Electric Tiger didn’t take away much of the beauty. But even teenagers can ride it to school

You can see what types his company offers and what we discovered during our research in our annotated photo gallery.

When even in the second half of the last decade he did not see any such achievement, he started thinking about constructing his own car. He would have the technical background available. His family owns a Ford and Kia car dealership and service center on the outskirts of the Šumava district town.

“However, I soon understood that the necessary homologation process for such a car would ultimately increase the selling price to an unbearable level,” he says. So he decided to reach for the finished product and only modify it to meet the requirements of domestic customers.

“So in 2018, we started importing an electric tricycle from China. It is a model that has one wheel with handlebar steering in the front and two wheel driven axles in the back. From a technical point of view, it is a simple vehicle, which, thanks to a small electric motor with an output of 3.4 horsepower, can be driven even by holders of a moped driver’s license, i.e. from the age of fifteen.

It can be driven at a maximum speed of 45 kilometers per hour, but it also has a radio, reversing camera, electric windows and, of course, heating. A cheaper version with a lead-acid battery will cost just under 121,000 CZK including VAT.

The equipment is not bad

The brand under which small and affordable electric cars are offered in Klatovy, Sušice, and Pilsen, as well as at fifteen contractual partners throughout the country, is called elBlesk. “There are already many English names, we wanted something Czech,” explains Miroslav Blohmann.

For a while in Klatovy, they also offered the four-wheel City S model, but they are no longer selling it. “The handling was not good, even though we tried to improve it,” he explains. However, the advantage was his appearance. The front mask with five vertical slats in the style of the American Jeep and the simple rear with round lights look nice.

“Now our flagship product is also the four-wheeled Tiger. I admit that it is not a complete beauty, but its useful properties make up for this deficiency,” says Miroslav Blohmann.

So I had to try it on. I don’t like the front mask with strange vertical waves either, the unnaturally wide exterior mirrors also look a bit ridiculous. And there is a special plastic backpack stuck to the back, which acts as a luggage compartment. “It’s standard because I just think a car should have a boot,” he says. Above it is a relatively massive roof spoiler. I even smiled a little at him, because the maximum speed is only 80 kilometers per hour. “But we are already preparing a version with a more powerful twelve-horsepower engine that will go ninety,” adds M. Blohmann.

I sat in the variant whose rear wheels are driven by an electric motor with an output of ten horsepower. There are two seats inside, but it’s not exactly for two large adults. Even though I was driving alone, my left shoulder felt a bit oppressed by the door.

The transmission mode selector is a lever located on the steering column. The instrument panel is of course a display, and there is another one in the middle of the dashboard for controlling, for example, the radio. Under it are the fog lights and heating switches. I didn’t find a classic USB connector, but there is a “cigarette” socket.

The buttons for lowering the side windows are classically on the doors, the seats have a fabric cover. The wiper is only one, but it has an integrated washer.

It is not a traffic brake on the road

The plastic on the dashboard feels cheap and has burrs on the bottom. I also didn’t like the uncovered screws on some parts of the interior, and the typical smell of “Chinese” glues could be felt in the sun-warmed cabin. The vehicle does not have a classic on-board computer that can display the remaining range in kilometers. There is only a kind of scale, depending on which the individual cubes decrease with decreasing capacity in the battery. “You can realistically count on a range of one hundred kilometers, even if the technical data indicates one hundred and thirty,” M. Blohmann informed me before the start of the test drive.

I took my car to the streets of Klatov and also drove a short distance along the road leading from this town towards Železná Ruda.

A pleasant surprise for me (for such a low-power drive unit) was a quick start and the ability to maintain the advertised maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour even up a slight hill. Although the car is very small, with a length of 225 and a width of 140 centimeters, it feels quite stable on the road. Finding a place to park is a piece of cake, because you can easily park it perpendicular to the curb in places for longitudinal parking.

Looking at the tiny twelve-inch wheels fitted, I was unsure how the chassis would handle canal culverts, railway crossings, potholes and other road traps. In the end, I had to state in my mind that I wouldn’t be afraid to go out with him even on the worst districts. However, the sellers also count on the fact that people who commute from nearby villages to a city for work will also buy it.

“We made a number of modifications to the chassis compared to the Chinese original,” explains Miroslav Blohmann. Others are, for example, shock absorbers, and at the back we also replaced the original disc brakes with drum brakes.

The lithium battery with a capacity of 9.2 kWh can be recharged from a standard 230 Volt household socket and a full charge takes six to eight hours. “But we also have our own solution ready for direct charging from solar panels,” says the head of the elBlesk company.

This, of course, appeals to the modern-minded middle-aged people who now make up the majority of their customers, whereas before they were mostly retirees. The third group that acquires their vehicles are “teenagers”. The Tiger model can be driven with an A1 license for smaller motorcycles, i.e. from the age of sixteen. At the same time, the price including air conditioning, parking camera, electrically operated windows and mirrors is 270,000 CZK with a weaker engine and 290,000 CZK with a more powerful one.

Currently, also in Klatovy, for example, they offer two types of commercial electric vehicles to various municipal services. The larger of them is capable of transporting up to a tonne of cargo up to a distance of 200 kilometers.

At the end of the year, they will launch a larger personal electric car. “I can’t reveal more yet, but it will be a type with the possibility of transporting children also in the second row of seats and with a length of slightly over three meters. Even in this case, we want to maintain a favorable ratio between price and useful properties,” concludes Miroslav Blohmann. Currently, they expect a level of approx. 350,000 CZK including VAT. This could be the new cheapest full electric car offered here. This position is currently occupied by the Dacia Spring with a price tag of CZK 511,000.

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