Three of the more entertaining exhibits that I saw at the South African Automotive Week exhibition were; the Green Awareness Project Electric Bicycle, the Atul ‘Tuk Tuk’ and the Deloitte F1 car.
The GA Project bicycle is being promoted by an enthusiastic young businessman, Brendon Andrade, who has a track laid out for exhibit visitors to try his machines out on. The many people (old to young) that I saw giving the bicycles a go all had smiles on their faces. The battery pack is relatively unobtrusive and takes 25 hours to fully charge, whilst the bicycles themselves are certainly not ‘clunkers’.
What impressed me no end was that Brendon told me he had sourced his printing company by using the MyPE business directory.
Motogreen plan to bring classic Indian Tuk Tuk 3 wheel Scooters into South Africa for assembly in Port Elizabeth in collaboration with Dynamic Automotive Suppliers. The scooters will be sourced from Atul Auto India who boast of close to 5 million scooters in operation worldwide.
On display was the Atul commercial 3 wheeler. Trevlyn tells me that the price will be around R32 000.00 for this model. Other models will start from R28 000.00. The scooters are all powered by a single cylinder 395cc air cooled diesel motor which will give around 2.8 litres per 100 kilometres fuel consumption off of a 7 litre tank.
In India three-wheelers are widely used as an affordable means of short-to-medium distance public and goods transportation. A standard bike license is required to operate these machines.
Some of the other configurations available in India that could be marketed in South Africa are a Chicken Carrier, Mobile Shop and Vegetable Vending three wheeler.
Anyone want to partner with MyPE to use this scooter as an advertising vehicle?
The show at the Boardwalk, Port Elizabeth ends on Saturday 13 October 2012 and boasts 300 exhibitors – to ‘avoid’ the R50.00 entrance fee you can pre-register on the SAAW Web site.
Alan Straton
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These tuk-tuks are overpriced, especially when you consider that a Tata Nano retails for under US$2000,00.