# The Electra Meccanica Solo



## Karter2 (Nov 17, 2011)

Delivering worldwide ??
Thats very ambitious,..do they have compliance documentation for wordwide use ?


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## SoloOwners (Sep 19, 2016)

Karter2 said:


> Delivering worldwide ??
> Thats very ambitious,..do they have compliance documentation for wordwide use ?


It is ambitious. I agree. But it's easier to get a vehicle certified in the EU, India and Asia than it is to get certification in the US. Canada should be no problem compared to the US either. Take a look at the list of EU, Indian and Asian vehicles that can't be imported into the US because of compliance issues. And then take a look at the thousands of pages of the US NHTSA CFR Article 49. Electra Meccanica is now in the process of compliance certification in North America and will be seeking certification overseas in the very near future.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

In the U.S. you could license it as a motorcycle if not as a car.

In such cases in the past helmets have not been required if the occupant is enclosed in some kind of safety cabin, as this one has - but that might vary by State.


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## SoloOwners (Sep 19, 2016)

PhantomPholly said:


> In the U.S. you could license it as a motorcycle if not as a car.
> 
> In such cases in the past helmets have not been required if the occupant is enclosed in some kind of safety cabin, as this one has - but that might vary by State.


There's only one state left that requires a helmet for these enclosed three wheelers with car characteristics and there's only four or five that still require individual passengers under a certain age wear them when riding in these. That one holdout has legislation pending to join the rest of the country to be "autocycle" helmet free. Most of the states now allow operation of these types of vehicles without having to have an MC endorsement.

Yes, exactly. The Canadian and US federal governments consider this to be a motorcycle with special considerations. Many of the states classify it as a motorcycle with an "autocycle" sub-classification.


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## SoloOwners (Sep 19, 2016)

Update: This from CEO Jerry Kroll's report of 02-08-17...

"We are nearing the end of our initial pre-production run of ten SOLOs, and have been sorting out the build procedures and, once complete, I am looking forward to making the first customer deliveries soon. If all goes to plan, we will begin delivering the first of our pre-orders locally, likely around the time of the Vancouver Auto Show which runs from March 28-April 2. Once we have a number of customer cars happily driving around the Vancouver area, we’ll start sending them further afield and out of the country. I’m happy to say that our US Compliance Certification continues to move along and we will announce the results in due time.

Our Advanced Performance Division is working hard on our amazing SOLO R race car for its upcoming debut in Silicon Valley. We’ll have a private test at one of my favourite race tracks, and provide video and details to you on the results of this first running. We’re targeting the third week of March for this, so brace yourself! Not only will it be fast, it’ll look amazing. That’s what racing is all about, right? We may even consider making the SOLO R race car available to select clients who have the appropriate racing license. Noisy race tracks are one of the biggest problems in the industry, and SOLO is the ultimate solution. Now let’s see if it can pass the cars that currently make up the grids!

Our SOLO orders from individuals have now eclipsed 450. We’ve introduced a new program for people who have standing deposits on other cars. The program allows those people to send their current deposit receipt to us and we’ll credit the full amount of the receipt towards the purchase of a SOLO. You can check out SmallEV.com for more details. We still also accept $250 as a fully refundable deposit on any one of the four colours of EMV SOLO. Silver is now the most popular colour ordered, with red and white close behind. We’ll soon have a full running example of the SOLO in black when our pre-production #6 car is finished, and we’ll get our marketing team to post images on our website and social media channels when ready."


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## ken wont (Jul 6, 2016)

SoloOwners said:


> There's only one state left that requires a helmet for these enclosed three wheelers with car characteristics .....


And that state is......???


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

Karter2 said:


> Delivering worldwide ??
> Thats very ambitious,..do they have compliance documentation for wordwide use ?


After a media splash a while ago I inquired directly with Electra Meccanica about which class they were targeting, and got this from Jerry Kroll (in September 2016):


> It should be licensed as a car in Canada. We’ll see what Alberta says when the cars are actually being delivered.


