How Big is The Dog?

Autocar are reporting on the latest Quadricycle to start deliveries in the UK.

And when I say "start deliveries" I mean it is being delivered to customers not that it is making deliveries.  I think it is a trifle too small to be used as a delivery vehicle - unless perhaps you want to deliver trifles.

It is called the Ark Zero - maybe its successor will be called the Ark One.

And the models draped over it at motor shows will be called Ark Angels.

It's all very clever and it is aluminium - the website is here.

But it looks like a certain beagle.

The one on the right is the car - the one that looks cross-eyed.

It is a two-seater like its rival the Citroën Ami but has the more antisocial "tandem" layout of its other rivals the Renault Twizy and the Messerschmitt KR200.  The Ami is probably the only one I'd a want to have a go in.

The interior looks, let's just say "cosy".

Which brings us back to dogs. Ark claim that this car is big enough for two adults and a dog - hence the title of this post.  You'd never get a Saint Bernard in there though.

But it does remind me of  a quote from nearly six years ago now in this post.  It is why I rather maliciously included the Messerschmitt as a rival:

"at the back there is a bench which will hold a small wife and child, or a larger wife and a shopping basket."

Or a huge wife and a Yorkshire terrier.

And why on Earth does it need a reversing camera?

Green China Plates

Looks like Habitat is the place to go for green dinner plates:

But China is the place to go for green number plates:

But only if the plates are going on a green car like the one in that photo.

 

Yes, I know it looks white but it is green because it is electric.

 

And our Government is suggesting we do something similar here - the BBC have the story.

 

But then they have been suggesting all sorts of things lately.

 

The logic is, local authorities could easily identify electric vehicles and give them extra privileges - like letting them use bus lanes.  Which would be fine until the electric cars take over and the bus lanes get clogged up.  High occupancy lanes is a better way of going with that.

 

Plus Renault Zoës and Twizys are ugly enough as it is - they would look even worse with a green number plate: 

The second or third of these options might work better:

Or copy the Norwegians and have an "e" at the start of the plate.

Our Government should like being like Norway.

efghijklmno

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.