Here's an example of something that separates full-fledged car makers from other vehicle makers. It's crash testing.
The video is Martin Eberhard, exCEO of Tesla Motors, giving a presentation about their sports car. Part of the talk is video of the crash testing they did. He describes how they've crashed 8 cars, each car they crashed cost them $350,000 to build, so it took a $2Mil investment to go through crash testing.
At the same time I found this video I found an autobloggreen posting discussing crash tests which were conducted of the Reva. The Reva is categorized in England and Europe as a 'quadricycle'. These are extremely light four-wheelers and are treated similarly to three-wheeled motorcycles. Namely they don't have stringent requirements etc and don't have to be crash tested. The crash results of the Reva are so bad that apparently the British government is "now going to the European Commission to review the regulations for quadricycles".
Occasionally I see people in EV groups that appear to be frustrated about government regulations that are hard to meet. So, yeah, the regulations are making it so EV's have a hard time getting to market. If a company has to invest $millions in getting past the crash testing they had better have a strong chance of recouping that investment by selling vehicles. But like it or not those regulations also act to keep us safe.
Anyway, links and video below.
Moderate speed crash in Indian EV likely to be fatal
Moderate speed crash in Indian EV likely to be fatal
Moderate speed crash in Indian EV likely to be fatal
Moderate speed crash in Indian EV likely to be fatal
Moderate speed crash in Indian EV likely to be fatal
I agree with the British Government, because of what's expected of a 4-wheeled vehicle. Maybe not if it's a 2 or 3-wheeled vehicle. Motorcycle classification is an easy way for EV manufacturers to get around the expensive requirements for now. No big deal there in my opinion, and EVs are much more practical in smaller and lighter platforms anyway, because they can be made cheap and efficient, and logical as a 2nd vehicle.
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Pic from http://www.electri
On the Xebra_EV list where I first heard of the above .. one of the people had an interesting thought in a followup posting.
We have these safety requirements and regulations, they're meant to create vehicles that keep us safe in an accident. However ... well, Fred said it so well: http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/Xebra_EV/message/14551
Interesting.. Because the average car is "impervious" that lets people abdicate their personal responsibility. On the other hand if they were on a two-wheeler w/o protection there's a tendency to be more careful. I feel that starting to ride a motorcycle made me a much safer driver because it taught me the value (!!!necessity!!!) of paying attention to what's going on around me and doing better strategizing while driving.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki