The Pope has a new all-electric ride to roll around Vatican City in, if he so chooses, though I doubt you’ll see him directly behind the wheel of this recently donated green car from Italy’s NWG.
In late June, at a ceremony at the Vatican, members of the papal staff took delivery of one white NWG Zero from top executives of NWG. The car, according to Catholic News Agency, was offered up to the Pope because of his environmental focus since taking office. It is also not the first green technology innovation to come to the center of the Roman Catholic church – solar panels donated by SolarWorld, since 2008, have been providing clean energy to a papal building.
As Autoblog Green points out, at a fifth of a square mile in total, those in the Vatican City city state have nothing to worry about from the donated electric car running out of juice. The NWG Zero, according to specs from the manufacturer, has a range of around 87 miles, which should be more than enough for the casual cruise into Rome as well.
Seen as an urban car and designed in Italy, the NWG Zero looks similar to some low speed electric vehicles we’ve been writing about of late. It zips along faster than those types of vehicles though, hitting a top speed of just over 60 miles per hour, though NWG notes the version currently on sale is not designed for the highway.
This diminutive EV looks as if it is a two seater, and offers up 6.3 cubic feet total of cargo space. It is said to cost about $2.50 to fully recharge. Charging time varies, depending upon what type of power supply you are hooked up to, but at the most common household level it can be fully recharged in around nine hours.
Built from lightweight materials like aluminum, this car is said to make use of items in its construction that are recyclable at end of life. NWG stated that interest in the vehicle has been decent and, as of late June, there had been over 500 pre-orders. That might not be much, you say, but when you consider the fact that through most of last year there were only 300 or so electric vehicles registered in Italy at all, it becomes quite impressive.