Triac EV
Just one day after Paul’s recent Outtake of several Zap EVs he found in Port Orford, we were walking down the street in Monterey, California, after dinner with our son and his GF, when I spotted a vehicle I had never seen.
Corbin Sparrow
But just a few feet away, in the same business driveway, was a vehicle I did know, and had in fact once driven, as I mentioned in a comment to Paul’s post. The CC Effect was in overdrive, as I can’t remember seeing one of these for at least 20 years!
Triac EV
First, the larger blue trike. A reverse image search revealed that it was a Triac EV. The Triac has mostly faded into history. There’s some info on the internet about its launch and its ending, which came pretty close together, but very little about its actual specifications. The interior shot above, for example, suggests it had a clutch. But it was definitely an EV, sold by a company called Green Motors which was founded in 2010 by a former Zap dealer in Los Gatos. Green Motors got significant grants from both the State of California and the City of Salinas to build a factory and to hire and train employees—a green economic boost for mostly agricultural Salinas, but by 2011 it had wilted; Green Motors and the Triac disappeared from view, and the mayor of Salinas regretted not seeing any return for their investment. Salinas is in Monterey County, about 15 miles inland from where I saw this Triac. It’s not clear how many were built or sold, though I found an old YouTube video from 2010 which shows more than one of them moving under power on public roads. At least one still exists, based on my sighting. It carried a For Sale sign: $700 as-is.
Corbin Sparrow “Pizza Butt”
The Sparrow had a longer and more successful life. Around 300 were built between 1999 and 2003 by Corbin Motors, a spinoff from a successful motorcycle accessory company in Hollister, California—not far from Salinas. My encounter with the Sparrow was on September 11, 2001, when I had an appointment at Corbin to get a custom-fitted saddle installed on my motorcycle. Given the events of that day, I probably shouldn’t have even gone on such a trivial errand, but I had an appointment and the news was still sinking in here on the West Coast. Employees were trying to meet commitments but were also, like us, huddled around TVs. The owner, Mike Corbin, offered us a drive in the Sparrow. I probably spent five minutes behind the wheel and recall smooth, strong acceleration, a busy feeling from the high- revving electric motor, and less-than-optimal stability due to quick steering as much as anything inherent in the layout or geometry.
I don’t recall the configuration of the one I drove; the white one I saw this week was the original shape, while the green one above (from the net) features the later extended ‘pizza butt’, designed to facilitate pizza delivery. The Corbin-built Sparrows used 13 lead-acid batteries, which made up about 50 per cent of the overall vehicle weight. Top speed was around 60 mph (100 km/h). A Corbin Sparrow was featured in one of the later Austin Powers movies.
Cyndigohl image via Wikimedia Commons
Mike Corbin admitted in interviews that the Sparrow was a labor of love with no real business model, but from what I’ve read, support was decent and taken seriously. That’s not something that seemed to be the case with the Triac. There is still a small but active community of Sparrow owners, and a Sparrow sold on Bring a Trailer last year for over $17,000. In any case, in 2002 Corbin Motors (but not the still-successful motorcycle saddle company) filed for bankruptcy, and rights and assets were transferred to an Ohio company called Myers Motors. The Sparrow was revived and sold as the Myers NmG (“No more Gas”). Later versions, at least, featured lithium batteries and more powerful motors. After the NmG was discontinued, Myers announced a tandem two-seater four-wheeled EV called the Point5. As in 0.5, half a car. It’s still visible on Myers’ website, but I’m not sure how serious the business is.
ElectraMeccanica Solo
But the story doesn’t seem to end there. The basics of the Sparrow and NmG were picked up a Canadian company called ElectraMeccanica, and sold as the Solo. ElectraMecccanica is publicly traded on NASDAQ and has a pretty seasoned management team, at least based on their biographies. Their website is up to date as of this Spring, with details of their voluntary recall of all Solo vehicles. ElectraMeccanica, now headquartered in Arizona, evolved from Intermeccanica, a maker of Porsche 356 replicas.
Volcon Stag
And the current company has partnerships with Volcon, another EV company I hadn’t heard of, which sells miltary and recreational electric two- and four-wheel ATVs and UTVs—including the $40,000 Stag, which will do 80 mph. Volcon was founded by the current CEO of another EV company, Ayro, which has just launched a light electric utility truck. A tangled web! Ayro and Volcon are also public companies traded on NASDAQ.
I can’t see myself ever being interested in a 1-seater car; just too limiting not being able to take someone else along. Plus I don’t want everyone staring at me in my weird-looking car…
I wonder how they expected to sell these to more than a select few .
-Nate
I remember both of these well, as I followed the EV scene pretty closely at the time. I particularly remember the Triac/Green Machine story; unlike the Corbin, it rather reeked of being a Zap-like con, and the City of Salinas was their main victim.
