Pininfarina, Bolloré bullish about Bluecar It seems it's not all quite doom and gloom on the Pininfarina B0 front. Pininfarina Bollore BlueCar Pininfarina/Bolloré's Bluebar: no longer the B0 While not having a working prototype to show at the Geneva Motor Show this week, Vincent Bolloré – whose company, Bolloré SA, is partner with Pinifarina in Véhicules …
Uglier than the Aztek? How about the Scion -- (I forget who makes it) an SUV that's so goddamn' ugly I have to avert my eyes to avoid melting them out of my head by accident, a vehicle so flat-out nasty-looking that it ought to be shot and put out of its misery.
Besides, never mind the goddamn' _car_... y'get a load of that "roadside assistance"?
I'll grant you that the Scion isn't particularly beautiful, but to my eyes it can in no way compare to the overwhelming horror of the Aztek. I still remember the Aztek launch, where one was presented to the hapless Tiger Woods - who, with true grit, said, "Oh, wow - this thing is wild". That was probably about the only true thing you could say about it that isn't a direct insult to the designer...
That said, I'm told that the thing is actually quite a nice car - as long as you're inside it.
The only other true competition for the Aztek is probably the Chevy Avalanche, a plastic abortion of a pickup so awful it almost defies belief. It's like the bastard child of a truck, a power drill, and a frat boy's boom box. Ye gods.
The Bluecar has a very respectable range of 250km (~150 miles) and a decent top speed of 130km/h (~80mph), while looks and style are a matter of taste and granted the pictures in this article are not very flattering, the Blucar looks actually quite nice in the flesh, see also here for some better pictures:
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/11/19/pininfarina_production_shift/page2.html
If Pininfarina/Bollore actually deliver as promised, then this will likely be a very successful electric car, which can meet the real life needs (with regards to range and practicality) of many people.
"The Bluecar has a very respectable range of 250km (~150 miles) and a decent top speed of 130km/h (~80mph),"
Really? But since they don't appear to have a working prototype that they are willing to share with anybody we only have their word for that don't we?
I'm also getting sick of these claims for range. Manufacturers of IC powered cars have to quote fuel economy for urban, extra urban and combined cycles. It's about time EV manufacturers were forced to quote the same figures in miles/kWh or something similar. I'd also be keen to see miles per hour of charging. Range on a full charge is a pretty meaningless figure on it's own. We don't know how the car was driven to achieve this.
For EVs with regenerative braking the figures have the potential to mislead even more. On an urban journey where you use the brakes a lot you're going to get a very different range from that achieved on a long motorway journey. For that reason quoting economy for the urban an extra urban cycles is probably more important for EVs than IC powered cars.
So until some standard way of measuring comes along I'll wait to see what the roadtests say rather than listening to a salesman's weasel words.
Yes indeedy they are horiffic examples of automative 'innovation' anybody could conjure up.
And I thought my common/garden 90s Vauxhall Corsa (B model), long since sold off, was the fugliest thing I ever laid eyes on. For some inane reason I actually thought it looked okay at the time, and bought it!
But yes, the bluecar looks worse even than a Corsa. Goes to show you can't sell a (non super-) car at a tradeshow any more without having to pay some hot chick to drape herself over it to make it look semi-respectable. This hotty looks positively professional looking, she's not even showing (significant) cleavage.
@Sarah Bee - we're allowed to be a little chauvanistic once in a while are we not?! ;-)
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