than most used vehicles.
Source: Engadget