Meanwhile here in Eugene, three-wheel EV maker Arcimoto is still hanging on by a thread. They were headed for bankruptcy in February, having stopped their unprofitable production. They then secured a loan on their new factory at an exorbitant interest rate, and are back in (unprofitable) production. I doubt it will last long…
Myers NmG (No More Gas) sounds like an OTC anti-flatulent that you’d take before entombing yourself in one of these one seater tadpoles and riding off into the sunset. Or perhaps what you’d need after consuming something delivered in the back of a Corbin Pizza Butt.
Though I see some merit in this minimum viable transportation line of thinking, outside of a brief window in early postwar Europe where people took to vehicles of this size, they’ve never gone mainstream. I don’t see that changing.
I wish the comments section featured “like” buttons as I surely would’ve given yours a big thumb’s up.
Some of you may be familiar with a similar EV called Aptera. I didn’t really want to go down that rathole but I think it will share the same fate as these, and I’m not sure if it falls more on the Zap/Triac or Corbin side of the corporate legitimacy spectrum. A friend has ordered (and thus funded) an Aptera and I think he’ll never get a vehicle, nor a penny back. But I’m trying to keep my skepticism to myself.
One of guys in our local EV car club is a huge believe in Aptera. Like you, I’m putting my money on his never seeing a car, money back, or anything else. And you definitely can’t argue with the guy – he’s not the first Aptera fan I’ve run into, and I swear their beliefs run into cult status.
We had one of the Myers NmG running around Richmond around ten years ago. It was owned by an insurance firm, and used as a company car/advertising board. As far as the early EV failures go, the Corbin Sparrow was probably the best of the bunch. And, when you’re spending your life around motorcycles, a single seat car doesn’t seem all that bad.
Few early EV’s, before the Leaf and Tesla, rose to the level of practicality of the King Midget. There were a few honest dreamers, such as Corbin, and an awful lot of hucksters, such as Zap. Short of retirement communities I just don’t ever see anything but a very small market for one and two passenger micro cars in the US. Having said that, a part of me still wants a Renault Twizzy.
I’d still love to find a restorable Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar, Corbin Sparrow, or like early EV. Put in some slightly more modern batteries so you know that you’d get the originally claimed range, and it’d be a hoot to put Antique plates on it and drive it to the biweekly EV car club gatherings.
You just named products that were serious, dreamers – but serious. My holy grail is still the Henney Kilowatt.
Met a guy at a local car show a couple weeks ago who was doing exactly that with a Myers NmG pizza butt. He’d recently replaced the original SLA batteries with new Optima AGMs to the tune of $4,000. I thought it was kind of silly but he’s doing exactly as described, i.e., he simply likes the attention of something so unusual. It definitely stands out among a sea of Mustangs and Shoebox Chevys.
When I asked him of any other EV interest, other than his unique NmG, he has absolutely zero thoughts of getting any kind of modern BEV. He lives and camps in a part of the country that suffers frigid winters and knows, all too well, how poorly even the best, most modern EVs perform in that kind of climate.
I well remember the Corbin, probably due to owning motorcycles at that time and being aware of their seats, I believe most every motorcycle magazine did at least one feature on it. They also displayed them at the San Francisco Auto Show as well as other places multiple times. I vaguely recall seeing at least one of them on the road as well, but it’s been a while. The other one is all new to me, good finds!
The Solo I saw as recently as last spring in an outdoor shopping center in Arizona. I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at it but it didn’t look horrible at all based on the few glances I threw its way.
I wonder what all it would take to get the $600 machine to be road worthy. Curious if California would still grant EV credits for the adventure.
If it’s anything like a Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar, not a lot. For those, assuming the motor is still working, or can be professionally rewound, the biggest worry you’re dealing is the brakes. Somewhat proprietary parts, and they were well know to be weak. However, they are rebuildable. The only other thing you’d need is new batteries, and I’m certain you can come up with better equivalents.
The ‘controller’ was just a speed controlled series of relays, putting the three or four batteries in and out of the circuit depending on the speed desired. No doubt you could install a more modern controller, but that’s starting to verge into resto-rod territory. Pretty much all those early EV’s were mechanically simple and primitive.
I was actually kind of hoping Solo would make it. I like the car the same way I like the Elio.
I thought I remembered a gasoline version of the Sparrow, but I cannot find mention of it anywhere.
I think the use case for these in the U.S. is minimal, for the same reason as that for a Lotus/Caterham 7 – it’s so small as to be invisible on the roads. What there is has been replaced by the electric bicycle and electric scooter, which you see all over now. Lots of folks have taken a great liking to them, especially students, and one imagines that as those students move on to adulthood, there usage will only increase, along with the need for accommodating them via dedicated bicycle/scooter lanes/paths – which is altogether a good thing.
Corbin made a front engined Harley V Twin powered variant called the Merlin. Longitudinal crank like a Morgan 3 wheeler.
Yep, used an S&S blockhead (EVO) engine.
This is funny, sort of. 25 years ago (longer?) about all I heard of was the gas version. I think I saw a display of 10 gas powered Sparrows, and one EV. Recently someone told me there were no gas versions of the Sparrow from the factory, only TVs. Any gas powered one were conversions by enthusiasts.