I Would So Totally Go For an Electric Car

There are people who relish in complaining about the Obama administration, and while he hasn't created a Utopia of America his policies apparently are having some beneficial effects on companies working on "green" products. In this case, electric cars.

There's a cool new concept vehicle being created by a company called XP Vehicles, Inc. that is called the Mini Utility Vehicle.

The MUV may be a relatively inexpensive car because it uses 70% fewer parts than the average car.

Yeah. Seventy percent.

Plus it's lightweight. Because it's partly inflatable.

Four passenger, 125 base miles per charge (or you can get a module that will extend the range to 300 miles), totally electric, weights less than 1,400 pounds, top speed of 85 miles per hour and does 0 to 60 in 8.5 seconds.

And did I mention it's partly inflatable?

The seat, dashboard, and internal structure and carrying racks are inflatable or mesh suspension. And with fewer parts that should translate into fewer parts that can fail, lower manufacturing costs and lower maintenance cost. It "refuels" using lightweight removable battery drawers that you take with you to recharge inside your home. The XP has motors built into the rear wheels, and the first cars to market are expected to have two rear hub motors and a motor controller. In other words, no transmission.

The article says that their target market is an age group (29 to 32 year olds) that are getting their first car but they found often can't afford a home, and insurance companies don't want to cover vehicles that need cords running to them. So...drawers of batteries that you can carry easily.

I'm a little leery of the promises before it can be delivered since this article states: "The battery drawer array features racks that can be easily removed from the car and consumer class batteries like those in an iPhone. XP will give consumers the option of taking the battery drawers out of the car and up to your house, apartment or hotel on something similar to little Razor scooters or over your shoulder."

I don't know if they mean that the batteries are like those in the iPhone or if it's a method similar to the iPhone or if the battery cells are iPhone-sized, but in general, don't compare the positives of a battery technology with the iPhone. iPhone batteries aren't replacable by the owner. It's a big sore spot for iPhone owners. Whether it's what you mean or not it's like casually mentioning that some sociopathic serial killer had a beard while telling someone you thought you'd grow a beard. Bad association.

The only trouble I see is that people tend to be...well, sheep. If something is different, something that their neighbors or people in their community aren't using, they won't want to try it. So despite this vehicle using cutting edge tech it will need a big initial wave of positive customer experiences in the introduction to market or it will very much flounder. It will need to hit the ground running with good experiences and very low cost then ride a wave of people seeing benefits of ownership over time to have continued sales. If the car is as inexpensive to buy and maintain over time as the article is promising then I would love to get one.

In the end promises are promises and reality is something else entirely; we'll not know much of anything until it is actually available on the market. Hopefully we'll see something more from XP in the next couple of years...