Three is Enough | Green Energy News

March 12, 2010 – Vol.14 No.51

THREE IS ENOUGH.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

Oops. My mistake. I said in the story just previous to this, “Cutting Emissions: Just Good Business” that the Sparrow, a three-wheeled, one-passenger electric car is no longer made.

Not so. It is. Sort of.

Corbin, the builder of the car, went belly up years ago, but Myers Motors of Tallmadge, Ohio, now owns the tooling and can build a Sparrow, now dubbed the NmG (No more Gas) to order. The company has sold 40 cars or so.

Not the end of story however.

Myers has a next generation three-wheeled car up its sleeve that, according to the company website, should enter production by the fourth quarter of 2010. Handsomer than the dated, but still cute, NmG, the new Duo (Doesn’t use oil) will sport two seats side by side, in duo fashion.

A stock lithium battery configuration of the Duo will offer a range of 60 miles. An upgrade battery will be available to go 100 miles without a recharge. Top speed is 75 mph.

The pricing structure should stroke the interest of many. I’ll let words from the company website do the talking:

“We designed a pricing structure for pre-orders to reward you, the buyer, with savings as you help develop the supply chain for American-made, highway-speed Electric Vehicles with an early EV purchase! We need 1,000 pre-orders to reach volume pricing to reach our goal price of $24,995 for the base model with a 60-mile range. We need to start the pricing at $29,995 until we can commit to that volume, but Myers Motors will drop the retail price for everyone by $1000 for every 200 pre-orders on the books.

“On June 5, 2010, we will count the number of pre-orders made to determine the price for the first year sales. We will notify pre-order customers of the price by e-mail and publish the price to our website that week.

Your $250 deposit is fully refundable at any time for any reason. Myers Motors pricing may change at any time for any reason and its sole responsibility is the return of your full deposit if we adversely change the price (we fully believe in this pricing plan but unexpected events outside our control could occur). Your deposit is nontransferable. Vehicles will be delivered on a first-come, first-served basis, the first step of which is pre-ordering your vehicle. Void where prohibited by law.”

Myers’s three-wheeled cars also qualify for a current Federal tax credit of $2499.50, so if 1000 people send in their $250 and the list price drops to $24,995, then the out-of-pocket price after tax break will be $22,495.50. State incentives, where available, could push the price further south.

The Federal credit applies to vehicles purchased before January 1, 2012.

Overall the Duo could be really cheap to drive: about 2 cents per mile for electricity, and batteries should last over 100,000 miles for a vehicle driven an average of 60 miles a day.

True, both the NmG and the Duo could be considered enclosed motorcycles and thus may have different licensing and registration requirements than cars: check with your state. However having only three wheels shouldn’t be a purchasing deterrent, at least for the automotively adventurous. Again the Myers Motors website:

“Having been called the SUV of motorcycles, the three wheeled NmG has obvious stability advantages over a two wheel motorcycle. The occupant of the NmG is enclosed in a layered, composite structure and further protected by using the 3-point shoulder safety harness. It has a steering wheel and foot pedals like a car to be easier to use, although it is not a car and it does not meet car crash standards. The NmG meets or exceeds U.S. DOT safety standards required for motorcycles and three wheelers.”

Dana Myers, Founder and President of Myers Motors, said of the new model, “While people love our zippy single-passenger model, we know that sometimes you want to take a friend along for the ride – and soon you can.” He continued, “Our goal is to make electric vehicles more affordable for average Americans.”

The Duo is lot like the birdlike Aptera three-wheeled electric. That vehicle, too, inches closer to production.

Links:

Myers Motors
http://www.myersmotors.com

Aptera
http://www.aptera.com

US Department of Energy Alternative Fuels and Advanced Vehicles Data Center: Electricity Incentives and Laws
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/electricity_laws.html