Meyers Motors Sets Up Unique Pre-Order Pricing Scheme for Electric Cars

Written by Christopher DeMorro
Published on December 15th, 2009
2 Comments
Posted in Cars, Electric Cars (EVs)

A major obstacle standing in the way of many electric car start-ups is volume. Making money on cars is difficult, all the more so when you’re appealing to a niche market (for now). You’ve got to convince people to place pre-orders for cars they can’t even test drive too, not exactly an easy sell. That just means electric car dealers have to get creative.

Meyers Motors is offering a unique approach to pricing their two-seat electric car, the DUO. For every 200 pre-orders they get, they’ll knock $1,000 off of the MSRP of $29,995, all the way down to their goal of $24,995…and that is before any federal or local tax credits.

Meyers unveiled the three-wheel DUO back in September, and will be accepting pre-orders through June 5th of 2010. You can reserve a duo for as little as $250, and the deposit is 100% refundable for any reason, and after June 5th Meyers Motors will set final pricing.

The little DUO is based on the NMG single seater electric car (which itself is based on the Sparrow) and is 100% electric. Meyers plans to offer three battery packs of varying ranges. The standard model (the one that could be priced as low as $22,495 after federal tax incentives) comes with a 60 mile pack, which would cover most commutes. For an additional $2,500 you can get the 80 mile pack, and $5,000 gets you the 100 mile pack. The DUO can be charged in six hours, or three hours out of a 220 volt outlet. The NMG can go as fast as 76 MPH, so the DUO should also be capable of reaching highway speeds, making it a very good commuter.

As a three wheeler, the DUO is technically classified as a motorcycle, but comes with body restraints and a composite body, and meets all motorcycle safety standards (and doesn’t require a motorcycle license in most states). It’s a neat and practical vehicle, though I’m not a fan of the hoodscoop/headlight. Still, Meyers Motors should have no problem getting 1,000 pre-orders by June of next year.

Source: Meyers Motors

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2 Responses to “Meyers Motors Sets Up Unique Pre-Order Pricing Scheme for Electric Cars”

  1. JJ Says:
    December 15th, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    Um, kind of looks like a cyclops! At least it looks a whole lot better than the Sparrow or NMG and more practical. The pics on the Myers site look much better though, pretty stylish. The middle light is rectangle so not a cyclops.

    Anyway that makes the 0 miles model with no battery about $15K plus $2500 for every extra 20 miles (after they meet their start volume). Nice idea to do it that way.

    Perhaps the federal tax credit needs to be focused entirely on the battery alone and not the base. The base is already affordable, its the battery stupid. For Tesla type cars I see no reason for taxpayers to subsidize an expensive body for rich folks, but it makes far more sense to gets lots of these smaller EVs on the road for ordinary folks.

    I’d be more inclined to go for a Leaf but that is probably 2x the weight for 4 passengers so needs 2x the battery. That means the Leaf 100 miles range is going to cost closer to $45K or $20K base + $25K battery so ouch. Perhaps the Sparrow needs to be resurrected again for a 1 seat version?

  2. NmGfan Says:
    December 17th, 2009 at 6:11 pm

    The NmG (Sparrow reborn at Myers) is still available with Li-ion batteries for a 60 mile range. Once Myers sells-out the remaining 20 or so single seat shells they bought from defunct Corbin Motors, the NmG/Sparrow will be gone forever as they did not buy the molds from Corbin. One thing is certain, the Sparrow/NmG was not designed for mass production/low cost, it has a very labor intensive assembly process, about 300 man hours to build one. However, the new Duo is designed for mass manufacture and has considerably less labor content helping reduce price with volume production.

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