EV News – Aminorjourney

Ev’ie. Another broken dream?

If you’re a regular visitor to www.aminorjourney.com you’ll know that I’ve ran stories on the Electric Car Corporation and their line of converted Citroen C1s, which they call the C1 “Ev’ie”. It all started back in April, when the Citroen Ev’ie jumped onto the market. The team behind the advertising campaign had used a sign-written petrol-powered car for photo shoots and had omitted to change the number plate. It lead to me speculating if the vehicle even existed.

Later on, a test-drive from What Car? appeared, in which the team reviewing it had some issues with acceleration and a battery overheating on the drive. You can watch the video at their website.

I’m not the sort of person to give a company a hard time unnecessarily, and felt that perhaps my initial story was a bit hard on ECCPlc, the makers of the Citroen C1 Ev’ie. So, I arranged a trip down to London to test the Ev’ie for myself. I really wanted the car to blow me away. I so badly wanted the Ev’ie to make me feel all kinds of guilt for being nasty about it in the past without even having driven it. I wanted it to make me love it. But as I quickly found, my relationship with the Ev’ie that wasn’t going to be a plain-sailing one.

Read on after the jump for a run-down of the vehicle and our eventful test-drive.

Batteries away!

Continuing the report from the weekend’s work putting Velma the PHEV’s batteries out of sight I’m pleased to report that the physical battery relocation is finished. Velma is drivable again! More after the jump, along with the (almost) finished Prius trunk! Normal PHEV and EV articles will resume tomorrow. Picking up from yesterday’s post –…

The new European plug.

Welcome folks, to the new charging standard for EVs and PHEVs in the European Union. It’s based on a design by Mennekes, and will support a range of charging options for EVs at anything from a standard 13A, 240V supply through to a mighty 400V three-phase, 63A supply.

Best of all, it seems like the Mennekes system is designed with interoperability in mind and may even offer some retro-fitting for suitable vehicles.

With Elektromotive set to roll out a series of upgrades to it’s charging points in the UK to allow for a ‘pay as you go’ charging system (as well as a new version of their Elecktrobay charging station supporting the new standard) there really isn’t a better time to look into going electric.

The uber veritile Plug for plugging in in Europe!

More details of the new charge standard after the jump

Range Anxiety? What Range Anxiety?

For new electric vehicle owners, one of the biggest fears (at least at the moment with few charging stations publicly available) is running out of electricity when making a longer-than usual trip. For those of us who have been driving a plug in vehicle for some time the range anxiety is much less because we know the limits of our vehicles. However, any trip to the ‘maximum’ theoretical of our vehicle’s range always spawns nervousness.

After he saw the theoretical range of the Tesla would reach the Yosemite National Park, one adventurous Tesla owner decided to prove the Tesla sales team correct and take a trip out there for himself.

Yes, that's a Tesla in Yosemite National Park

_{Photo By William A Arnett.}

More after the Jump.

Renault’s new EV likes to dance

Renault France unveiled it’s new electric vehicle yestrday. Okay, so it’s only a prototype at the moment – but it’s an electric version (or Zero Emissions, as Renault like to say) of the new Renault Kangoo Be Bop

The Be Bop itself doesn’t immediately grab my attention. I’m not a fan of the MPV platform. Yes, they may be versatile, but they tend to look like the love-child of oversize family cars and a van. Which, quite frankly, is what they are.

But in this case, it’s rather cute. See, when you look beneath the surface the new Kango Be Bop (which has just gone on sale in Europe) has some pretty neat features such as a sliding tailgate, allowing the whole rear of the car to be open. (This isn’t the first time that this kind of trick has been pulled – Honda did something similar a few years back with one of their trucks – but it’s certainly the fist time in an MPV.)

Still, it’s not that which catches my eye. It’s the specs of the Electric version – and some of the interesting features it sports.

It's not only laptops with cool charge-meters

When you’re wrong, it’s good to say “Sorry”

And thus I will for my attacks on the Ev’ie electric Citroen C1 last week.

It appears that there is in fact a fully electric Ev’ie out on the streets of London. (Shame the DVLA still think it’s petrol, but still, it IS electric. Or certainly, it is now.

Apparently I was wrong. The Citroen C1 Evie DOES exist, at least in prototype form. — Apparently I was wrong. The Citroen C1 Ev'ie DOES exist, at least in prototype form.

It seems that my little worried post about the car being nothing but hype wasn’t truly accurate. While the photos I complained about last week are quite clearly photoshopped and don’t quite match up with what ECC PLC were saying, it’s probably more a case of them having not got a vehicle to use for publicity when the shots were taken than it being a complete out-and-out fake.

So I was wrong. I apologize. How do I know? It appears that WhatCar? have been given the first test drive of the converted C1 Ev’ie prototype. Now that’s more like the behavior you’d expect from a car company with big names on the board of directors.

They even have a Youtube Video of it, which proves that the car exists and is driveable. Although there did appear to be some issues with the prototype while WhatCar? were driving it.

Video and continued post after the jump.

Remember that new EV? The DVLA thinks that it’s petrol-powered, too.

Remember that new “Evie” Citroen C1 conversion I posted about seven hours ago? The one which was being formed and run by former Motor Industry execs? The one which suddenly appeared on the radar in the past few days? The one we’ve not heard anything about until a huge press-launch yesterday? The one with the…

There’s a new EV on the block. Should the G-Wiz be worried, or is that a photoshopped exhaust?

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?

The Electric Car Corporations C1 which launched today. But is it vaporware? — The Electric Car Corporation's C1 which launched today. But is it vaporware?

Join me on EVcast tomorrow.

I’d like to proudly announce that I’m going to become the regular Wednesday host of EVcast! If you heard last week’s show you’ll have an idea of what is to come over the next few weeks and months, but hopefully tomorrow will be the second in a long-running series of Wednesday EVcasts, with yours truly…

As featured on…

This isn’t a post about electric cars but it is a post about a few interesting and exciting things happening to me in the world of EVs. Firstly, as of today www.aminorjourney.com is featured on the EVDriven Website. The EVDriven Website is a selection of feeds from electric vehicle websites around the world. Neat eh?…

Category: EV News