About 1,000 of the tiny Revas have been sold in England.(Reva Electric Car Company)Move over Tata, your forthcoming $2,500 Nano has just been pre-empted by another tiny and inexpensive Indian-made car, and this one is all-electric. It’s a narrow, top-heavy three-door hatchback known as the Reva, and it’s been taking the world by storm, or at least 13 countries. Business Week reports that nearly 3,000 have been sold. And the United States could be in its minuscule sights.
Priced between $9,000 and $11,000, the Reva is not a sophisticated car, but celebrities like Kristin Scott Thomas have reportedly driven them around London (where they’re marketed as the G-Wiz). Some 1,000 of them have reportedly been sold in England, and here’s one big reason: because it’s electric-powered, the Reva can evade London’s £8 ($14.80) congestion charge, a burden on daily commuters.
The Reva, with lead-acid batteries and an AC electric motor, is nobody’s idea of a luxury car. It’s small inside and out, seating two if they get along well. The back seat (officially for “minors”) is best left for cargo. Appointments are few, but there is a radio. Top speed is approximately 50 miles per hour, which takes some time to achieve. Range is 49 miles. A full charge takes eight hours.
Weighing only 1,650 pounds, the plastic-bodied Reva is classified as a “quadricycle” because of its tiny size, and that leads to another fortuitous exemption: this one from British crash testing. In fact, a Reva was all but obliterated when the wags at “Top Gear” ran one into a table.
There could be a Reva in America’s future, though probably a bigger one than the eight-foot-long version currently sold in Europe. It’s worth noting that two American venture capital firms, the Global Environment Fund and Draper Fischer Jurvetson, co-led an investment round that raised $20 million for Reva in 2006.
“We started looking at all the advances that were going to happen in transportation, and we thought E.V.’s were interesting,” said Raj Atluru, a managing director at Draper Fischer Jurvetson. “We invested in both Reva and Tesla. Reva is trying to revolutionize how people think of urban vehicles, and it’s doing it with simple functionality and lower price points.”
Mr. Atluru said Reva’s grand strategy is to push deep into continental Europe, expand in India, then target the United States with a larger (and presumably crashworthy) model in 2010 or 2011. Lithium-ion batteries and 125-mile range are possible.
Jim Motavalli posts regularly about fuel economy, green cars and alternative fuels. He is the author of “Forward Drive: The Race to Build ‘Clean’ Cars for the Future,” among other books. Read his previous posts here.
Comments are no longer being accepted.