
Bloody silly names.
These names have now taken my top prize for Stupidest Name(s) For A Car Ever award. The previous winner was the Chrysler Rageous, which some pointed out at the time would have been better called the Chrylser Diculous.
Renault has announced four e-cars at the ongoing Frankfurt Motor Show. Renault_FMS Renault's Fluence (far left), Twizy (left), Kangoo (right) and Zoe The line-up includes the Twizy Z.E. city runabout and the slightly more practical Zoe Z.E. small hatchback, both of which Renault described as “close to production concepts …
Fails to address the elephant in the room.
What energy source will be used to generate the electricity? Coal, Oil?, Gas? Wood? Refuse? The common denominator here is CO2 generation. And leccy cars do almost nothing about this.
If there were a move to Wave, Tidal barrage, Solar or Wind as the primary energy source for electricity then leccy cars might be less of a joke than they are now. As it is I find these sort of articles less and less amusing. They're not even distracting 'cos there is no totty and the cars are quite ugly!
Fluence looks quite nice but rest looks like they just escaped from Teletubbies episode.
Why, just why they try to force those things upon us? Can't they just take a look at some Japanese anime and take concepts from there? If they really cannot think about anything worthwhile by themselves.
(a) People who don't like French cars
(b) People who like driving for pleasure rather than just going to the shops
(c) People who need to go further than the next town along. And no, the train isn't an option. Running an electric car is supposed to be cheap. Trains are more expensive than petrol-powered cars (well, more than mine- does just under 30mpg on motorways and I still make a saving over Scotrail).
(d) People who buy cars for their stylish designs
(e) Anyone who wants a decent stereo- an extra half-kilowatt or more would eat your range. Then again it's batteries won't last for a full CD's duration each way.
(f) People pissed off at them for bringing a slow eco-van to the Goodwood Festival of Speed
(g) Anyone who wants to go quickly or have the option to go quickly
(h) People who live in a flat and don't live next door to a battery-change station
(i) Men.
(j) Household with more than one car. Overnight charges on a 13A socket are all well and good, but having mum, dad and two kids charging up overnight? Not a chance.
So yeah, in the UK they're only really useful for London-dwelling skinny-latte drinkers. And I'd have thought they'd be better off with the Tube.
As far as electric cars go, these are a big fail. Well, unless you can pick up that tiny runabout one for maybe a grand. That looks like it'd be good for me running to the shops or running me into town once a month without having to find a wide parking space.
The French produce 80+% of their electricity from nuclear power plants so by turning to electric powered cars they will massively reduce their auto CO2 emissions. The Danes have similarly ambitious plans to generate a high percentage of their electricity from wind farms. Bottom line is you can't power a petrol or diesel car on CO2 free renewable power but you can can an electric car. No pachyderms in the room after all.
What will charge the batteries? Well, in France, electricity is mostly nuclear. So, the only byproducts of these cars will be greater amounts of radioactive waste. Nothing to worry about then!
I'm glad to see leccy cars getting nearer to market because I want one. But if history has taught us one thing it's that the only French car company that can make anything fun or cool is Citroen. Citroen should invent one with wifty-wafty suspension right now.
It's going to take forever to get anywhere in that thing. The electric motors will be fast enough it's just that Renault's famous build quality means that as soon as you hit a speed bump you'll have to stop and nail all that plastic crap back on the body.
Fascinatingly horrible in a Gobbler Motel (go look it up) sort of way.
you Poms don't have complain a lot for a country whose last mass market car maker went belly up four years ago after producing re-baged Hondas and other wretched tat for two decades and after the management trousered 40 million quid given them by BMW! OK, these Renault's aren't to everyone's taste, but kudos for brave efforts surely. And if you don't like, don't buy - nobody is going to make you give up your horrible Rover 75 and drive an electric Renault...
"Are you saying it will run on garlic and arrogance?"
I'd have guessed at cheese. Maybe those Surrender Monkeys I keep hearing about can be trained to run on treadmills or something.
Of course, being French, they'll only need to work one day a week because they'll spend the rest of the time on strike.
Did we miss any other distasteful stereotyping?
Are the Germans or Italians planning any electric vehicles? I'm sure they would also provide rich veins of xenophobia to mine.
if a bit inconsistent in the results; brave styling but appalling packaging (Twizy), rather pretty (Zoe) a bit bland (Effluent - sorry, Fluence) and twee (Kanpoo). The Twizy should have 4WS to make it really effective in the town while the Zoe is something I can see going down quite well in a fashion accessory / lifestyle positioning effort.
Despite never being much of a fan of Renault these are not bad pieces of work at all. They just need a decent small and light engine in them. oops.....