I am kinda curious to see how some of these 3 wheeled cars will handle in the snow. I suppose it will depend on which wheels are used to drive and how weight is distributed. Although when the snow starts to fly around here you have tracks that the tires of your car go into and the center is usually a pretty big mound. The nice thing is it is easier for the car to sense a slipping wheel and redirect power. Maybe up here in Minnesota they would be summer cars only though.

Yes, it's three wheels, but it's FUNK-KY! A "Babe" mobile that's righteous with the environment!

I'd buy this in a heartbeat. Here in SoCal, where it never snows or rains(?), three wheels are no problem.

adam- As long as its front wheel drive the back wheels make no difference in the snow. You can have bald tires and it doesn't affect your driving. Weight is the issue. Maybe three wheeled cars are less likely to fishtail in the snow? I also would guess that backing up in snow could be a problem.

"Because it is a three-wheeler, the Alias bypasses many of the DOT regulatory hurdles that apply to a full-fledged car."

Translation: it is classified as a motorcycle which do not have to meet any safety requirements.

Does ZAP ever actually do anything except generate press releases? When have they ever followed through on their schemes?

Right, I love it, but as stated, how is " the Alias bypasses many of the DOT regulatory hurdles" a good thing? I would never buy it if I didn't know how safe it was. No exceptions.

cool a vehicle that i can only drive 100 miles (EV1 anybody) and having 3 wheels i'll probably wreck it in any snowy conditions and maybe even in heavy rains. i'm also assuming my new electric car will carry a whopping two passengers with very limited luggage space.

this is not going to work in most parts of america. why spend $30,000 on this car when you can buy a $10,000 civic with seating for 4 if not 5 people and a good ammount of luggage space with 4 wheels and front wheel drive that doesn't typically handle horribly in any weather condition and averages around 40 mpg?

give us a PRACTICAL electric car.

I've built and driven three wheel vehicles.

You can design a four wheel car poorly and create bad handling, and you can design a three wheel car poorly and create bad handling, but three wheel vehicles have some inherent problems that require some careful attention.

It's highly important to keep a forward bias on weight as the normal 50/505 weight split will cause issues.

How any manufacturer will keep people from overloading the vehicle and create bad handling is beyond me, as small light vehicles are pretty sensitive to center of gravity shifts.

Rear wheel blowouts can be bad too, especially if you end up on the rim (the coefficient of friction of aluminum is drastically different than that of rubber!) You can end up in the ditch facing the wrong way if you blow out the rear tire in a turn. While this could happen in a four wheel vehicle, it's far less likely.

That said, I'm actually looking over some three wheel vehicle plans for an electric vehicle, it's a dated design from the 80's or 90's but I'm ok with that as the design and handling seem good from what I've heard.

"this is not going to work in most parts of america. why spend $30,000 on this car when you can buy a $10,000 civic with seating for 4 if not 5 people and a good ammount of luggage space with 4 wheels and front wheel drive that doesn't typically handle horribly in any weather condition and averages around 40 mpg?

give us a PRACTICAL electric car."

Don't be stupid. This is like going back in time to when Plasma screen t.v.'s came out and saying "$50,000 for a television set that's only 40 inches?!? Give me 60 inch screens for $1000 NOW or I'm not interested!!!"

Any new technology needs time to mature, economies of scale must be built before costs will come down to the ideal level. In the meantime compromises like this vehicle are a HUGE and NECESSARY step we, as a society MUST take.

As a commuter car this vehicle will work just fine for a lot of people in a lot of places, period end of discussion. As for how safe it is and how it handles in bad weather, it's being built by Lotus so I'd be surprised if it's a total bust in those 2 areas.

Regardless, if people can just get their heads out of their asses and realize that supporting ev's today even if they are more costly than a Honda civic or whatever is the right thing to do, we might actually get off this fossil fuel addiction that is threatening our collective future.

Ok Pat one thing, have you driven in the snow, bald rear tires with FWD = no lateral stability and spinouts. Grew up in Canada so I know snow.

Provided the weight ballance of the car is right I see no problems except for snow. Traction/stability control should handle any tail happiness if this is RWD. Looks like fun but how safe is it?

There is a fine line between rooting for EVs and rooting for perpetual motion machines (like Steorn). Idealistic dreams create conditions ripe for scam-artists, or at the very least, well-intentioned startups who are totally and irrevocably incapable of delivering the goods!

The EV market is over 100 years old and there have been many false-starts. Check out the Exar-1 for instance.

Anyone even considered "rooting" for one of these companies should analyze the people behind it thoroughly first.

It takes almost no effort to fire up 3DSMax and create mockups like these accompanying a press release. Doing so should be of no consequence whatsoever to any of us. Only when these vehicles are made available should we take it seriously.

