Aussie off-road electric board manufacturer, Scarpar, has finally enabled customers to reserve vehicles. An estimated price and working specification have been posted on their website with huge interest already and deposits starting on day 1. "It's an exciting time", Scarpar's CEO Andrew Fern said, "We've been planning this for years and the day is here. The difficulty right now is trying to forecast volumes", he said. "We have as many people on our registered interest list as our full first year forecast. We know not every one of those people will follow through, but it's a great position to be in and we haven't even really hit the mainstream press", he remarked.
With a reservation of $500-600, there are 2 models to choose from and prices have come in at the guidance set over the past year. "The cost of electric vehicles is driven by battery prices mostly", Fern said. "Batteries are a huge percentage of our vehicle cost and there's really not a lot we can do about it. We do hope that some of the new technologies coming out of some of the universities make it into production sooner rather than later. These will give huge increases in power to weight and have the potential to drastically increase run-time and decrease weight", he said.
The reservations are being treated as a first in, first served basis and first customers are expected to have vehicles shipped in December 2011.