Seven Generational Ruminations

Yet another three wheeled electric vehicle. In the U.S. they register as motorcycles and it's a lot easier to get to market when it's a motorcycle. This one is a reverse trike design that has tilting featuritis. It seats two people sitting in tandem. Tandem seating does narrow the vehicle which increases efficiency by presenting a smaller face to the air. The real curious thing (as if a three wheel electric motorcycle isn't curious enough) is that instead of a steering wheel or handlebars, it is driven with a joystick.

Technosanity #9: 36th Annual Silicon Valley EV Rally

The Silicon Valley EAA Chapter has done a yearly rally for, now, 36 years and I have been attending for 10 years or so. Back the major car companies showed up, the most impressive being GM's presence with the EV1. They'd arrive with one or two tractor trailer trucks with 4 EV1's and make them available for test rides. I got to test drive the EV1 a couple times due to this, and other car companies showed up back then as well. Needless to say, since GM axe murdered the EV1, that the major car companies did not show up today.

Piaggio is associated with the Vespa brand and is a scooter maker in Italy.

The Piaggio MP3 is a three wheel motorcycle in the reverse trike arrangement (two wheels in front) and the front wheels tilt independantly. It is a wild looking bike and apparently growing in popularity. An advantage of this design is there's almost no chance of falling over, so that when coming to a stop you simply stop, you don't have to put your feet down, etc. It's also simpler to learn to ride due to the simpler operation.

Weird, ZAP has somehow managed to snag the brand name Detroit Electric and plan to use it on future electric vehicles such as the Alias. Weird, weird, weird, weird.

I received an email from Aptera (link below) that they launched their vehicle. Unfortunately their website leans towards the highly graphical and multimedia experience and it's almost impossible to learn anything from the website. The first sign to the problem with their website is that they had to put up statements telling people how to use their website. The site has lots of neo-movie-like animations, music, showing the Aptera vehicle in all sorts of situations, and it's very pretty. But can you learn anything from it? No.

ZAPWorld just keeps charging into the future. ZAP (a.k.a. Zapworld) has been selling electric vehicles since the mid 90's, long before the current "high" oil prices got the attention of consumers and steered their eyes towards more efficient vehicles. ZAP means Zero Air Pollution and that has been their focus throughout the company's existence. For most of their existence they've sold small electric vehicles like bicycles and scooters, but recently they moved into full size vehicles.

The Moonbeam is an interesting concept of a vehicle. It's a home-built design where the plans are available on the above web site under a Creative Commons license allowing you to reuse those plans any way you wish. The vehicle is made from scooters, specifically 1980's era Honda Elite's, which the guy chopped up and reconfigured to have three wheels and a canopy. As a three-wheeler it registers as a motorcycle but in most U.S. states does not need further licensing beyond a typical drivers license.