<story><title>How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?</title><url>http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>S_A_P</author><text>I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one had much more survivable damage. Safety cages, and metallurgy have made cars much safer, even small ones. I drive a mid sized sedan, and feel that I have a pretty reasonable chance of surviving a crash so long as I am not hit by a vehicle that is so tall the bumper goes through my windows and doesn&amp;#x27;t hit any significant metal surface of my car.</text></item><item><author>pmontra</author><text>A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China.&lt;p&gt;Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.alibaba.com&amp;#x2F;product-detail&amp;#x2F;China-eec-l7e-80-electric-car_60432063640.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.alibaba.com&amp;#x2F;product-detail&amp;#x2F;China-eec-l7e-80-elect...&lt;/a&gt; They&amp;#x27;re quoted with a maximum price of $8000.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don&amp;#x27;t drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas car out of a green light). 120 km of autonomy, which is good enough in the typical European city center, apparently 80 km&amp;#x2F;h max speed, which again is more than enough there. Very easy to park.&lt;p&gt;More important matters:&lt;p&gt;Would I survive a crash? They&amp;#x27;re very tiny...&lt;p&gt;How long to recharge?&lt;p&gt;Operating costs? I&amp;#x27;m paying 19 Eurocents per minute, all included.&lt;p&gt;Do they compete with gas cars? The other two car sharing companies in Milan have gas cars and cost 25 and 29 cents per minute. I prefer the electric one: it&amp;#x27;s a shakier ride but cheaper and more fun because of the torque.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Someone1234</author><text>This issue was covered in great depth when the Smart Car (e.g. Fortwo) got popular in Europe. Smart Cars have a lot of safety features, seat belts, airbags (4x), ABS, stability control, but the question was really about impact distribution.&lt;p&gt;They put in a tridion protection cell[0] and moved the engine to the back to offer SOME crumple at the front. The Euro NCAP rated it 4&amp;#x2F;5, IIHS rated it &amp;quot;good&amp;quot; but it later failed the partial frontal collision test (&amp;quot;poor&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;A Smart Car likely would do alright in most collisions. Although it somewhat benefits from the large crumple zones of every other vehicle has on the road. If two Smart Cars collided head on, the results might be worse than if a Smart Car collided with any other vehicle type.&lt;p&gt;That all being said, just because Smart managed it, doesn&amp;#x27;t mean every small car is equally safe. Without the tridion cell and SOME crumple zone, it would be a much less safe vehicle.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;auto.howstuffworks.com&amp;#x2F;smart-car1.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;auto.howstuffworks.com&amp;#x2F;smart-car1.htm&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Cheap Can Electric Vehicles Get?</title><url>http://rameznaam.com/2016/04/12/how-cheap-can-electric-vehicles-get/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>S_A_P</author><text>I feel like the size = safety is fallacious. Size &lt;i&gt;can&lt;/i&gt; equal safety, but its not a guarantee. Sure I would not want to get hit by a 3 ton lifted SUV with ranch style bumpers on it. I would feel that way even if what I were driving was a 3 ton suv with the same bumpers. There was an NHTSA video a few years back of a modern chevy impala hitting a 1959 impala and the much larger 59 getting demolished, while the new one had much more survivable damage. Safety cages, and metallurgy have made cars much safer, even small ones. I drive a mid sized sedan, and feel that I have a pretty reasonable chance of surviving a crash so long as I am not hit by a vehicle that is so tall the bumper goes through my windows and doesn&amp;#x27;t hit any significant metal surface of my car.</text></item><item><author>pmontra</author><text>A car sharing service in Milan, Italy, is using small two seater electric cars from China.&lt;p&gt;Prompted by this article I finally investigated and found them at &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.alibaba.com&amp;#x2F;product-detail&amp;#x2F;China-eec-l7e-80-electric-car_60432063640.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.alibaba.com&amp;#x2F;product-detail&amp;#x2F;China-eec-l7e-80-elect...&lt;/a&gt; They&amp;#x27;re quoted with a maximum price of $8000.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re definitely made for driving inside a city. Not very good suspensions (don&amp;#x27;t drive too fast on cobble stones) but good torque (easily beats a gas car out of a green light). 120 km of autonomy, which is good enough in the typical European city center, apparently 80 km&amp;#x2F;h max speed, which again is more than enough there. Very easy to park.&lt;p&gt;More important matters:&lt;p&gt;Would I survive a crash? They&amp;#x27;re very tiny...&lt;p&gt;How long to recharge?&lt;p&gt;Operating costs? I&amp;#x27;m paying 19 Eurocents per minute, all included.&lt;p&gt;Do they compete with gas cars? The other two car sharing companies in Milan have gas cars and cost 25 and 29 cents per minute. I prefer the electric one: it&amp;#x27;s a shakier ride but cheaper and more fun because of the torque.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>JshWright</author><text>The thing &amp;#x27;size&amp;#x27; gets you is crumple zones. A bigger vehicle has a lot more material that can be engineered to deform and absorb the energy of the impact, spreading the deceleration over a longer period of time.&lt;p&gt;A small car can be designed to prevent intrusion into the passenger compartment, but it can&amp;#x27;t do anything about the g-forces of the collision (which can seriously ruin your day...).</text></comment>