Colibri One-Seater EV Coming In 2015, For Less Than €10,000
The Colibri, a one-seater EV for under €10,000, will be hitting the market in 2015. The tiny and economical electric vehicle was unveiled by Innovative Mobility Automobile GmbH (IMA) at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show that is occurring this week. Small EVs such as this have the significant advantage of having a long battery life-cycle and being very fast to charge.
“The Colibri, which means ‘hummingbird,’ seats one and has a top speed of 120 kilometers an hour (75 miles per hour),” Autoblog Green writes. “A range of 110 km (68 miles) from a 6.5-kWh lithium-ion phosphate battery. Zero-to-100 kmh (62 mph) time is apparently 9.9 seconds and you can get extras like air conditioning or bump the car up to the ‘sport version.'”
Preorders for the vehicles are expected to start in 2014 for under 10,000 euros, with delivery in 2015. IMA is expecting to be able to produce about 17,000 a year to start with. According to the company, there is a market potential of about 500,000 for compact one-seater EVs. The company thinks that its vehicles are very well suited for carsharing programs, government use, and delivery and mobile nursing services. Since its development began, the car has received over €2.8 million in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
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I like it. I’m looking forward to a design change on EV type vehicles as opposed to their less stable Internal commbustion counterparts. Because of ICE torque limitations, large wheel diameters, a huge boost for cornering stability as well as providing protection in crashes, have been reduced to mere “roller skate” (12 inch diameter) type wheels on small vehicles. This is unnecessary in EVs because they have instant access to a large amount of torque needed for LARGE (25 inch diameter or better) diameter wheels and would be a huge performance advantage that could boost marketing and popularity due to superb cornering and added crash safety.
Me too. I was surprised to read about how hard it is to introduce radically new designs (or something even close to radically), but guess a lot of people are more averse to change than I am.
I also like it, and if it was a two passenger I would buy it. This car might be a winner for the “going to work” crowd in many locations. And if it was for two people the retired folks might jump on the band wagon.
Finally we are getting something that looks more modern than the steel boxes on 4 wheels we have been driving for the last 50 years. Something aerodynamic and sleek looking. I would however raise the rear hatch area instead of having it so sloped at the rear.
Yeah, not really sure why they chose a one-seater instead of two. Seems like *a lot* of people would prefer a two-seater — for dates, friends, etc.
Read what they say about a market study, 500,000 potential market. Also, just go stand on an overpass in any large city during rush-hour and count how many cars have one driver. Sometimes less is more, certainly for fuel effeciency.
Good call.
Under 10,000 euros is under 13,000 USA dollars right now. 75 mph. 68 mile range. This would be PERFECT for my commuting needs, 38 miles plus the occasional errand. Available on what market Nathan? …just the European market, or does that include the North America? What is the wheel base? Can I park in a half size parking place?
It looks like it’s just Europe for now. But I have heard of buzz about a $10,000 EV for the US. But just buzz at the moment. We’ll see.
This one seems like a real sleeper to me. It’s a harbinger of the coming change in transport imho. A struggling middle class family could go from 2 cars to 1.5 with this one being the 0.5. They could save a bundle and still meet their transport needs. People keep commenting we need a vehicle that’s affordable to the masses. Funny nobody is saying this might be one. Need a low cost two person version to compliment this one. I hope you’re right about something similar to this coming to the USA market. …very exciting!
Yeah, I am a fan actually. Think we need more of these and two-seater options. The one i heard rumor of (no idea if it’s really going to happen or not) does seat more than one person. We’ll see.
Btw, autoblog has some nice photos. they were copyrighted, so we didn’t include them in our post: http://green.autoblog.com/2013/03/06/tiny-colibri-ev-seats-one-due-in-2015-for-under-10000-euros/
An interesting thing about such a small and economical electric car is that solar panels on the vehicle could provide a significant amount of its total energy use. Some people might not even need to plug it in for their normal day to day use if they had a sunny location to park it in.