Legacy automakers show off their new EVs, and startups wedge their electric toes in the door.
- ElectraMeccanica Solo
- Arcimoto Deliverator
- Fliteboard Series 2.2
- Boost Surfing
- Evolve Electric Skateboard
- SoverSky Electric Mini-chopper
- Unplugged Performance
- This new e-mobility show specializing in electric cars, bikes, scooters, and skateboards will also be staged in Seattle, New York, Miami, and Austin.
- Consumers wary of EVs and other e-mobility options can examine the new tech and even take test drives and rides.
- At the Long Beach season-opener, there were auto show-sized displays from Chrysler, Kia, Lexus, Lucid, Toyota, Polestar, Porsche, Volvo, and VW.
Traditional car shows like Frankfurt, Tokyo, and Detroit were once global touchpoints where the world’s auto industry would gather to mark its progress. Executives, analysts, and even journalists wore serious suits and carmakers spent millions of dollars on press conferences that lasted a matter of minutes. International auto shows were big deals. At least to some. But in recent years the traditional car show has been running out of gas, on its way to the recycling yard like so many wheezing gas-fired sedans and coupes being towed to various Pick-Yer-Part wrecking yards.
Irrespective of auto shows past, an all-new, all-electric “e-mobility event” called Electrify Expo seems to be taking off.
Last weekend in Long Beach, California, was the first of five such e-vents taking place across the country this year, to be followed by similar gatherings in Seattle, New York, Miami, and Austin. Last year there were just three such shows—this year five, ergo, it’s growing. The idea is to be a place where the electric future of not just the automobile but all manner of “e-mobility solutions” can be trotted out, talked about, and even test-driven—or ridden, depending.
“Electrify Expo is North America’s largest e-mobility event,” reads the shows’ marketing material. “It is an outdoor weekend festival showcasing the best of electric mobility including EVs, e-motorcycles, e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards, and e-surfboards. Attendees will experience test drives, new product unveilings, and future technologies from the world’s leading brands.”
Electrify Expo founder BJ Birtwell.
Mark Vaughn
This is all the work of an advertising impresario named BJ Birtwell, who founded an ad agency called The Armory 13 years ago after stints at SEMA and as president and owner of TORC (The Off-Road Championship Series), which specialized in dirt track racing for trucks that seem to spend most of their time cartwheeling through the air in slow motion, if you judge by the demo reel.
It’s not just a small endeavor. At the season kick-off in Long Beach there were auto show-sized displays from Chrysler, Kia, Lexus, Lucid, Toyota, Polestar, Porsche, Volvo, and VW, to name some major labels on hand. There were also smaller brands hoping to break into the big leagues, such as Aptera, Arcimoto, ElectraMeccanica, and GEM (remember them?). In addition to those, there were countless electric bicycle manufacturers, almost as many electric scooter makers, several electric skateboard manufacturers and at least two companies offering their takes on the electric surfboard.
“Early adopters are risk tolerant. The e-curious are more risk-averse and seek brands with a track record. This is a big opportunity for ‘legacy’ brands.”
The legacy big-name automakers showed off their electric makings—or hybrid models if they didn’t have a BEV yet—all of which you’ve already seen in these pages, btw. Meanwhile, smaller mobility-solution providers each made pitches for their place in this brave new e-world.
The show had sold out two weeks before opening day, Birkwell said.
“You know why? It’s because the #EV industry is beyond the early adopter stage and entered the first layer of e-curious consumers that need extra assurance. Early adopters are risk tolerant. The e-curious are more risk-averse and seek brands with a track record. This is a big opportunity for ‘legacy’ brands,” Birkwell said.
It sure didn’t feel like the IAA in Frankfurt. There were no serious executives with entourages in tow all wearing dark business suits and trying not to say anything that would get them fired.
“We’re the antithesis to the auto show,” Birkwell said, straddling an electric bicycle in Long Beach. “We’re a mobility festival. The vibe here you cannot replicate within the box walls of a traditional car show.”
Indeed, the Long Beach show was held mostly outdoors, making it easier to provide test rides of everything from a Kia Niro to an electric skateboard.
e-Mobility solutions are plentiful these days, and here are some of our favorites from Electrify Expo. Read on and rethink what it takes to get from one place to another.
ElectraMeccanica Solo
How many years have we been hearing these were just around the corner, almost ready, soon to be in dealerships? If you trace it back far enough, it’s been 25 years—that is, if you consider the Corbin Sparrow the ancestor of the ElectraMeccanica Solo. Twenty five years.
But this time they really mean it!
The Solo is a single-seat, all-electric, three-wheeled commuter vehicle that could change, or add to transportation options in the future. There were several Solos parked at the Electrify Expo. You could even take one for a test drive.
“We believe by the end of the year we’ll be turning out cars in Mesa, Arizona,” a spokesman said. “We’ve got a couple hundred million in the bank. We started delivering cars in October of last year.”
Company CEO Kevin Pavlov said in the transcript of an earnings call for the first quarter of 2021: “We manufactured 170 Solo vehicles in the quarter and delivered 45 of them to some very excited customers. We incurred net losses in the quarter of just under $18 million, vs. working capital at the end of the quarter of over $215 million, and a cash balance of over $194 million.”
Pavlov said the company has made over 400 production Solos so far and remains on track for bringing the manufacturing facility in Mesa online at the end of this year. A Solo starts at $18,500 and has a range of “up to” 100 miles (“Depends on how you drive it.”) from a 17.4-kWh lithium-ion battery.
Arcimoto Deliverator
We have seen Arcimotos since at least 2016, when the Oregon company showed off a few at CES that year. The basic craft has three wheels and two electric motors. Two of the wheels are in front—those are steered as well as driven by the two electric motors. Some of the many configurations are: two-seat tandem semi-enclosed setups, two-seat open-top “Roadsters,” the “Flatbed” farm and work vehicle, and now this, the “Deliverator.”
