Old-model Trabant cars line up for an event in Germany.
(Heinz-Peter Bader/Reuters)Photos (1 of 1)
Germany after the fall of the wall: Trabi revived as electric car
Shunned for Western cars after the Iron Curtain was lifted, the iconic car is back.
By By Patti McCracken | 09.24.09
• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
It had a lawn mower engine and a Duroplast body made of plastic resin, paper, and cotton. The back windows didn’t roll down, it had no side mirrors, and blinkers and windshield wipers were optional.
You could jog around the block in the time it took the Trabant to get up to highway speed, but this little engine that couldn’t became the square icon of a generation of East Europeans trapped behind the Iron Curtain.
The Trabi is pushing for a comeback. A repackaged, retooled, and refined Trabi concept car will première this month at the Frankfurt Auto Show.
The last model tumbled off the assembly line in 1991. By that time, the Berlin Wall had completely crumbled, and East Europeans had forsaken the trusty Trabi (often abandoning them on the side of the road) for used Western cars.
Yet the cult following of the sputtering little classic picked up speed on the heels of flick “Goodbye Lenin,” a film that takes a nostalgic look back at growing up in East Germany.
Herpa, the German toy carmaker, has sold hundreds of thousands of toy models of the Trabi since the 1990s, one of the most successful scale model cars on the market.
Driven by the success and sentiment of the toy model, Herpa snapped up the trademark a few years ago. Together with German busmaker IndyKar and engineering firm IAV, along with designers from Volkswagen, they have created an ecological, economical, electric car.
This is not your father’s Trabant.
The old joke about the Trabant goes something like this: How many workers does it take to make a Trabi? Two. One to cut and one to paste.
Not so the new one. The new Trabi is designed with an electric engine, and operates on lithium batteries that can stay charged for 200 miles. It has solar panels on the roof, which provide the energy for air conditioning. And wipers and blinkers are standard.
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2. S. Sandlin | 09.24.09
Remember when it cost VW more to sell a car here than it did to make one? I’m cynical enough to bet the same thing will happen again if this little gem made it to our shores. Forget the notion of a “people’s car” in this country, much less one without the need for oil–such a thing just isn’t espoused by our capitalism.
4. Ashley Groome | 09.25.09
Honestly, couldn’t possibly care less - well it is actually possible for me to care less, but I can’t be bothered.
5. Ashley Groome | 09.25.09
Honestly, couldn’t possibly care less - well it is actually possible for me to care less, but I can’t be bothered.
And whilst your at it - please stop referring to the Trabant as a “Gem”. It wasn’t cute, it wasn’t smart and its not nostalgic - the Trabant was an evil little piece of junk, which was designed by a system of material shortages and complete lack of freedom.
6. hsr0601 | 09.25.09
Theme : Addressing Range Anxieties.
1. The range of noticeable EVs are sufficient to meet the daily driving needs of more than 95% of drivers ((The vast majority of people (95%) drive less than 100/km a day, 82% of the respondents said they drive 40 miles or less a day, with an average daily driving distance of 27 miles.)).
As for long trip needs, all but Americans and many of developed nations have existing automobiles, in this regard, EVs are best suited to their daily use until the infrastructure comes into wide use. And people are already doing that.
2. The on-board IT system shows the driving radius on a maximum range display under the current state of charge and calculates if the vehicle is within range of a pre-set destination. And the navigation system points out the latest information on available charging stations within the current driving range.
3. In 21st century, home, workplace, or stores etc also serve as a charge station as electricity is everywhere. With a long extension code inside, just in case, riders can get help from almost anyplace, not to mention the stores to provide charge service, and many of EVs are equipped with a quick charger.
4. Unlike fuel price, as time goes by, the price of battery is expected to drop dramatically in the foreseeable future as with computer components, in that case, mounting additional battery might be not a problem. And the EVs that come in a range of 200 to 300 miles between charges are on fast-tract toward mass-market, as Batteries become more efficient.
5. Indian EV maker Reva said it has also set about addressing anxieties about e-car range, this fantastic wireless electricity/ “instant remote recharge” will be widely available down the line.
6. The vehicle-to-grid communication technology is helping the battery serve as a storage to prevent the costly blackout standing at about $90 to 100bn per year. That means utilities are shedding cost for additional storage facilities and ratepayers are selling electricity during peak demand so that EVs can make more economic sense, as we know. ((The cost of running the vehicle should be 1 to 2 cents per mile, compared to 10 cents or more per mile to run a gas car. Electric vehicles require little maintenance — no oil changes, for instance –. Better still, they can sell electricity or charge at the stores offering charge service.))
It is also in the best interest of electricity utilities that EVs are going mainstream, thereby they need to put in charge stands where needed around highways, major roads with card readers or cell phone tech.
7. I’m hopeful that the charge network will extend the select districts to nation-wide scale throughout the world, and this environment can usher in “active private investings” in EVs. And I remain confident that investing in charge stands could give rise to multiple times as much investing effect, so to speak, some billions of investing, this simple deployment, could call into the most-sought energy independence and solid recovery around the world.
Thank You !
7. George Samuels | 09.25.09
The Government would find the car’s violation of federal safety law banning its sale unless costly changes were made. Thus its sale requirements would increase its cost and delay its introduction to give American car manufacturers enough time to introduce their cars for sale. Rebates have already allowed the sale of more costly cars. Selling cheaper cars would cause buyer outbursts and American auto company alienation. Unemployment would increase as would the true death of price competition.
9. Rizdif | 09.25.09
I’m only hoping some company in the US comes up with some EV option that doesn’t break the bank. It’s absurd when you have to pay such a premium for a Hybrid (let alone a true EV) that you’ll most likely never recoup the cost difference in the money you save from not buying gasoline.
I’ll be frank… I want an EV to save me money/time/maintenance, not to save the planet.
10. BillS | 09.25.09
EV isn’t a bad thing - Ford had a fleet of EV Ranger pickups, quite good trucks. EV does though, in most cases, only transfer the use of fossil fuels from the direct use to the indirect use of fossil fuels by less efficient fossil fuel fired generated electric plants (less efficient in that there is line loss). For the short term since so many new oil discoveries are bring made and new processes are in the wings to do coal to liquid I’d bet on liquid fuel/electric hybrids (diesel hybrid drive systems). EV’s future is with nuclear and hydro and a lesser extent solar and wind power generation.
11. Alan Stedman | 09.26.09
Don’t let the spin merchants sell you on EV vehicles - the environmental cost of putting electricity into the “tank” of one of these vehicles is higher than you might realize. The answer is modern, clean-burning diesel (compression ignition) engines fueled by renewable materials such as seed oils. The American car industry and the fuel companies have fought tooth and nail to prevent the introduction of modern automobile compression ignition engines, because they are more efficient and use considerably less fuel than Gas powered engines. Don’t confuse the rattly, smoky diesel engines of the 1970’s with modern engines like the Europeans make. The EV is another great con job (like hydrogen)to sucker the American people into believing that the Government and the fuel interests are active in the provision of alternate sources of power.
1. David L. | 09.24.09
Owning a toy Trabi sounds safer than owning the real thing. It will be interesting to see if the Trabi tries to break into the U.S. marketing. Based on the limited features, it doesn’t sound like the Trabi will pass strict U.S. safety standards. Regardless, it’s great to see other countries pushing electric cars.