The state of power guzzlers

I often get asked "whence the best electric vehicle and whither the future?" (although of course not always in Chaucer's ancient English). 

Basically, you can rely on China for proven cars, the U.S. for more (yawn) hybrids, the West for out-of-the-box style, Japan for out-of-the-box style that actually works, India for out-of-the-box style that mostly works cheaply, and Africa for firmly-in-the-box style that can also shoot you, but quietly.  

In China

Chinese IT company BYD has tested
their e-buses over millions of kms. 

When it comes to robust electric transport that goes the distance, China leads the way, from tiny electric scooters to buses.

And the leader of the leaders is a young IT company charmingly named BYD - for Build Your Dreams. 

Since 2009 BYD has done millions of kms in their E6 mom's taxi - using real taxi drivers in Senzhen to find out real range and speed. 

Most impressive for us are their BYD buses, also already test over millions of km in real city transport conditions.

This while the U.S. are still fumbling and stumbling to launch more hybrids that reassure byuers "range anxiety", instead of just building better battery systems

In Europe

There must be something about months of drizzly, cold grey weather that leads to inspired thinking, such as the Saddle tricycle, entered by the Tari Attilla in the 2011 Michelin design challenge. 

It is designed to steer with a twitch of the reigns - I kid you not.

The battery system it will use is still a bit in the air -  but if this concept ever gets commercially produced, anyone with an iota of cool will want one.

Then there is the VW Bulli from the Vaderland, ja?, 

This shows that despite their tattooed soccer hooligans and painful Oompa bands, the Huns can come up with a futuristic interpration of retro that - allegedly - is close to rolling off the assembly line. (Maybe the secret to managing this balance lies in drinking litres of really weak beer?)

The Bulli only has two rows of seats, but  comfortably seats five, or sleeps two and shows those rice wine imbibers in the Orient that aauwh-cute can also be edgy man! 

India

The ancient peninsula has seen it all, from mankind's presumably oldest city (which we lost underwater in the Gulf of Cambay), to making porno a respectable religion.

Then there's the daily horizontal mayhem that passes for traffic in Bombay and Delhi and the seasonal monsoons that add metres of water to the roads. 

Which is way the laid-back Indian designers can afford to be pragmatic about giving the masses electric cars that provide affordable style, like the sweet Mahindra Reva and its Bollywood-star brother, the two-seat Targa (left).

Japan

Blame the delayed after-burn of huangjiu rice whine (pronounced any way you want as long as it is in a groaned whisper), but once a Japanese engineer and designer have shared a microphone in a smoky Karaoke bar to render a plaintive "laai a bleedge of tlabbalt wattels", the things they do the next morning to restore face get truly inspiring. 

Honda does this post-hangover inspiration better than any other Japanese company and their hydrogen car is what all electric vehicles, like the trend-setting Nissan Leaf, want to be when they grow up. 

Africa

A decade of war-inspired design during the 1970s to 1980s - when Russia's main export tended to explode a lot - helped to make South Africa a world-leader in panzer design, most of which nowadays are owned by BAE Systems. 

Hence the not-so-secret Rooikat 105 prototype which boasts a Compact Vehicle Electric Drive hybrid electric drive system that allegedly enables this eight-wheeled armoured tank to tip-toe quietly for several kilometres and then blast the horizon to smithereens.