The five most fun electric-powered vehicles

Friday, 22 June 2018

Some things that you plug in are more fun than others. Like the following five things, for example.

While Tesla's berserk 0 to 100 times may well be fun, and the BMW i3s and i8 are great things to chuck around a winding road, for real electric fun you still need to look a bit further afield.

So today we take a look at five incredibly fun electric vehicles. Just remember, they are all electric and they are technically 'vehicles'.

Bollinger B1

It may look like a child's crude drawing of a Land Rover Defender (and utterly awesome because of that), but the Bollinger B1 is a pure EV with some serious off-road cred.

* US company offers new look at prototype flying car

Off road electric motoring in the form of the Polaris Ranger EV. It's not the mental RZR, but its still pretty damn fun.

* Why do electric vehicles have to look so silly?

* Can you drive an EV from Auckland to Wellington in one day stress-free?**

As well as offering a staggering 305cm of wheel travel and 472cm of ground clearance, the B1 also packs approach and departure angles of 56 and 54 degrees respectively, meaning that there is very little it couldn't crawl over.

Think a Tesla is quick? Try hitting 60mph in 1.5 seconds in something that looks like a child's toy.

Also, with its claimed range of 320km, it could crawl over quite a few things in a day's off roading.

While the B1 isn't quite in production yet, the company is taking orders, so silent off roading my not be all that far away.

Polaris Ranger EV

Actually, silent off roading is here now, thanks to Polaris.

The KillaCycle does 0 to 60mph in 0.97 seconds and is completely silent. Apart from the screams of the rider, that is.

Polaris actually has quite a lot of experience in EVs, having owned the Gem (Global Electric Motorcars) range of 'neighbourhood vehicles' (think fancy golf carts) in the USA since 2011, so the idea of jamming an electric drivetrain into one of its more rugged off-road side-by-side ATVs wasn't going to be a big challenge.

It isn't exactly high-tech though, as it uses lead acid batteries and the Ranger is the 'work' model of the Polaris range, rather than the brilliant RZR fun machine, but it is still a silently fun thing.

Daymak C5 Blast Ultimate

Think that the forthcoming Tesla Roadster's claim of a 1.9 second 0 to 100 time is terrifyingly fast? Then you don't know terror.

An electric flying jetski is not an electric car. It is far, far better.

Meet the true face of terror - the Daymak C5 Blast Ultimate - the world's fastest electric go-cart.

The original single electric motor C5 costs US$29,995 (NZ$42,700) and can rip to 60mph (97kmh) in just 3.9 seconds. Which, as it turns out wasn't good enough for Daymak.

So it made the twin-engined Ultimate that costs US$59,995 (NZ$85,400) and will hit 60mph in a thoroughly ridiculous and utterly terrifying 1.5 seconds.

KillaCycle

Okay, so we were wrong - THIS is the true face of electric-powered terror.

The KillaCycle is an electric drag bike that holds numerous world records and can accelerate from a standstill to 60mph (96kmh) in 0.97 seconds. Yep, you read that right - less than a second.

It is powered by the same type of batteries you would find in DeWalt cordless hand tools, can do seven quarter-mile runs on one charge and has hit a quarter-mile speed of 174.05mph (280kmh).

Okay, so we have pretty much wander out of 'fun' into 'pure insanity' with this one, but that is still fun in its own way.

Kitty Hawk Flyer

Let's just clear this up now: this is not a flying car. A hovering DeLorean is a flying car, this is a cross between a drone, a stunt plane and a jetski.

Which is actually even more awesome than a flying car.

The Flyer packs 10 electric motors and can fly up to three metres above the water, at a top speed of 32kmh, with a flight time of up to 20 minutes depending on the pilot's weight.

According to the company it takes less than an hour to learn to operate and it is available to order now. By invitation only. For an undisclosed price.