Thinking Cheaper on Electric Cars

Autos: With its Tropica, a small Florida firm is betting there's a market for a two-seater priced under $15,000.

By MICHAEL PARRISH

TIMES STAFF WRITER

While the big auto makers predict dauntingly high sticker prices for the electric cars they must sell in California in less than four years, many small entrepreneurs plan to use off-the-shelf technology to build more limited but affordable electric vehicles.

The latest arrival is a two-seat electric sports car that Renaissance Cars Inc., a small Florida company, says it will put on sale in California and Florida for under $15,000 less than a Mazda Miata by the end of 1994.

For commuters, retirees and college-age people, "there is certainly a market for a car that's fun and affordable," says Ken L. McGraw, general manager of Land Rover Mission Viejo, who plans to sell the Renaissance Tropica from a new showroom next-door. He is a director, consultant and investor in 4-year- old Renaissance Cars, based in Palm Bay, Fla.

So far, one other California dealer East Bay BMW in Pleasanton has plans to sell the car. On the East Coast, Ken Graham, general manager of Maroone Chevrolet in Pembroke Pines, Fla. the second- largest Chevy dealership in the nation will market Tropicas, as will 19 other Florida dealers.

"After seeing this car, seeing what it can do, we decided to go with it," Graham said. "It's a very stylish little car."

What it isn't is fast, long-range or fancy.

Gif image - 200 Kb Renaissance Cars marketing director Dennis G. Kaiser takes a Tropica on the road in Orange County. The car now has one Southland dealer.

Although the Tropica will have a top speed of 62 m.p.h. and will otherwise meet all federal and state regulators' freeway safety requirements, it is really designed for short city commutes.

A contractor for the California Air Resources Board recently clocked the car's range at a modest 44.7 miles a short hop compared to the 200 to 300 miles gasoline ,autos can travel before they need refueling, or the 70 to 90 miles the more ambitious General Motors Corp. Impact can go before it needs recharging.

Indeed, other claims for the Tropica are modest in comparison to -those for the Impact, which arrived last week in Los Angeles to begin two- to four-week test drives by ordinary drivers. (GM won't say yet what an Impact will cost; it has retreated from earlier estimates that the two-seater could sell for $25,000. )

The Impact can go from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in 8.6 seconds, whereas the Tropica will go from 0 to 40 in 6 seconds a considerably slower pickup. Using some of the best new batteries available, the Impact can easily reach 80 m.p.h., and with a heater and air conditioning.

The Tropica, as its name suggests, is built only for the tropics. To keep its price low, there is no air conditioning; instead, for the first generation at least, the cars are convertibles. The Tropica's ordinary lead- acid battery pack, to be replaced every three to four years, will cost $700.

The car is also stripped down mechanically, with no transmission ( a separate electric motor is mounted on each rear wheel), no gear shift (push-button toggles for forward and reverse) and a greatly simplified steering system.

The Tropica also lacks a highly touted feature of the more expensive electric-car prototypes: regenerative brakes, which return to the batteries part of the energy from the car's momentum whenever they are applied. Regenerative braking extends the range of electric vehicles, but it is expensive.

Comparing the cost of high-tech brakes to the advantages of a low sales price, said Dennis C. Kaiser, Renaissance director of marketing, "we were much better off bringing it in under $15,000."