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This is another one of those "Oh God No" moments.  Like the thankfully short-lived Aston Cygnet and the unfortunately not so short-lived Renault Twizy before it, the Mahindra e2o is about to start polluting British roads.

Although, like the Twizy, it will only be polluting our roads with its looks - for it is electric.

This picture shows the posh version - with leather seats and alloy wheels.

The story is covered by Autocar today.  They say it will only be available online and they will sell for £12,995 (or £15,995 if you want the posh version).  They also say it will seat four but doesn't specify the size or species of those four.  That isn't a distorted photo - it really is that thin and tall.

Looking at that number plate, the 2 is subscripted so it is meant to read like H₂O - if they had just called it that, then they could have said it was hydro-electric.

But they didn't.

Looking for positives, I suppose it could work as a metropolitan delivery vehicle.  The only other positive I can see is that it replaces the G-Wiz.  That horrible little thing mixed serious ugliness with serious lack of safety.

The question is, how safe is the e2o?  Apparently, the Wiz didn't have Euro NCAP rating because it counted as a quadracycle - this e2o is apparently an M1 Certified vehicle.  The e2o apparently doesn't have an Euro NCAP rating because they only test "high volume cars". 

Hmmm - that's not really an answer then is it?  All that the M1 certification means is that it is "designed and constructed for the carriage of passengers and comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat".

Don't think I'd be happy travelling in one.

The article quotes Mahindra's electric boss, Arvind Mathew, a lot.  Does that mean you have to plug him in?  Anyway, he said the car, which is built in Bangalore, could be produced in the UK if demand exceeds expectations. "If the volume goes through the roof, I'd be happy to assemble the car in the UK," he confirmed.

By which time, Euro NCAP would have got interested.

And we would know if they rated it any higher than I do - one star for not being a G-Wiz.