The Italian car body shop Zagato is known to come up with innovative original designs from time to time. On this occasion they’ve teamed up with Romano Artiolo of Bugatti EB110 and Lotus Elise fame to build a supermini electric car for city. It’s called Zagato Volpe that both translates as “fox” from Italian and serves as a meaningful abbreviation for Veicoli Originali Leggeri Privi di Emissioni. In other words it’s an “original emission-free light vehicle”.

As you can see from the X-ray image, the driving position is pretty much like on a motorbike. The passenger’s head is very close to the roof and tailgate, which, unless there’s an underlying solution, may potentially pose a safety risk. I’d love to learn more about the safety features of this car…

The battery pack is located under the floor. It will have enough juice to cover 43 miles on a single charge. Currently the car’s top speed is limited to 30mph, but then it was specially designed to be used in a city.

Eventually they plan to make another edition of Zagato Volpe for inter-city driving. It will have a range of 230 miles thanks to an on-board petrol motor that will work as a generator. This car will have a top speed of 50mph.

The electric car version will come on sale in 2013 and is estimated to have a sale price of EUR 6,900. Although I’ve noticed that these early estimations never work and the cars end up costing more, this is a huge reduction from the price of the $100,000-worth Tango by Commuter Cars.