A Build-It-Yourself Electric Vehicle 84
Taco Cowboy writes "Here's yet another exciting project for DIY geeks. Modi-Corp, a Japanese company, has just unveiled a new electric car that you can actually build yourself. Not to be confused with the Toyota 'Prius,' the DIY electric car from Modi-Corp is called 'PIUS.' It's a single-seat electric car that will be released next spring in Japan. The company hopes that the PIUS kits can be used as educational tools, expecting to sell them to universities and mechanical schools with the opportunity to have customizable parts embedded in the EV for testing."
Re:Ariel Atom? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been designing a home-build EV myself and in some respects it's similar: a 4-wheeled, single-seat space-framed vehicle with a lightweight non-structural aero body wrapping around it. But there the similarity ends. Mine weights 200kg, has a top speed of 130 km/hr, will do 0-100km/hr in 4 seconds, runs at its top speed for 1 hour which gives it a range of 130km at worst, much more if driven sensibly and legally. I only need 15kW motor power and 15kW/hr of LiFePo batteries. Then again it's primarily intended as a fun track car, not a commuter.
I just don't think they're trying very hard. And it's ugly too - they need a western stylist to fix that.