Miles Automotive removes highway speed electric vehicle from homepage, rebranding coming soon
by Sebastian Blanco on May 5th 2009 at 12:40PM 
As you can see in the screen grab above, Miles Automotive's website currently lists two just vehicles: low speed cars and trucks. But, you say, wasn't there a lot of talk about a highway-speed electric vehicle not that long ago (and even quite a while ago)? Indeed there was, and we can now explain why the vehicle has moved off of the company's homepage: it won't be a Miles EV when it arrives.
The $45,000 full-speed electric sedan is coming in 2010 under a different brand name. A few hundred units of the new car, which should have a range of about 100 miles, will be available for early-adopters in early 2010, with full sales starting by the end of that year. Miles says they expect to sell 3,000 cars in 2010 and will be able to build 20,000 units a year after that. The vehicle is currently undergoing crash-testing. The new name will be announced sometime this month.
Miles has been talking about the highway-speed vehicle since at least early 2007. Back then the car was named the Javlon XS500 and the expected price was $30,000.
UPDATE: Miles' Kara Saltness just wrote in to say that, "we continue to develop the full performance, all-electric 4-door sedan for a market introduction in late 2010. We will be announce publicly development progress this summer."
Thanks to Yanquetino for the push.
Gallery: Javlon XS500 at AFVI
[Source: CNET]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
omaticman 12:53PM (5/05/2009)
Via a quick Googling I spotted several instances where the Javlon was expected to get 150-200 miles. So if I understand this right, the range dropped from 150-200 miles down to 100, and the price increased 50% from an expected $30,000 to $45,000? Yikes.
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Brian 1:54PM (5/05/2009)
Yes, gee, what a surprise. I'm sure this still won't change the minds of everyone here on ABG that smaller upstarts can magically make affordable EVs while GM, Toyota, etc. struggle.
Wake up people, it takes a lot to engineer a normal car, let alone a highway-capable EV with a decent range. To make a car reliable enough to last 15 years, withstand high speed crashes, etc. while still being affordable you have to know what you're doing, and it takes a lot of time.
wave54 4:08PM (5/06/2009)
Agree with Brian -- no matter how badly we may feel about the large mega-car builders, they will be the ones to build the EVs that people will want and buy. We can't forget all the other aspects of car ownership (besides the powertrain) that satisfy us; e.g. build quality, tight structure, suspension and handling, long service life, reliability of non-powertrain components, etc.
The start-ups are still an unknown in terms of their ability to create an entire vehicle taht is of the same quality as the top 10 brands worldwide. How well is a Th!nk City or an Aptera going to hold up over 10-15 years? Will it still run properly as a primary car or will it be sitting behind the house with a few thousand miles on it? That's what happened with so many small company's offerings in the 70s and 80s. Now they're available on eBay for a song with just a few miles on them.
Tim 1:37PM (5/05/2009)
Let's see...
This car or the Chevy Volt?
Let me think...
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RAN 1:51PM (5/05/2009)
Definitely not this one lolllll.
Herm 9:02PM (5/07/2009)
many many companies can build good cars, ones that can even be sold in the US.. the Nissan Versa is under $10k now.. but the part that is expensive is the battery. Certifying the car for US sales is not cheap either.
This probably will be a 24kwh lithium pack, the cost for the battery should be under $20k, one day it will be around $7k for that pack.
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Drew Davies 7:37PM (5/22/2009)
As easily evidenced here: http://www.milesev.com/pressroom.aspx?flash=off the indomitable Miles Automotive group continues to rearrange the chairs on the beautiful large ship with which they are masterfully circumnavigating Atlantic icebergs.
As pointed out in other articles here at AutoGreenBlog, the latest helmsman to join the maritime foray is Big Mac Heller, Former Goldman Sachs Executive, and John Bryson, Government Man extraordinaire. More Stanford, Harvard, and Yale, blah, blah, blah: forgive me Kara Saltness, but it appears that Heller is on board to get banker/investment money and Bryson is there to grease the government. It's cool. Finally a strategy that will work! A bit of a departure from free press releases and terrible SEO, but hey, who's gonna blame'em?
I have a friend that is a paid distributor and he is fed up with the waiting game he says is being played by Miles from day one. The battery issues, the Chinese Quality Control issues, the Deliverable issues, the Deadline issues - you get the point. It's been a helluva ride waiting for the XS500, and we may never actually see one...
You know, something just occurred to me: Big Daddy Mac Heller is a former Goldman Sachs Executive. Really - another one? Mr. Rubin: are you worried that Czinger is stacking the deck against you in preparation for a Haitian-style coup? You've got to watch the Yale guys, you never know who might be Skull-and-Bones! I'm just sayin'...
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