Another day, another start-up promising an electric car with awesome range.
This time it's EV Innovations, the same guys behind the Inzio electric supercar we told you about a few weeks back. The Inzio is billed as a Tesla-beater and has a $139,000 price to match. That's a lot of scratch, which is why the company says it's working on an electric commuter car that'll carry a $34,000 sticker price when it goes into limited production in a year.
It's called the Wave, and EV Innovations says it will have a range of up to 170 miles and a top speed of 80 mph. That’s a bit shy of the top speed claimed by the Aptera 2e. But Ron Cerven, director of product development at EV Innovations, says anything the Wave gives up to the Aptera in terms of speed it makes up for in size.
“The Aptera has some design issues,” Cerven said of the two-seat, three-wheeled EV we drove last month. “First and foremost it has only three wheels and limited space inside. The Wave, on the other hand, has four wheels. As a result, it can fit everybody and is the ideal commuter car. You could fit Shaquille O’Neal inside and still have room for the groceries.”
We’ve seen pics of Shaq squeezing into a Smart fortwo, so we'll buy that claim. But we're skeptical of the rest.
EV Innovations was called Hybrid Technologies until earlier this year when it changed it names and stock symbol. After a whole lotta hype, the company rolled into the New York Auto Show with nothing more than a 1/14-scale model of the Inzio and an incomplete chassis. And though the company hasn't completed work on the Wave's drivetrain, it's already talking about a pick-up truck.
Still, the company is competing in the Progressive Automotive X Prize, the race to build a 100-mpg car. Cervan tells us he's lined up more than 2,000 investors and will have 10 Wave cars finished by next year. He says the Wave will feature a lithium polymer battery that can recahrge in eight hours. It will provide juice to a 43 kilowatt (about 58 horsepower) motor. It all rests in a steel and aluminum chassis, and Cervan says well-heeled buyers will have the option of a hybrid composite or carbon fiber body.
Photos: EV Innovations
