It wasn’t until I spent some time reading my .rss feeds today that I even heard of a new EV company which launched today. It almost seemed too good to be true. A London-based company, full of really creditable names from the Auto Industry, who are offering brand new, fully converted Citroen C1s. And at a price tag of £16,850 it’s actually not that much more expensive than the lithium ion powered G-Wiz. But a whole lot more impressive, if the specs can be believed.
There’s only one thing which concerns me. Is it actually available today, or do we have another car company scrapping for attention with a promise and a prayer?
And what’s this suspicious looking ‘photoshop’ artifact on one of the photographs on the company’s website, just about where an exhaust would be?
I’m sure that the board of directors, which includes Lord Beverbrook, David Martell, Jeff Solomon, Christopher Ross and Richard Wright go a long way to proving the pedigree of the company’s investors and directorate. Between them, the board of directors have experience in the motor industry (Ford and Jaguar former execs to name a few) as well as Government, the health care industry and electronics. It’s an impressive list. But the website, as Christine Gupta said in this article, is a bit “home-knitted”, or as I’d rather put it a little.. well… amateurish. It’s certainly not what you’d expect from executives used to dealing with mainstream car companies. There’s very little information about the company. Very little information about the price. Very little information about specifications, safety or availability.
You can’t even download a brochure. You can’t book a test-drive. There’s an email contact, office address and telephone number. That’s it. There’s not even any price lists (certainly not ones I can find, anyway). Does this sound like a well-organised company? Or is it yet another firm jumping on the electric bandwagon with no actual product to show for it yet?
Why my skepticism? Well, It’d be really nice to see some shots of the engine bay. Perhaps something to hint at the electric pedigree, other than the rather sparse details about the lithium ion battery technology, six hour recharge time, 60 mph top speed and 60-75 mile range. That’s about all you can gleam from the website. That and some very arty photographs of a C1 Evie behind some well-known (and typical) London landmarks.
Ah yes, the photos.
I’m quite a keen photographer, and I’m not unused to the concept of photoshopping an image. You modify an image to make it look better. To remove the odd blemish. To make an image look more like you want the viewer to see. But in this case, I do believe Photoshop has been used to mask out something we really don’t want to see on an electric car: An exhaust.
I may be wrong. Don’t sue me. But, like the famous Missouri State motto, I’d like the ECCPLC to “show me” the new C1 Evie. This photo looks almost as if someone has taken a regular C1, sign-written up with “Electric vehicle” decals around London. And then taken photographs to publicise this new company. And then photo-shopped the Exhaust out to make it look as if there’s already a production model or two out there.
Is it just me, or does this image have a really poor photoshop ‘blur’ where and exhaust would normally be on a petrol car?
(Click on the image above to go to the original website image at full size)
I’ll let you decide.
If this new company really have succeeded in producing a sub £17,000 EV with a 60 mph top speed, four seats and a 75 mile range then that’s great. I want to go and test drive one. Tomorrow. But if it’s just vaporware then please, take it elsewhere until you have a product we can touch, feel, drive, examine, get excited about, salivate over and take home. Otherwise, please stop the hype. That’s the last thing our EV industry needs.