eplay, want to retire your SUV? US low emissions car specialist ZAP orders 50,000 Brazilian minicars
31st October 2005
Having failed to persuade DaimlerChrysler to supply the smart fourtwo to the US market via ZAP as an official importer, the US electric vehicle specialist distributor has instead invested in 20% of the equity of a Brazilian car designer called Obvio! and ordered 50,000 of its as-yet-not- manufactured cars for US distribution.
"What we're getting here is Italian-style quality that people know and love -- with Chinese pricing," according to Steve Schneider, ZAP's chief executive.
The Obvio! 828 is a three-seater micro-car equipped with a four-cylinder, 1.6-litre, 170-bhp engine designed to go from 0-60 mph in only 5.2 seconds, and is expected to sell in the US for around $14,000. An even faster model called the 012 is under consideration.
Both cars will be small enough to fit sideways in a parallel parking space, and will be engineered to run on petrol or ethanol, as do many cars in Brazil. They will come with a personal computer on the dashboard that runs Windows XP, allowing drivers to download music and digital radio.
Obvio! and ZAP (short for Zero Air Pollution) plan to show prototypes of the cars at the San Francisco International Auto Show in late November; the first vehicles are not expected to be on the road until 2007. Obvio! Is positioning itself as a build-to-order assembler, outsourcing a high proportion of all production to local suppliers in Brazil. |
