Netherlands May 2014

Cruisin' Edition

After several ups and downs, the Dutch EV market looks to have stabilized around the 2.000 units/month, with  the first two eons ahead of everything else.

Pl	Netherlands	May	YTD	%	'13Pl
1 2	Mitsu Outlander PHEV Volvo V60 Plug-In e)	1.036 600	3.976 2.185	52 28	1 2
3	Volkswagen e-Up! e)	75	519	7	7
4	Tesla Model S	125	381	5	5
5	BMW i3	41	294	4	10
6	Nissan Leaf	10	203	3	9
7 8	Renault Zoe Mitsubishi I-Miev	10	56 26	1 0	8 15
9	Toyota Prius Plug-In e)	5	23	0	3
10	Renault Twizy	7	20	0	12
11	Smart Fortwo ED		17	0	13
11	Opel Ampera		9	0	4
13 13 15	Chevrolet Volt Peugeot iOn Renault Fluence ZE		3 3 1	0 0 0	6 18 10
	TOTAL	1.909	7.716	100

e) Estimate

Source: BSCB; http://www.agentschapnl.nl

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Safety risk of Heavy Quadricycles

Quadricycles, which as the name suggest, were originally derived from motorcycles. They have emerged as a new class of sub-compact vehicles in Europe.

They are small and fuel-efficient. I have recently noticed several Universities here in the UK using street-legal quadricycles. These include the Club Car Villager 2+2 LSV, the Renault Twizy 80, the Tazzari ZERO and the Ligier IXO J LINE 4 Places

Their safety tests are different from other cars as they do not have to pass any of the rigorous crash tests to which cars are subjected. However,according to a recent report from the EURO NCAP, frontal and side impacts at 50km/h, revealed severe safety problems for all four cars.

The vehicles were scored primarily on data from crash dummies but penalties were also given for poor performance of the structure or restraints. The Ligier and the Tazzari had major failings of their restraint systems in the frontal test. In the Ligier, the upper connection of the driver’s seatbelt pulled out of the structure, leaving the dummy unrestrained and leading to a high risk of injury.

In the Tazzari, the driver seatbelt broke and the driver’s head hit the steering wheel with a force that indicated a high risk of serious or fatal injury. The structure of the Club Car virtually collapsed in the frontal impact. The Renault Twizy - the only vehicle of the four tested to have an airbag as standard - scored best but its stiff structure and restraint system resulted in some dangerously high dummy readings.



Read more here: Euro NCAP

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