It features seating for one with lockable storage space behind the driver. Range is listed at 102 miles in the city with a top speed of 75 mph. The two-seat roll-cage-surrounded Fun Utility Vehicle is $17,900 to start, while the website says the Deliverator begins at $25,000. For that, you could get a pretty nice used small pickup or a beat-up Nissan NV200. But those might not be as much fun to drive and they wouldn’t be electric.
Super 73
This electric scooter company is very popular, at least in part because of a heavy marketing campaign that shows beautiful young people having a great time on their Super 73 electric scooters. I tried one out in Las Vegas at the SEMA show, getting around town and dodging traffic for a week. You have all the advantages of a motorcycle except a lot of horsepower. Otherwise, you can park anywhere, fit into any hole in traffic, and hide from The Man much easier. Mine was a bare-bones model priced at about $1500, but as you can see here, there are many more stylish options.
Fliteboard Series 2.2
“Find freedom. Take flite,” says the slogan. The Fliteboard is like your own, personal, electric-powered hydrofoil. You stand on top of it, hit the go button on the handheld accelerator and the board rises out of the water like one of those foiling Americas Cup catamarans, except it’s just about the size of a boogey board. Only $13,000 plus shipping. The range lasts an hour to an hour and a half, depending on which battery you get.
Boost Surfing
If 13 grand for the Fliteboard is a little out of your budget, consider the Boost Surfing fin. It’s just $399 and screws into the fin box of your surfboard in five minutes. The little propeller in the fin will go for one hour, or 45 minutes, depending how much you have it switched on. Most surfing is sitting there waiting for a wave, so you can leave it off when parked and save juice. See a wave, switch it on and the Boost gets you moving. Big set catches you inside? Turn it on and be the only one to make it outside without getting crushed. This could extend the surfing lifetime of many an older surfer. Purchase yours on the website. Gives you extra confidence.
Evolve Electric Skateboard
This looks like fun. Evolve has been designing and building electric skateboards for 13 years. Based in Australia, the company has a significant U.S. presence, including a headquarters in Southern California, where we saw them.
At Electrify Expo, Evolve was showing its fifth-generation board, the Hadean. It’s available as an on- or off-road product, with correspondingly appropriate all-terrain or street wheels. The company claims the Hadean offers a 25-mile range on all-terrain rubber and up to 40 miles on street wheels. Top speed is “up to 31 mph.” Prices range from $1400 to $2150 and it even offers regenerative braking. You carry a handheld remote to make it go forward and brake.
Seabob
Anyone here old enough to remember the Lloyd Bridges TV show Sea Hunt? In it Bridges played Mike Nelson, ex-U.S. Navy diver who now took on bad guys in Davy Jones’ Locker. In addition to underwater knife fights in every episode, the show featured little handheld motorized sea tows that Nelson would use to get around beneath the waves. Is such a thing now in the past, left only to Bond villains in movies? No! Now there is Seabob, which does the same thing for around $10,000. Never mind that Yamaha makes something very similar that you can buy at West Marine for $499. Seabob is the fastest, the maker claims.
The 77-pound underwater tow rig comes with a 48-volt electric motor that can tow you around underwater at speeds over 13 mph. It will reportedly go to depths of 131 feet.
Someone alert Mike Nelson.
SoverSky Electric Mini-chopper
Made in China and distributed from Ontario, California, the “M1 2000w Electric Fat Tire Scooter Chopper Citycoco,” as it is officially called in the catalog, will guarantee you have the coolest pitbike at Daytona next year, or the most impressive mini ride at Sturgis, or the best electric scooter in the entire Junior High School, depending on your particular set of circumstances.
The 2000-watt motor is backed by a removable 60V/20Ah lithium-ion battery good for a claimed 40 miles and a top speed of 35 mph. They couldn’t claim that if it wasn’t true, could they? It’ll even carry 400 pounds of rider on that 12-inch fat tire on back. It has hydraulic disc brakes front and rear, saddlebags, and a speaker for playing music as you cruise. It has a high and low-beam headlight, parking lights, turn signals, and a phone holder with USB charging port. Two instrument gauges show state of charge, speed, and odo. There are three forward gears that you shift with an up/down foot lever just like a motorcycle. If that doesn’t electrify your life, SoverSky has many other electric options.
GEM
Remember GEM? They made all those Neighborhood Electric Vehicles that Chrysler sold in trying to meet one of the ZEV mandates. Polaris picked them up from Chrysler in 2016 and owned them until last year. Now a new company called Waev owns GEM and showed off two NEVs at the Expo. The dealer for those products is PAPÉ Material Handling.
You can get GEMs with two, four, or six seats, powered by lead-acid or lithium-ion batteries, depending on your budget and range requirements. The biggest will go up to 90 miles, GEM says. Pricing ranges from $15,000 to $40,000 “all tricked out,” which includes audio, windows, and doors.
Unplugged Performance
We’ve driven some Teslas tuned by Unplugged Performance. They look great and perform even better. Some of UP’s cars have lap records at Buttonwillow. Others just look like they do. Unplugged Performance has speed parts for every Tesla made, and they have plans for the Cybertruck when that comes out. At Electrify Expo they were showing off parts for the latest Model S Plaid and Long Range models—everything from suspension pieces to aerodynamic add-ons. “We’ve got a lot of new stuff and a lot of customers,” said one of the guys at the Unplugged Performance booth. “Two NASCAR guys are clients, many others. They discovered that the Teslas are just so fast, they almost had to get them.”
Keyword: As Traditional Car Shows Struggle, Electrify Expo Is Starting Strong