Reva green and clean

At first sight, it looks like a toy car that has grown big on steroids, but a closer look at the two-door hatchback reveals a cable connecting it to a power outlet in a shopping centre car park.

About 2000 of these zero-polluting city commuters have been put on the roads in India and Europe, including 600 in London, in the six years since Reva Electric Car Co turned commercial.

The test-marketing phase is now over and the Reva, as the electric car is known, is ready to leap into the mass market. But that won't include Australia just yet, as it doesn't fit our design standards.

The Solar Shop in Adelaide, which planned to import and sell the electric car here, says the car should fit into a quadracycle category, in between a motorbike and a car, and hasn't been designed to be crash tested.

But the Australian Government has refused them based on crash testing that was done in England.

So the car in its present form won't be available in Australia, but there will be a new modified version that the Solar Shop hopes will make it through government regulations.

And it could be as little as two to six months away.

The existing Reva model was going to be priced about $15,000 to $16,000, and while the price of the new redesigned version isn't yet known, it's believed it will be under $20,000.

It is, however, planning to introduce an electric scooter/motorbike. The vehicle is currently going through the approval stage and is expected here within the next month.

The Vectrix scooter is more of a performance vehicle compared with the electric car.

It accelerates from 0-100km/h in less than eight seconds and has a range of 110km for urban driving, which translates to about five hours.

Its acceleration is 30 per cent faster than a 250cc scooter and it has the performance of a 400cc motorbike.

The Indian company that makes the Reva electric car hopes to sell 3000 units this year and 30,000 next, according to deputy chairman and chief technical officer, Chetan Maini.

“In the past five years, we innovated and improved and developed the core technologies,” Maini says. “We've got the partners and we've got the funds.

“Everything has been coming together and we have reached an inflection point to take off.”

Maini developed the no-clutch, no-gears car as the head of a 75-member team of research engineers. The company is counting on increasing environmental and energy concerns to power its growth at home and abroad, as soaring petrol prices and pollution worries prompt city consumers to seek alternatives.

“People are now making choices based on such issues,” Maini says.

“Oil is near $US80 ($100) a barrel, may even touch $US100, and inner-city pollution is a serious issue. Energy security and environment are going to be the major issues facing every country in the coming years.”

Electricity is the solution, says Maini, whose company was formed in 1994 as a joint venture between the family owned Maini Group and AEV of the US to design, manufacture and sell environment-friendly vehicles.

“Technology is available now at a cost that makes sense,” says the second-generation entrepreneur, who has more than 14 years' experience with electric vehicles.

“A non-polluting electric car costs the equivalent of a small petrol car and the operating costs are much less.”

In July his company launched a new Reva model which can seat two adults and two children. It is billed as the most advanced electric car in the global market. It can reach 80km/h, up on a previous best of 65km/h.

It also covers 80km on a single charge of electricity that translates into a cost of 1c per kilometre, a 10th that of a petrol model.

The car has improved torque, up to 40 per cent more than the earlier model, for better hill climbing.

The Reva has better prospects of finding success abroad than in price-sensitive India, where manufacturers are planning to launch a slew of petrol models priced as low as $US3000, a third of the Reva's price tag.

Already marketed in Britain, Spain, Norway, Italy, Malta, Sri Lanka, Cyprus and Greece, the car benefits from incentives offered to non-polluting vehicles by governments there.

In Britain and Norway, it sells as G-Wiz and is exempt from parking fees as well as congestion and road taxes.

Japan gives a $US2600 subsidy for electric-car users and France waives taxes on electricity used to charge the car.

India lacks the infrastructure for electric cars such as battery charging stations, and Reva may appeal only to the environmentally conscious who have small commutes and can afford it, says Greenpeace energy specialist Srinivas Krishnaswamy.

“There's no doubt that it's green and clean. Even the cost may be small for the greening of the environment.”

 Would you consider purchasing the Reva after viewing the crash test?