Italian looks, German engineering and American electrics. Zero to 60 in five seconds, scissor doors, and you'll even get some change back from a $100,000 bill
Posted 11.20.2009 at 10:09 am
9 Comments
The ECOS Harbinger: Yours for Around $90,000 And a Wall Plug Electric Cars of Springfield (ECOS), whose primary business is electric-car conversions, is taking orders on its new Harbinger electric sports car. For $90,000, you'll get Italian looks, a 30kwh battery pack and 0-60 times of under six seconds.
Electric Cars of Springfield (ECOS)
For around 13 grand, Electric Cars of Springfield (ECOS) will turn your old beater into an all-electric commuter car. But for a few bucks (around $77,000) more, they'll build you an entire, turn-key sports car. It's called the Harbinger. It hits an electronically limited 117 miles per hour, gets to 60 mph in five seconds and undercuts the Tesla roadster on price. Did I mention it comes with Lamborghini-style scissor doors?
ECOS says it's taking orders on the Harbinger, which also comes with a new, touchscreen EV monitoring system providing real-time info on power consumption as well as GPS navigation, stereo and wireless internet. The Italian-supercar look comes by way of a carbon-kevlar composite body over a German-engineered aluminum frame. Power comes from an 11" diameter Netgain DC motor and 30kW battery pack, which enables a 150-mile range, if you can refrain from racing tuned Civics between stoplights.
The company says it's taking reservations on a limited run of Harbinger models at a base price is $89,995. Production is scheduled to start in February 2010, and you can even follow ECOS's progress from aftermarket supplier to full-on sports-car builder on Twitter.
[via Autoblog Green]
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"carbon-kevlar composite body" does that mean its bullet proof?
Tesla Roadster cost ~$100,000 w/ better specs.
0-60 in 3.7s
300+ miles on a single charge
5year/100,000mile warranty
from Los Angeles, CA
There are 35 states with cities named Springfield... the particular Springfield where the ECOS Harbinger is made is in Illinois, the state capital.
I cannot find any data on the body-- if it's made in-house, that's a plus compared to the Tesla Roadster that gets its body from Lotus in England.
The Harbinger uses "prismatic" lithium iron phosphate (LiFe PO4) batteries, which I would prefer over the lithium ion cells used in the Tesla. LiFE PO4 batteries can't hold as much charge per kilogram of weight, but they are far safer than the lithium ion batteries in the Tesla. Tesla's batteries use extensive, complex safeguards to prevent thermal runaway-- burning or exploding-- I prefer the simplicity of prismatic batteries. The extra hardware to prevent the thermal problems of lithium ion batteries reduces any gains for the extra expense and weight compared to prismatic cells.
"Prismatic" refers to the form factor of the battery-- rather than cylindrical shapes such as the AA, AAA, C, and D-cell batteries we are used to, prismatic batteries are rectangular in shape-- they make better use of space since prismatic cells can be arranged like textbooks on a bookshelf.
"Prismatic" is a term used in optics that refers to transparent objects that refract light into the colors of the rainbow, or spectrum. But in this case, prismatic refers to the original Greek, that is, prismatic batteries have flat, parallel sides.
Keep up the good work Telsa; soon, you will get one of those beautiful cars down to the working persons price range.
Oh! PS: I'm still saving up for the roaster.
UMMMMM the Tesla S in only $50k has around the same 0-60 as this hideous thing, has a longer usage range, AND can hold 5 more people......TESLA MODEL S FTW!!!!!!!
coolnezz, the Roadster's range isn't quite that great; 220 or so in normal driving. In an Aussie competition, one went 313 miles, but driven VERY carefully to maximize range.
krifor03;
Ya, the Mod-S looks like a real winner. Looks, speed, capacity, range. When the souped-up LiIon batteries start coming to market in a few years, we'll see 1000 mi.+ ranges. But the bottleneck is charging times, unless you make use of fast partial charging and/or battery swaps.
Looks like something you would buy for your kid from FAO Schwartz. The photos make it look go-cart size.
The color is unbelievable and yes it does look at little like a kids toy, albeit an expensive one. $90,0000 and the speed. This is too much for me to contemplate. I just don't understand why we must produce street cars to run at such excessive speeds when our are road laws are so much less. I can understand cars built for track or racing, but road, street cars. No I don't get it!
Vincent
www.mycarforum.com