First EV on sale in UK

Electric Car Corporation's (ECC) UK-assembled ev'ie starts life as a Citroen C1, in three- or five-door form. ECC replaces the standard 1.0 litre petrol engine with a Citroen-approved 30kw electric motor and the fuel tank with a 25-cell lithium ion battery pack.

While no official battery capacity figures have been released, ECC's claims of a 95 to 112 km range suggest a capacity of around about 16 kWh. Top speed is about 100 km/h.

The company attributes the system's high energy efficiency to its sophisticated battery management and regenerative braking systems. The latter activates during all deceleration – not just on braking but from the moment the driver's foot comes off the accelerator.

Production costs are kept down by keeping the donor vehicle's five-speed gearbox – ECC simply fixes it permanently in third. Like most EVs, reverse comes not out of the gearbox but simply by switching the polarity of the motor. Powertrain aside, it's a fully specced-up C1.

The $35,000 starting price represents a $19,000 premium over the donor car. But with petrol at about $2 a litre, even taking into account the C1's 6.5/100km frugality, it will make plenty of sense to many a London commuter. A full recharge, taking about six hours from a standard 13 amp domestic power outlet, costs about 90 pence. That's about $1.80, which translates into 2.5 cents a kilometre – down from about 10 cents for the petrol car. Add big reductions in road taxes, low insurance costs, exemptions from London's $16-a-day congestion charge and free parking incentives and it starts looking a fair bit more attractive.

For those still balking at the cost, ECC is doing rental and lease deals as well. The ev'ie has already made its way on to the fleet of UK green-car hire specialist Green Motion.

ECC is looking at a 500-unit build in the first year of production, rising to somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 in 2010.

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