Electric cars - anything on the NZ horizon?
As a family man who tries to get the family outdoors a fair bit our manual Nimbus is about the smallest car we can pack in to. We had a Chariot but our kids kept getting bigger. So I have long wanted the option of having a seriously small electric car that the five of us could just squeeze into for the short trips around Wellington.
I keep my eyes open for occasional stories about such electric cars, mostly out of curiosity rather than any sense of actually getting one over here. Recent coverage of the G-Wiz in London caught my eye. Made by Reva in India, this battery-powered car is based on a Californian design.
Now Reva has caught my eye before because of a story about the Australian importer having a battle with the Department of Transport and Regional Services over its roadworthiness and safety.
I wonder how we would get on trying to get this imported in to NZ.
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Is there a news link for the Reva safety issue? I found this on the Reva site.
Any small vehicle is going to suffer at the hands of safety evaluations for size reasons. In every smash where there’s a significant size difference, the smaller vehicle’s occupants suffer the differential. Most of us learned that lesson in the playground.
But the safety of “small versus large” is pure perspective - because it’s the larger vehicle which is causing the harm, right?
I’d be interested to see stats on how the “safety” of those ’safe’ larger vehicles - SUVs especially - stack up in incidents with pedestrians, cyclists. Are the heavies are really any safer for the community, or just for their occupants.
Occupant safety is a metric for the consumer to consider when they buy a car, hoping to be the survivors of any crash. Our safety authorities need to be considering not just occupant safety, but the safety of all those involved in motor vehicle incidents.
Hi Chris - the Minister’s statement is here - and some discussion about the Aus Greens and Labor support for Reva is here.