Post by Kasey Kagawa

For those of you not familiar with the vagaries of the UK’s efforts to stop their citizens from killing themselves through the burning of fossil fuels, there’s a congestion charge program in effect in some cities, including London. If you want to drive in certain areas of London between prescribed hours, you need to pony up £8 to the government. It’s supposed to encourage people to use public transportation more and lessen traffic problems, but mostly what you hear in praise of it is that it’s saving the lives of Arctic baby seals and earning lot of money for the city, so it’s not that hard to deduce what the real motivation behind it is. (Oh, and if you live in New York City, they’re after your wallets too.) There’s a few exceptions to these rules, including buses, taxis, emergency vehicles, and alternative fuel vehicles like hybrids and electric cars.

One of the more popular electric cars being used in the streets of London is the G-Wiz, a small two-seater car imported from India. It’s been getting some good buzz as of late, and has been held up as proof that electric cars work well in urban settings. Top Gear’s never been a big fan of electric cars, and they’ve taken it upon themselves see just how safe these proposed urban runabouts really are. Following EuroNCAP crash test standards, they simulated a head-on impact with another car at a combined speed of 60 MPH, and the results were disappointing to say the least. According to TRL, the agency that performed the test, “the passenger compartment sustained significant intrusion with the driver’s side A-pillar deforming rearwards by approximately 397mm at the waist beam level. At the sill level the A-pillar deformed rearwards by approximately 299mm. Intrusion of this magnitude has the potential to cause serious or life-threatening injuries to the vehicle occupants as structures such as the steering column and pedals intrude into the compartment,” all things that sound very bad. The car gets away with this poor showing by not actually being classified as a car. Technically, due to its slow speed and light weight, it’s a quadricycle under UK law. Still, two cars closing on each other at around 30 MPH each doesn’t sound like an unreasonable occurrence, even in the city, so to have it fare so poorly in the crash test offsets the extra eight pounds a day I’d save, in my opinion. Hit the link below for a photo gallery and high-speed camera footage of the test.

Electric shock [Top Gear]