Ears are open: Subaru wants your feedback on the all-electric R1e
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If you're one of the many who would happily be seen cruising silently down the street in Subaru's all-electric R1e, why not let Subaru know how you feel? Buried at the bottom of a page on the official Subaru website there is a blank line next to a "send" button. On this line, anyone can write up to 400 words on what they think about the R1e. Something tells me that our readers can easily come up with 400 words on why building and selling this car tomorrow is a smart move for Subaru. We won't tell if you just cut and paste from previous nice things you've said. Thanks to yanquetino for the tip!
[Source: Subaru]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Yanquetino 10:00PM (3/21/2008)
C'mon, folks! Let's FLOOD Subaru's inbox with requests to bring their EVs to North America! The sooner, the better!
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kevin 2:21AM (3/22/2008)
Yeah i agree with poster #1 lets beg them to bring it to the us but redesign the back of it. The hatch back style door looks so uglier. Americans such as myself like sleek and sexy .
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mark 6:43PM (3/23/2008)
I'll take electric and looks like crud over petrol powered and "sleek and sexy" any day. At least there's a greater chance of following generations actually being able to drive around our "ugly electric" cars that way.
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mark lee 12:54AM (3/25/2008)
How about start building something that can compete with the 2009 Honda Fit?
First of all I highly doubt that Subaru can keep the price of this all-electric car low enough to make it a sensible alternative to Fit, which beats the fuel economy of Civic Hybrid in a recent test. http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/category/cat.2007HondaFitSport Then there are other issues such as:
Exterior design (I like the first generation Tribeca, but this R1e is somewhat odd looking)
Practicality (while the Smart cars are selling extremely well in the U.S. right now, they'll do much better if they can accomodate more than 2 people plus at least 12 cu.ft. of cargo)
Convenience (Unless there's a proliferation of electrical charge stations within a short period of time, I'm pessimistic about building all-electric cars because a lot of people simply don't have their own garage where they could charge electric cars overnight. Besides, from a green point of view, we are suppose to encourage people to live in condos/apartments, which is not easy to implement safe charging stations/outlets at their shared parking facilities.)
Finally I have to emphasize again on the issue of production cost. As much as we like to help the environment, we want to save our wallets as well. Those $30,000 Apteras are not exactly affordable for most people, so Subaru has to have the confidence to dramatically lower the price of R1e within the first few years of production. I think at this moment it'd be more cost effective to take advantage of the clean diesel (or even bio diesel) engines as much as possible. If Subaru insist on building electric or hybrid cars, I strongly suggest they sit down with the folks at Toyota and see if they can form some type of partnership because the 2010 Toyota Prius is expecting to be an apotheosis of green vehicles.
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Nick 12:11PM (11/04/2008)
Nice car. Especially it's all electric. If I could buy an inexpensive car that takes no gas just to commute to work, I'd buy it tomorrow! Not just because it would be inexpensive, but because it would be clean.
I would really appreciate a good warranty on the battery though. Usually batteries go first and are expensive, and they pollute.
The car would also have to be extremely solid. It's small and nobody wants to risk their life to be clean and save on gas.
Nick
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