Electric car roundup Video

Electric car roundup Video Transcript

[music] ^M00:00:05

>> If you're thinking the future of the cars may be electric, well the Europeans are ahead of you. Here at the British International Motor Show we've got an entire pavilion of electric cars. Here's one from Gem, kind of an open air, utilitarian sort of thing, but it is road legal. It costs about sixteen thousand bucks, three cents a mile to operate. They say it's equivalent to four hundred and fifty miles per gallon. By the way, it's made by a division of Chrysler, hmm. [ music ] Now I'm not sure if I would drive or wear the Gee Whiz. This is considered to be a Quadra cycle in the U.K. That's a classification we don't have in the U.S. Costs about nineteen thousand dollars. By the way, it was conceived in California. Never thought I'd say this. This Smart Four Two looks huge by comparison to some of these other cars. This is the Smart ED Electric Drive. It's a trial edition. They've got about a hundred of these around Britain in real world trials. When and if it comes to market, look for a range of seventy miles, zero to thirty in six and a half seconds, but the recharge time is pretty quick, three and a half hours. [ music ] Now [inaudible] better get cracking, cause Think has beat them to the game with a similar size and form factor vehicle, and it's really on the market. This is called The City. Hundred and six mile range on a full charge, up to ten hours though to recharge it from a dead battery, so a little bit longish there. Price around mid to high twenties converted to U.S. On sale in Norway now, U.K. and U.S. middle of '09. Now staying on the tiny theme, but significantly more hip is this car called the Super Light Concept from a firm Called NICE, which stands for No Internal Combustion Engines. Notice how they've combined both [inaudible] doors and a Targa top, kind of a cool selling point. The range is typical, a hundred miles, Lithium Ion battery pack. [ music ] Now as is the case with so many new power sources, new infrastructure is often needed. Here's a little piece of that picture. In Europe they're putting in these charging kiosks. You swipe a special card down the side to get access, and this plugs into a vehicle charger. They'll be putting these into new apartment buildings, and also car parks. We call those parking lots.