Jay Leno has electric “lady car” in his garage. It was build in the beginning of the century and had a range of 8-10 miles (depending on weight of the lady and weather conditions). Albeit Suby has 5 times the range it still not a leap for a full century.

What a waste of resources. Low-range city electric cars are pointless. They can’t go distances, which means most owners will also have a regular gas engine car alongside it, which means MORE cars on the road, and MORE cars that will eventually have many components end up in ****ing landfills. These are possibly even worse than gas/electric hybrids.

Though I wonder how long after release it will take Leonardo DiCaprio to show up at some public event in an imported R1e?

The R2 is actually a very well proportioned and styled micro car. If it has at least a 1 liter engine I’d get one. 800cc is way too small for any real freeway use.

8 minutes charge is amazing, the way to go.

Uglier than the Tesla…..

But at least it will get delivered and used.

This is the way to go given the current state of the art. Don’t promise miracles; just give us the goods and those who can realistically use such a vehicle despite its limitations can go about their business.

Sorry, just playing thru.

HA HA what a joke

In japan this might be an utterly practical car. Not only does it go only as far as you need it to to commute, especially if you work out of easy reach of their Public-transit system, and you don’t need to go that far.

Plus, as I understand it, in Tokyo and other such cities in Japan, one needs to prove they can adequately park or store the vehicle before they can actually get it. Being so small it wouldn’t be they hard.

An utterly Japanese solution to an utterly Japanese problem.

$17,500 still sounds like a lot for this vehicle. I wish instead of basing these vehicles on existing platforms they would simply make their own. I can imagine with a purpose built frame, and I’m not talking about a state of the art one either, it could gain a few miles of range, would distinguish itself (note: Prius) and maybe less expensive (I’m not considering the due diligence costs here, only head costs)

CA36GTP- Think before you post. Consider how small Japan is (about the size of California), do you seriously think they’ll need a vehicle with 200 miles of range? And obviously, most of these people who will be driving this car will use it in the city, where it’ll probably only experience 20 miles of use daily. Just because your in the American mindset (which I usually am too, but read past the title) doesn’t mean the Japanese are.

Veda- I’ve never heard of Subaru selling them outside of Japan (assuming you don’t live in Japan, and your website).

50 miles will get me to work and back, plus a quicky charge at work just to be safe.

No gasoline….that would be great to run into an arabs nose.

Now if only we can do like Europe and Japan and build nuclear power plants.

It’s like a mini B9 Tribeca, a little golf cart version.

jayjc08: Yea, where I’m at right now (I move around a lot) I can get either the R1 or R2 special ordered from a Subaru dealer for a hefty shipping charge.

This could work for a lot of people. How many families have at least two cars? This could be the daily commuter, with that Tribeca as the family hauler. Bring it to market (our market) and let the consumers decide.

–Dave

Average american drives 29 miles per day…average american owns 2 cars…looks like a car for the average american. 8 minutes for a full charge?? Are you kidding me? Thats the real headline story! If this battery experiment (100 cars) gets any traction at all, you will see 100 miles on a charge and 5 minutes to recharge coming real soon….then 200 miles/5 minutes charge…and so on. Change comes slowly.

not to mention the gov taxes cars based on displacement and size. and their emissions are stricter than the euro5 or CAs regulations.

.