If you look at the few companies out there that ARE managing to scrape up some viable cars, they are always leveraging preexisting technologies. Tesla is using the Lotus frame. Phoenix is using a Korean donor car. Th!nk inherited their car from Ford. Right now no small company is creating freeway-capable EVs from scratch because it's just too damn expensive.

"I am kinda curious to see how some of these 3 wheeled cars will handle in the snow."

'Reluctantly' is the answer. Batteries don't like the cold as New York City learned when it tried running electric taxis earlier this year, so you'll be lucky if you can get an EV moving at all with snow on the ground.

C'mon guys ZAP is blow'n wind up our skirs they make all these claims but NEVER! put ut anything they're fake as you can get there was a great write up on this so-called company in Autoblogreen these 2 rides will never make it to the market & ZAP knows it ( I wish it wasnt so ) Look I want an all EV car for less than 30K BAD! I own a 69fastback Stang luv it I also have a Prius that I converted to a plug in LUV it too I just wish I could merge the 2 into a nice kool EV car like the Tesla but the price for that car is way too much for most Americans. I wish ZAP would keep it's word on these s EVs but I dont have much faith in corporations these days

3 wheeler? Hmm, I had a homebuilt HD trike. I hope they make the middle tread a "run-flat" type tire. I had at least 10 flat tires over a 3 year span of summer driving. The middle tread will be running where all the debis sits on the roadways. Next time you are driving, start to notice all the junk, oil, antifreeze, etc... sitting in the road between the 2 tire tracks. That middle tread will be a pricey ordeal when it comes to tire repairs.

If you notice a motorcyclist on the road, you will see the rider following in either of the 2 automotive tread tracks. Rarely will you ever see a motorcyclist riding in the middle of the lane....well, at least you won't see an experienced motorcyclist doing it.

Bottom line is to STOP using fossil fuels. 30,000 for style, and freedom from gasoline is enough for me. 98% of my driving is with in a 30 mile radius of my house. SUV's were sold to people on the assumption that "someday" they would want to drive on sand , climb mountains off road, and get away......day after day, year after year I see these vehicles with 1 occupant driving 20 miles per hour on the freeway to and from work. maybe 1% of the time are there more than 2 people in the car. Get a grip! We can all think of some reason why we shouldn't be driving EVs the fact of the matter is, we are the stupidest people on the face of the earth, and the worst polluters. From Japan to England, Russia to Italy people have been driving smaller cars and they get along just fine. Americans are so self absorbed and self indulgent, that we put our grandchildren's very survival at risk ,willingly, just so we can have our gas engines. Support EV and better cars will be developed. Continue to buy gas engines and you destroy the planet.

I'm looking forward to driving one of these, I live north of Syracuse, NY. Three wheeled vehicles handle very well in snow conditions at highway speeds with the right tires and with carfull driving. The battery electric will likely be much safer than my old ICE three wheeler that I used to sit on top of as the center of gravity will likely be lower (this assumes it is like other electrics in that the batteries are under the floor of the cabin).

Get real about the milage you want from an electric three wheel as well. The EV1 got only 110 or so miles to the charge due to GM's perversion of its marketing (they didn't want to sell them), there were battery packs available for it that would have extended its range to 300 miles.

100 miles would more than take care of my day to day needs, lets not forget that I could plug this car in at home, and pay the equivalant of 60 cents a "gallon" or so. A 2 passenger vehicle would be ideal for me as well, being single, I rarely carry any passengers in my 5 seater car, and when I do, its usually a date (in other words, 1 other person).

Tire blowout issues:
Solid states don't go flat
Run flat tires can get you to a local tire shop
Tire inserts can give you the safety of solid states without the extra weight

Not to mention, its not likely that anyone near you will be driving a vehicle anything like this. For you tuners, that's a good thing, you will save money on trying to make it stand out. Lets face it, most tuner cars carry only the driver most of the time, and generally, the back seats are too small for grown adults. You and a friend could ride in one and it would take 4 other of these vehicles to even come close to the expense of taking just one ICE car.

$30,000 or less is not really a lot when you think about the money you will save on oil, fuel, emissions controls, anitfreeze (cooling parts), and (depending on state) insurance. Try buying a Mazda Miata and spending less than $30,000.

Electric vehicles are also inherently reliable, as there are far fewer moving parts.

Side note, just because a vehicle bypasses the safety legistation of the US government does not make it inherently unsafe. Many of them use roll cage technology used in race cars. You can keep your five star rating, give me a vehicle that will really protect me in a crash.

Yes I would like to have a EV. However everthing that I have seen so far, are to headious to be seen in let alone drive. remember a yugo? It was not only Ugly but also a pice of (&6%$#*&@) fiat junk.
in russia it was call Lada, and it's nick name was
"A Lada Junk"

So if the The design engineers makes the appearence of the vehicle nice looking and to a high degree of quality chances are the rest of the vehicle will be of good quality as well.