Solo

[aknaten]

Not Quite a Car, Not Quite a Motorcycle: An Electric Vehicle Built for One

https://thesunbest.com/not-quite-a-car-not-quite-a-motorcycle-a-vehicle-built-for-one/

 

[W. WIllie]

Yawn.........

 

[AriLea]

Yep, just another writer waking up to the context that this vehicle type fits into.

Same chicken and egg problem as always. Enough people need to buy in (literally) to put the effort on the map, so that enough people buy in to make it commercially viable. ie low enough to attract attention of a large population.
This is only one article, not enough to trigger anything, so.... yawn...

On the other hand, if Bill Gates read it and 'got it'.... Anyone know Bill Gates... personally?

There is one point that might be new and interesting, about bus use....

The coronavirus is changing the transportation landscape in ways that seemed unthinkable even two months ago. Public transportation ridership is plummeting throughout the country. Cars are suddenly unaffordable to millions who have lost jobs. And the threat of climate change remains very real.

 

[Rickb]

I had an early SOLO reservation up until I decided I’d have old geezer ingress/egress and driver comfort issues because it is SOLOW. The key point, there is a retail production vehicle ready to test public acceptance in the USA market demographics. Better chances as a 2 seater in the USA. With a Chinese motorcycle manufacturing partner, Electrameccanica might be able to sell enough SOLOs in the China or and worldwide markets to achieve long term success. Exciting times for those with SOLO reservations. Yawn = talk and SOLO is well beyond the talk stages as they get closer to an official retail production date.

 

[Michael Casey]

The price of the SOLO keeps going up. The last number I saw was $18,500. That's way to expensive for this type of vehicle.

 

[Samalross]

Using Solo cars in the Amazon series Upload. Could have been the Elio

 

[3wheelin]

Has anybody received an e-mail from Electra Meccanica representative to complete a survey towards future delivery of their SOLO? So far I've received 2 this month alone. Just wondering if this is legit. Thanks.

 

[JK]

I got an email today .. subject line: The Time Has Come To Drive SOLO.
Can book a test drive in Los Angeles, CA, Portland, OR or Scottsdale, AZ. Too far for me to go.
I haven't seen any surveys.

 

[dbacksfan81]

Solo's to be built in Mesa Arizona.

MESA, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) – A Vancouver-based electric car company plans to bring as many as 500 jobs to Mesa. ElectraMeccanica has spent the last year looking for a site for its U.S. assembly facility and engineering technical center. The company announced Tuesday that it has formally selected Mesa.

“This proposed facility center will create between 200 to 500 new jobs and feature a state-of-the-art engineering technical center, including plans for multiple labs to support ongoing vehicle, chassis and power electronics testing as well as comprehensive research facilities,” a company spokesperson told Arizona’s Family.

ElectraMeccanica plans to launch the SOLO, its flagship vehicle, in North America this year. The SOLO is a single-occupant three-wheeled electric vehicle. The Mesa facility will eventually be able to produce up to 20,000 SOLOs per year.


Mesa was chosen from seven potential US locations. The final two contenders were Arizona and Tennessee. “We believe Mesa’s population size and density provides a great talent pool as we look forward to contributing to the growing high-tech environment,” the company’s CEO said in a news release announcing the decision to go with Mesa.

https://www.azfamily.com/news/mesa-...3-11eb-a7f3-a3a74f9d21c0.html?block_id=997199

 

[CharonPDX]

Recently did the test-drive when they were up here in Portland.

Oof. Not good.

While it *LOOKS* great, both inside and out, the driving experience is "terrible bordering on dangerous." Hopefully they can sort out the driving experience by actual release, but at least a couple of the issues I'm not sure about.

Acceleration is lackluster - they claim 10 seconds 0-60, and I doubt it's even that fast.

Braking is so lacking as to be borderline dangerous. I have the phone-app-based "safe driving saves you on insurance" thing, and the app didn't record any "hard braking" or "heavy acceleration" events during my test drive. Even though I did full-force acceleration and full-force braking multiple times.

Cornering was very soft, not much feedback, and the steering wheel isn't self-centering. And a lot of body lean - but not "motorcycle lean", "bad compact car" lean… Which is kind of amazing considering how low it already is.

But the suspension is *SUPER* rough. It was in a mall parking lot, with reasonably smooth asphalt, yet I felt every bump. It was rougher than a race-tuned first-gen Mazda Miata NA, yet without that level of cornering firmness.

I'm sure they can fix the acceleration and braking in software, and the cornering with a little bit of tweaking (Arcimoto tweaked the software to make the FUV's cornering tighter after release,) but that suspension is so rough I think it needs a complete rearchitecture.

I was really hoping to get one to go along with my Arcimoto, as it seemed like it would be a better "commuter" - but I just can't imagine commuting over potholes and speed bumps every day in the Solo, not without major improvements.

Now hoping the Aptera Sol holds up to its promise… (Yes, I have preorders on both the Solo and the Sol; although I think I'm going to cancel my Solo order.)