What it’s Like to Drive the Smallest New Car

this is the electromechanica solo it was supposed to be the cheapest electric vehicle in America but then I got canceled we got our hands on one of the last remaining examples on the road and we're going to see why they built it in the first place what it's like to drive and why owners think there's a conspiracy to keep them off the road warning solo is not as safe as a car there's a giant bus oh he does not see me I gotta punch it welcome to Donut wow dude it's so much smaller than I thought that's what she said this is Tiny it's like almost as wide as a normal card but like not quite so first things first what what is this car technically isn't a car in a komodorized tricycle in 2021 the solo had an MSRP of 18 500 making it one of the most affordable new cars or motorized tricycles you could buy and it was a lot cheaper than any other electric car on the road it looks like it kind of like gives me like last gen Civic Vive in the front with these headlights what if that's what they were going for dude this is crazy and then the back kind of looks like a what was that Chevy the first thing you'll notice about the EM solo is that it's small this little baby boy is only 10 feet long and weighs 1700 pounds or about seven and a half knees the front two wheels have a track width of just 57.5 inches and there's a single belt driven wheel in the rear because it's not a car and more of a motorcycle there's a few weird things about this thing like the kind of ugly Center headlight uh you don't need a front license plate and technically you could tint all the windows as dark as you wanted but honestly that seems like more trouble than it's worth explaining the nuances of motorized tricycle launch what cop might get annoying after a while also since it's a motorcycle cycle it hasn't been crash tested knocking on the different body panels you'll hear that the roof sounds a little different that's because it's made of Kevlar and then there's a aluminum composite lower crash structure roll structure apparently this thing is really safe although it has not been crash tested by the iihs nobody's died in one yeah [Music] it's point of this thing the Ville was pitched by electromechanic as CEO Jerry Kroll as the quote Volkswagen Beetle of the 21st century that would reduce traffic cut down on pollution and get people around the city for cheap pro talked a big game and even claimed that the car would be as quote ubiquitous as the iPhone end quote the best experience that you could have that isn't he said that car guys are great that what an insane thing to say yeah it's like it it's a commuter car so the electromechanica logo is called the Prancing Bowl Little Mix of some other Italian supercars into one logo that's pretty funny all right in case you're wondering about storage there we go a little clam shell opening on the back here the trunk as you will you could definitely do a grocery run with this wait a minute there's no that's yeah it's a fake rear window I was like looking for the glass and there's there's nothing in here full-size doors it's weird that it has two doors you know you'd expect one door the doors on both sides is kind of like a weird decision I would expect it to be only honestly on the passenger side maybe so like when you get out of the car you're never like walking into traffic oh warning solo is not as safe as a car it says it has no analog brakes nice very analog it's got no traction control or stability dude this is what everybody who drives a Miata wants you know I want to guess that these air vents I think these are Mustang because my car has similar ones to these these might be like a lower trim Mustang air vent all right I think we're ready to drive this thing I'm excited and if you're curious about this mysterious electromechanica company it's an offshoot of inter mechanica a tuning company that was founded in Turin Italy all the way back in 1959. the company built race cars then eventually focused on Porsche 356 replicas the company then moved to Canada in 1981 and in 2012 they hired the aforementioned Jerry Kroll to Begin work on an entirely different Venture than inner mechanica had ever done before an electric car and so electromechanica was born the company was formally established in 2015 and went public three years later in 2018 before the solo had even been produced that's a little strange but maybe the company was doing other work before the car I mean motorized tricycle launched it's not a car almost got me lacking the solo finally launched in 2021 and reviews were decent the interior wasn't great and the ride was a little harsh but for 18 Grand that could be forgiven you know what you're getting into looks like something they drive around in zootopia I'm going to turn this thing around see how easy it is the owner says it's got a very tight turning radius oh it's got some pickup dude not many cars could do this turn around right here Thanks Max all right see you later going onto the street don't kill me anybody [Music] that's got some get up steering is very light it's got electric uh power steering I believe a lot of road noise in here you can probably hear probably not a lot of sound dampening material in here visibility is really good a-pillars aren't too thick I feel like I can see all around me there's a Kia Soul behind me and it's enormous because the tires are so small on here I actually do have to look out for potholes makes driving down the highway a little bit more of an active drive but I don't know that might be fun too electric this thing has really great torque off the line just like any other electric vehicle this thing's so small that 40 feels fast every time you press the gas you kind of feel the rear of the car Lurch upwards spooling up power top speed it's about 80 miles an hour although the owner says he got it up to 83 when it gave him a speed warning told them to slow down so we'll try to see if we can beat that okay getting onto the freeway definitely not scared here we go onto the freeway on ramp 405 South in the electromechanic of solo will this be the end of me I really hope not foot to the floor that's 20. that's so slow what the heck we are getting off the on-ramp and on to the freeway proper and there's a giant bus stop no oh he does not see me I gotta punch it foot to the floor 70. 