Matthew DeBord/BI Small, but gets a lot of attention.
- The Electra Meccanica Solo is a $15,000 all-electric three-wheeler, made in Canada.
- It can do 0-60 mph in about eight seconds, with a top speed of 82 mph and a range of 100 miles on a single charge.
- There is, however, just one seat.
Around 2010, there were numerous electric-vehicle startups on the landscape. Sadly, the financial crisis finished off most of them. Tesla survived, of course. But the dream of new carmakers died.
Or did it? A Canadian company, Electra Meccanica, got started in 2015 and recently began to deliver $15,000 examples of an all-electric three-wheeler to customers in the US (the firm is descended from an Italian maker of relatively obscure sports cars, Intermeccanica).
They asked me if I wanted to spend a few hours driving the Electra Meccanica Solo around Manhattan. Here's how it went: