EVS20: November 19, 2003
Posted: July, 2004
(On Behalf of Evworld): Josh Landess
Bill Gibson: Zytek Chairman
Dan Rendell: Manager of Zytek Electric Vehicles
Bill Gibson: No. This [The Smart Car] is available obviously as a gas car and a diesel car, but not as an EV not at the moment. These [EVs] are development cars.
Josh: This is a retrofitted Smart?
Bill Gibson: Yes
Josh: Are you anything to do with Smart?
Bill Gibson: No, not really. No.
Josh: Are you buying the vehicles as gliders or off the lot?
Zytek Representatitve: We’re buying the vehicles as complete cars at the moment. Smart knows exactly what we’re doing, they give us information and so on and so forth, but it’s not a Smart project as such.
Josh: And they won’t provide you with just the glider?
Bill Gibson: If the volumes are big enough, yeah.
Josh: Oh, they might do that?
Bill Gibson: Yeah.
Josh: Good. ....
Why the Zebra battery?
Bill Gibson: Why? It’s the best one we know in terms of energy density, which is what we want, we’re not interested in outright power. This is a Zebra battery guy here [available for interview].
Josh: [I had already been to a lecture about the battery the day prior.]
Bill Gibson: All right. It’s the best energy density battery and this one is specifically made for the Smart. That battery there is made to fit this car.
Josh: The Zebra battery people worked with you?
Bill Gibson: Yes.
Josh: Fifty to a hundred miles depending on driving style?
Bill Gibson: Yes.
Josh: And regenerative brakes?
Bill Gibson: Yes.
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Test Ride with Dan Rendell, Manager of Zytek Electric Vehicles
Josh: It doesn’t sound like this one is for sale yet.
Dan: Not yet.
Josh: [...] about the zebra battery staying warm: They buy it with it’s own control unit built in. And you could actually leave it for a week.
Dan: Well over a week..... It's continually losing less than a hundred watts to the ambient [?] (inaudible).
Josh: So if I was at a hundred percent charged and a week later I came back about how much charge would I be out?
Dan: It would be just about empty after a week. If you’re parking at an Airport for example, you’d have to plug it in. If you're going somewhere for a weekend or staying overnight there’s no problem leaving it.
----------------[Begin Test-Drive]----------------
Test-Drive Notes
Notes: Right Side Drive Vehicle (UK Vehicle).... I made some in-advance driving excuses regarding my unfamiliarity with right-side-drive. Ignition switch is in the middle. The current gear is recorded in the center of the dash. Had to get my mirrors straight. We started the drive in an indoor parking lot. Zytek was keeping this vehicle separate from the others, and only allowing a more moderate number of drives.
Fasten belts, adjust mirrors etc., release brake, select drive and we were off.
The ride at lower speeds was quiet enough such that I heard the noise of some obscure motor control and asked Dan about it.
I started to really give it some gas on this relatively short 5 minute city circuit, after asking if I could push it a bit. I figured these cars at these events must be a bit abused, but this one is advertised to do 75 mph, so I wanted to push it a little. It may have a modest size, but it's no NEV.
Josh: Is it okay if I [push it a bit]?
Dan: Yes. It's a car. It's to be driven.
Josh: What country is your company based out of?
Dan: In the UK.
Josh: Any news on what’s going on with Frazer-Nash buying Think? I’m asking because not much presently seems to be coming out of it, although there are reports of some progress, but....
Dan: I know they’re looking to use the Zebra Battery as well, but that’s really all I heard.
Josh: Any chance that this could be marketed or sold to people coming off the Think City here in the U.S. who are very anxious to get their hands on something comparable?
Dan: Yeah, we became aware of that actually at the show: a lot of people coming up say I really want one of these. [The Think's] (inaudible) be taken off me or it’s going to be taken off me.
Josh: Absolutely. I hesitated to use the word desperate, but a lot of these folks really want one.
Dan: Yes. Yes, our problem is this vehicle at the moment isn’t (inaudible) for use on U.S. roads.
Josh: Isn’t what?
Dan: It doesn’t meet all the U.S. legislation. There’s a lot of work to do. Because it’s a conversion of a European vehicle.
Josh: Well I am noticing that even though the vehicle looks small from the outside just from the driver's point of view it seems reasonably substantial.
Dan: Yeah. It feels quite large inside of the cabin, doesn’t it?
Josh: At least it feels like a normal car.
Dan: Yes. These are very popular in the gasoline version in Europe.
Josh: What kind of mileage does it get in the gasoline version?
Dan: We get about sixty miles to the gallon.
Josh: Six zero?
Dan: Yeah. Gonna comment on how it drives?
At this point I searched for an impression. Five minutes in a robust highway capable car that provides no immediate problems is not much of a chance (for me) to understand the subtleties of its strengths and weaknesses, but I commented that the drive had been “pleasantly uneventful”. By this I thought I was noting a very good thing about the vehicle, in the sense that if you drive a prototype you expect perhaps some real problems. I said, “I mean I think I would notice more if something was wrong than if something’s right.”
But what I also want to convey to readers is that although I'm not accustomed to driving such a small vehicle, if this Smart Car were brought to the U.S., as a good EV such as Zytek had apparently built, or in its more conventional gasoline version such as I think Zap is trying to bring here, then this seemed like a very real car with no immediately apparent flaws. Folks who see how small it is should not immediately assume that it's some sort of under-powered vehicle... at least not the Zytek prototype I drove.
I thought the drive was well worthwhile, and thanked Dan. It seemed like such a decent highway capable EV that if it were offered here, I think it would generate interest and perhaps sell quite well.... It is at least worth it to consider importing this vehicle.
I asked Dan if it had been somewhat scary driving with Americans who had never been in a right-hand-drive car before, and he said there had been a few moments where he'd found himself in the passenger seat right out in the middle of the road. We had a good laugh.
In the parking lot we ran into a very slight glitch that needed some fine-tuning in controlling the reverse.
Lastly, I checked with Dan on the issue of Smart making the cars available as gliders if the volume were there. Bill Gibson had seemed to indicate this might be possible, if the prototype were taken to production. Dan also seemed to think this could be done. I remarked that I'd never seen gliders made available to would-be EV manufacturer by the major car manufacturers in the States (or the world for that matter). It's not clear to me whether the Zytek Reps, Dan and Bill, were entirely certain they could get gliders, but they both emphasized their good solid working relationship with Smart. Dan also mentioned that E-Motion seemed to have a similar agreement with Smart that might result in gliders, but he didn't know the details.
The Zytek Smart Prototype, with the Zebra battery and the surprisingly robust performance of the vehicle, seemed particularly worthy of note to me, so even though this writing occurs in July 2004, 9 months after the fact, I am belatedly posting what I have on it.
I had a conversation with some Europeans in the parking lot and remarked that I would buy one if I could, but they are not available here. One German (I think) noted that indeed there are plenty of them on the road in his area. We also discussed the politics and difficulty of getting gliders made available to would-be EV makers.