... so at that point they didn't even know what class it would be, let alone having established compliance.

That didn't make sense, so I asked specifically which of the Transport Canada classes they had targeted in design: Enclosed Motorcycle, Motor Tricycle, Three-Wheeled Vehicle, or Passenger Car. Apparently they didn't have an answer, so I was told to "wait and see". Really? What legitimate manufacturer a few weeks from sales to consumers would not even be able to say what vehicle class they were building?



SoloOwners said:


> Canada should be no problem compared to the US either. Take a look at the list of EU, Indian and Asian vehicles that can't be imported into the US because of compliance issues. And then take a look at the thousands of pages of the US NHTSA CFR Article 49. Electra Meccanica is now in the process of compliance certification in North America and will be seeking certification overseas in the very near future.


This doesn't make any sense to me. Canadian regulations have been closely aligned to the U.S. for decades, to support automotive free trade. There are very few if any EU, Indian or Asian vehicles that are imported to Canada and not the U.S.



SoloOwners said:


> The Canadian and US federal governments consider this to be a motorcycle with special considerations. Many of the states classify it as a motorcycle with an "autocycle" sub-classification.


According to Transport Canada there are those three specific classes: Enclosed Motorcycle, Motor Tricycle, Three-Wheeled Vehicle. I don't think it's so simple, and the makers of the three currently available production three-wheelers (Campagna T-REX, BRP Spyder, Polaris Slingshot) haven't found this trivial or been exempted from helmet requirements. Campagna says that motorcycle operator's licenses are required in two provinces for their three-wheeled car.



SoloOwners said:


> Update: This from CEO Jerry Kroll's report of 02-08-17...
> 
> "We are nearing the end of our initial pre-production run of ten SOLOs, and have been sorting out the build procedures and, once complete, I am looking forward to making the first customer deliveries soon. If all goes to plan, we will begin delivering the first of our pre-orders locally, likely around the time of the Vancouver Auto Show which runs from March 28-April 2. Once we have a number of customer cars happily driving around the Vancouver area, we’ll start sending them further afield and out of the country. I’m happy to say that our US Compliance Certification continues to move along and we will announce the results in due time."


Thanks for the update... but what I read from this (given my previous correspondence with Jerry) is that the vehicle is not yet certified compliant in the U.S., and any required Canadian certification may not even have started.

I wish them well, but it's hard to see a capable automotive manufacturer in this operation.


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## brian_ (Feb 7, 2017)

*Updates*

The Electra Meccanica web site now says, on the Delivery Dates page, that the Estimated Delivery Date for the first 50 vehicles is "Q2 – 2017". In unsuccessful manufacturer language, that usually means that the site will soon be updated to show a later date.  The list price is still shown as an estimate, which is ridiculous for an in-production item.

In this case, there is a news item: Electra Meccanica Delivers First Solo Vehicle
The still image with the attached video shows a license plate, so apparently they got it through ICBC (the British Columbia insurance company and licensing agency)... or they stuck on a plate from another vehicle for the video.

I wonder if they can now answer my question about the class of the vehicle? Of course I'm not in British Columbia, so probably not. 

Having not really started production of the first model, they are now promising two more models - the Super Solo and Tofino - shown only in artist's conceptual drawings. The Tofino was "introduced" at the Vancouver auto show this year, but Electra Meccanica's news item reveals that the Tofino will be an electric version of the Intermeccanica Roadster, which is a kit car, and in turn a replica of a Porsche 356; what they showed was the stock kit. That's interesting, because the drawings show something modern, so apparently there has been no actual work done on the car. Intermeccanica is the Vancouver-area kit car maker owned by Henry Reisner, co-founder of Electra Meccancia; the current Intermeccanica (which is not really the Italian coachbuilder of decades ago) has never built anything other than replicas, so a new body design would be revolutionary for them.

I would like to see real progress from this company, but there is little credibility in what I have seen so far, which has been an EV version of the Sparrow.


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