Meet the REVA, the Indian electric car

A local firm, assisted by an engineer and a scientist, is testing a number of electric cars on the local roads, with the aim of launching them on the market in the coming months.

The firm, EVM Ltd, is assisted by Dr Joseph Cilia, the head of department of electrical power and control at the University of Malta, and Prof. Edward Mallia, who for the past five years has been using an electric car he converted himself.

The small car - even smaller than the popular Smart - is constructed and assembled in India under the trade name REVA.

A number of REVA cars are being tested on Maltese roads at the moment and the importer is also planning to develop a service station for them.

Having driven one of the cars myself over the past few days, I must confess I was impressed by its reliability, its completely silent engine and its cheap running costs.

On the other hand, the fact that you need to have a garage or a drive-in to charge the car - using an extension cable plugged into a socket in the car - is one of the obvious disadvantages. The car is also very basic on the inside and lacks the style and elegance of conventional cars.

In spite of my 6ft 1in height and the car's small size, I found the headroom and legroom inside to be adequate.

Dr Cilia, who is assisting this initiative and is himself involved in another project involving the conversion of a petrol car to an electrically-powered one, sponsored by STMicroelectronics, said the REVA has various strengths.

"With low maintenance and running costs as well as a significant drop in traffic-related pollution I think these cars will find their way onto our roads," he said.

The REVA has a range of 60-80km on a full charge - which costs only 36c worth of electricity.

Dr Cilia said the REVA was ideally suited as a commuter vehicle: "Close to 70 per cent of cars on the road during rush hours carry just the driver. The REVA seats two adults and two children, has a very small turning radius and occupies half a normal car space."

Its battery pack fits under the seats, packed into a plastic container. The batteries, which need occasional top ups with distilled water, carry a guarantee of three years and the whole pack would cost around Lm300 to replace.

The motor is coupled to the rear wheels through a differential; there is no stick or automatic gear shift. Forward and reverse are set on a switch which controls the direction of rotation of the motor. The single gear ratio is chosen to produce a reasonable top speed (65 kph on the flat), while retaining a decent hill-climbing ability.

Dr Cilia stressed that tests carried over the past weeks showed the car is suited for Malta: "In test runs with at least two adults on board, the REVA has climbed practically every hill on Malta and Gozo, including Sa Maison, Gnejna-Mgarr, Marsalforn-Zebbug, Dwejra hill, Marsalforn-Xaghra and various other localities."

The REVA has various technological advanced features.

"For instance when the vehicle is stopped, the motor stops and is not consuming any energy, while in slow moving traffic, the motor only absorbs the amount of energy it needs to match traffic speed. The motor, with only one moving part, needs no lubrication and hardly any maintenance.

"It has another, elegant quality. With conventional cars, braking results in the energy of the car's motion being turned into heat in the brake pads. However, as an electric motor is at one and the same time a motor and a generator, when running downhill not under power the motor changes the energy of motion into electric charge, which is sent back to the batteries. At the same time, the removal of motion energy slows the car, which means there is a braking action without use of the ordinary brakes."

Dr Cilia outlined the basic differences between a conventional car and an electric car:

"A battery-powered vehicle has a number of features which are rather different from those of the conventional car. The usual engine-fossil fuel combination is replaced by an electric motor-battery set up. Fossil fuels (petrol, diesel) pack large amounts of energy in a litre - which weighs less than a kilogram.

"Batteries, on the other hand, carry much less energy for much more weight. However to even out things, the Internal Combustion Engine delivers only some 20 per cent of the energy in the fuel to the driving wheels; the rest goes out of the exhaust. A good electric motor will transfer over 70 per cent of energy taken from the battery to the drive wheels."

Dr Cilia said that the price of the REVA has not yet been determined: "It is envisaged that the price will be very reasonable especially if the government considers reducing the duties on the importation of electric cars because of environmental reasons."

The recently established EVM Ltd has imported a number of battery-operated electric cars from different manufacturers which will feature in activities during the European Mobility Week being held between today and Sunday.