Skeptics Doubt We'll See ZAP's $30K Electric Sports Car in 2009
02.01.08
| 5:00 PM 
Image: ZAP
A California company known for its funky, electric commuter cars says it will break into the high-performance market with a 320-horsepower, three-wheeled sports car by 2009.
Industry insiders wonder what these people have been smoking.
ZAP says it will begin producing the Alias by the middle of next year, a timeline that many say is exceedingly optimistic -- if not impossible -- given that the company only recently invited suppliers to design components for the $30,000 car.
"Right now ... it takes GM and Toyota three to five years, all told, to go from a clean sheet to vehicles selling on showroom floors," said Aaron Bragman, an auto-industry analyst with Global Insight who worked for nearly a decade as a salesman for a parts supplier and a buyer for an automaker. "And this is with staffs of trained engineers, processes, plants and suppliers already in place."
Nevertheless, ZAP -- a company whose previous well-hyped project has yet to reach the showroom floor -- said it can meet that deadline.
"Looking at our initial project-development plan and our discussion with a number of key engineering and technology partners, I believe we can go into production by the second quarter of 2009," said Albert Lam, former CEO of Lotus Engineering and chairman of the joint venture developing the Alias.
ZAP hopes to follow the path blazed by Tesla Motors, which is showing that "sports car" and "electric vehicle" are not mutually exclusive, while also underscoring the challenges that come with building a car almost from scratch.
The company, based in Santa Rosa, California, has been building electric scooters and commuter cars since 1994. Its electric commuter Xebra tops out at about 35 mph and has a claimed range of 40 miles. Beyond the challenge of designing a car with a top speed and range almost four times that of the Xebra, the biggest hurdle will be getting the components to build it. All of the major automakers are aggressively pursuing hybrids, creating a race for motors, batteries and other parts that ZAP may not win.
"If you were a technology supplier, which option would you follow: the high-risk, unproven customer who has ambitions of selling 15,000 units ... or the multinational corporation that is vying for top automaker in the world by volume and wants to start a long-term investment in the technology for global models?" Bragman asked.
ZAP says it is developing the Alias with help from Lotus Engineering and China Youngman Automotive Group, which Lam said would build the car. Despite that, ZAP almost certainly won't meet its 2009 deadline, Bragman said.
That's not to say ZAP can't get the Alias on the road. Tesla has proven that a small company can break into the market, but it's taken it five years and tens of millions of dollars to do it -- and Lotus did a lot of the chassis development.
On paper, the Alias looks like fun. Plans call for two in-wheel motors that provide 320 horsepower and a top speed approaching 120 mph. ZAP says the Alias will do zero-to-60 in 5.7 seconds. In-wheel motors could increase sprung weight and impair handling, so it remains to be seen how ZAP will address that.
ZAP is considering motors from "a few" Chinese suppliers, said spokesman Alex Campbell, who noted that ZAP has used such motors in its Zappy 3 scooters for five years. It is testing lithium-ion batteries with proprietary management systems and a range of 150 miles. Campbell said a Xebra with a lithium battery recently went 153 miles on a single charge.
The most distinctive thing about the Alias is its single rear wheel, which is suspended on a swing arm much like a motorcycle. Campbell said three-wheelers are classified as motorcycles and do not require expensive federal crash-safety tests.
"This would allow us to get a freeway-capable EV to market faster, for less money," he said. "Three-wheeled vehicles are also fairly uncommon in the U.S. marketplace and will give us some market differentiation."
The idea for the Alias was hatched last year when ZAP and Lotus started developing the ZAP-X crossover utility vehicle, which ZAP promises to launch later this year.
