With a driving range of around 100 miles on a full charge, a body smaller than the ill-fated Smart ForTwo and just three wheels, the ElectraMeccanica Solo EV was touted as the solution to boring commutes. The company’s CEO, Jerry Kroll, even went as far as saying that the diminutive battery-powered city runabout would be “as ubiquitous as the iPhone within a year.”
That was in 2018. Now, The majority of Solo EVs are ending up in an Arizona scrapyard, as @startupslick on TikTok recently discovered (and was then covered by The Autopian). But why?
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Solo if you choose to keep your Solo
ElectraMeccanica's voluntary buyback program for the 429 Solo EVs affected by an issue that could lead to a loss of motive power is just that: voluntary. That means you could still see third-gen Solos pop up for sale from people who wanted to keep them instead of selling them back to the manufacturer. That said, if you plan on buying one, be aware that there's no support whatsoever from its maker.
Gallery: ElectraMeccanica Solo EV
The short answer is that the company started a voluntary buyback program for 429 units which could suddenly lose motive power. Why didn’t they just do a normal recall, like car companies usually do? Well, ElectraMeccanica didn’t actually know how to fix the issue, so they chose to buy back the affected three-wheelers from their owners.
And it’s these units that ended up the the Arizona junkyard you see in the TikTok video embedded below. According to the uploader, who said he talked to a scrapyard employee, the EVs can’t be parted out–except for the seats–so their fate will ultimately be the crusher.
ElectraMeccanica actually built more units than the 429 that were part of the voluntary buyback program and even got to the delivery part, which is usually the most difficult one to undertake if you’re a startup.
The single-seaters that are piling up in the junkyard were built in China by ElectaMeccanica’s strategic investor, Zongshen Industrial Group, which assembled another 300 units prior to starting U.S. deliveries, but those EVs were reportedly scrapped, according to Robert Dunn of Aging Wheels, who owns two Solos.
The company unveiled the production model in 2016 and a year later, limited (hand-built) production began in Vancouver, Canada. About 180 of these first-gen models were assembled but just about 40 or so reached customers, according to various reports online. Then, in 2019, production of the second-gen version began in China–those 300 or so units that weren’t actually sold, with the third-gen model finally hitting the assembly line in 2021.
Deliveries in the U.S. started in the same year, but even if the issue that led to the recall and subsequent buyback had been fixed, the Solo EV was a tough pill to swallow from the get-go. With a starting price of $18,500 and an interior that looked like the Fisher Price version of a Chevrolet Spark–not to mention it could only seat one person–it wasn’t a particularly attractive deal.
As for why didn’t ElectraMeccanica fix the cars instead of scrapping them, it’s unclear, but it could have to do with the fact that the brand was purchased by electric truck company Xos, which seemingly doesn’t want to have anything to do with the ill-fated three-wheelers.
In a response to an email sent by The Drive, a Xos representative said: “Following the recall, buyback, and ElectraMeccanica’s cessation of sales, the vehicles were disposed of partly via the facility in [the] linked video. Following the acquisition by Xos, ElectraMeccanica's few remaining operations have been wound down.”
It’s worth noting that you could still see some third-gen Solo EVs pop up for sale once in a while, seeing how the buyback was voluntary, but if you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s a good deal, bear in mind that there’s absolutely no support from the factory anymore.
In other words, you’d be solo in your adventure.