73 75 76 slow down okay slowing down part of the reason for the lackluster reviews was the power the 17.3 kilowatt battery pack and electric motor had an output of 56 horsepower and 103 foot-pounds of torque the single motor in the back I've been told is from an electrical fan which is good for a 0-60 figure of well there's actually a few different figures at first electromechanic has said it was 12 seconds then journalists found out it's actually 10 seconds and then owners found out it's actually around eight seconds so you're gonna get between 9 to 11 seconds 0-60 depending on who's driving and how heavy the driver is you know a lighter driver is probably going to have a different experience that is kind of the problem with super cheap stuff low power economy cars is that they don't make enough power to have a ton of fun with them you know kind of makes the case that motorcycles are a little better because even a low-powered motorcycle it's still a hell of a lot of fun at a surface level the solo seems like a good idea for some people in certain Lifestyles like Rafi the owner of this car who let us borrow it for the day so why hasn't the three-wheeler become as ubiquitous as the iPhone own well I'll explain it doesn't want to do it I looked at the front wheel a little bit that's so weird I'm like afraid of deep beating the tire on the back when it gets on the grip so I don't know a big part of this pitch for this car is that small size would help ease traffic with a smaller footprint that means more cars taking up less space Oh wait look look how skinny that is these are what 135s dude 135 70 R15 have you ever seen a tire as skinny as that I can't even buy those tires the only problem with that is that to change traffic patterns you need to sell a lot of cars and it turns out the market for tiny affordable three-wheelers is smaller than electromechanic of thought yeah dude that's as best as that's gonna get did that look cool I can feel it stepping out my heart's pounding [Applause] [Laughter] let's get out of here the cops are coming they managed to sell less than 500 solos and there's going to be a lot less than that in coming years thanks to a very alarming issue for reasons that are still unclear solar drivers can suddenly lose power while driving immobilizing the car you could be on the freeway it could be in the middle of an intersection or just stranded in the grocery store parking lot without warning this is generally seen as a Vibe killer so in February of this year electromechanica issued a recall for the solo to address these issues but it gets worse em themselves said that they were unable to determine the root cause of this issue so in March production of the motorized tricycle ceased entirely with a total of 429 sold and 800 more Vehicles waiting to find a customer the next month em told owners to stop driving their vehicles and announced a buyback of all the solos as in their attempting to buy back every single solo from customers who purchased them just months prior the buyback is technically optional but if an owner decides not to sell their car back em will not monitor the warranty no parts will be available and no product support of any kind will be offered understandably some solo owners aren't too happy about this and that's where the conspiracies start some owners think that the big automakers are conspiring against electromechanica to keep them off the road by engineering the car to lose power even though they didn't build the car some people in the solo owners Facebook group speculate that em is actually buying back the car so they can sell them in China for more money I'm not too sold on that one either because in my opinion it just sounds like it'd be easier to build a few more cars than sell them over there and also Chinese automakers are starting to make some pretty competent stuff for around the same price I don't think they em would have a very good shot over there the most likely reason for the buyback is that it's just cheaper than a class action lawsuit because they truly have no idea how to fix it at the end of the day the owners who took a risk on a new idea like the solo are the ones who are losing out while most of them will sell theirs back dedicated owners like Rafi will do whatever they can to keep their solo on the road because they believe in the concept and that's what's most in interesting to me about the EM solo it's an 85 percent good idea where is it I know I put it in here looking for this forget that bulky mess and check out today's sponsor extra are you a talking wallet I'm the extra wallet the smartest wallet you'll ever own smart How could a wallet be smart I've got the capacity to hold over 12 cards Pal give you instant access with one click RFID protect you from data thieves help track down your lost phone or wallet across the globe and even make you a cup of coffee you can't make me a cup of coffee okay I can't make coffee but I can't make your life easier tell them visit shop.exter.com donut media and check out their big Father's Day Sale you can get up to 40 off by using discount code donut media just click the link below I actually like that quite a bit it's sad that I liked it because it makes me wish that this product didn't die the way it did it's addressing problems that are real traffic in most cities sucks gas is too expensive cars are too expensive and most people have too much card than they need in their day-to-day but it also ignores seemingly deliberately the reality that people use their cars for different things depending on what day it is for this car to make the most sense it would have to be your only car and since it only has one seat that's not tenable for a lot of people yes it's a bit of a waste that I don't use all four seats on my commute but I've also moved with my car I've slept in my car I've taken road trips in my car and done a bunch of autocross in that same car and like most people who live in the city I don't have a second parking space for another car like the solo I wish the solo was successful the world would probably be a better place for it but honestly it seems a naive idea that got out of hand an almost good idea so as long as the owners out there are able to figure out the weird problems that these cars have and keep them on the road for that much longer I think that's really really cool and I can't wait to see this thing in in Blade Runner 3. thank you so much for watching this video make sure you like And subscribe down below big thank you to Rafi for letting us borrow his awesome quirky little daily driver check out his Instagram down below he has a Honda Element slash DJ booth that he drives out to festivals it's really awesome if you like three-wheeled vehicles we got one on the way but the Reliant Robin the most famous three-wheeler of all time you've seen it on Top Gear we're going to talk about that little stunt they did they faked it so make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss that video we'll see you next time goodbye [Music]

Channel: Donut

Views: 1,635,102

Keywords: donut, donut media, cars, james pumphrey, up to speed, moneypit

Id: An10Gy2XD9o

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Fri May 26 2023