Corbin Sparrow Owner's Review

[Phil Salkie <phil@howman.com>]

New Corbin Sparrow 2000 Owner's 1000 Mile Review


In October, 1997 my household put down a $1000 deposit on a Corbin Sparrow,
the U.S. made single-passenger three-wheeled electric motorcycle which was
being developed in Hollister, California.

In March, 2000 we took delivery of Sparrow number 38, the third unit of the
2000 model year.  Lime Green. Grey interior with Lime Green seat piping.
$14,000 price tag, plus transport and dealer prep, less deposit.

For those unfamiliar, the Corbin Sparrow (www.corbinmotors.com/sparrow.htm)
is a fiberglas/foam core composite shell with embedded metal plates for
structural support.  Two front wheels using standard automotive tires are
steered by a GT Grant tilt-column steering wheel.  13 Optima 12V 60 AH
spiral-cell lead acid batteries through a 600 Amp Raptor controller drive a
20 HP 156V DC electric motor.  A toothed belt (Harley-style) directly drives
the single rear wheel from there.  The vehicle registers and insures as a
motorcycle, although in New Jersey, only State Farm was interested in
providing insurance. ($317.00 covers $300,000 liability, plus
comprehensive/collision, for the year.) In most states, no helmet or
motorcycle endorsement on your driver's license is required.  The battery
pack is charged by a Zivan charger - you choose 110V or 220V before
delivery.  110V brings the pack to 90% plus in about five hours, with the
remaining 10% taking another two or three hours.  The 220V version will
charge the pack to full in 3 to 4 hours, and a dual-voltage charger is in
the works "somewhere in Italy".

As of this week we have put just over 1000 miles on the vehicle, and I
thought this would be a good spot to field a report.

We purchased the vehicle through Motor Bike Imports of Pennsauken, NJ - the
owner, John Oddone, was super helpful, likes to talk details, and is as
enthusiastic as can be about Corbin and the Sparrow.  He didn't try to hide
any of the negative bits, telling me about how his Raptor controller had
failed, and how the factory had worked to correct the problem and tried to
identify all the units with bad pre-charge circuit components.  He also went
through each *line* of the owner's guide with us, expounding and commenting
on every detail, like how the windshield wiper was not what you expect on a
car, but a lot better than on a motorcycle :-).  His shop Sparrow had
shipped with an earlier combined controller/charger, which the factory
replaced with the final components in the field.  Peter Senkowski, Corbin's
electrical guru, spent two weeks in at Motor Bike Imports working with John
on improved mounting and harnessing, and documenting the various
improvements John had come up with in the year he had his dealer vehicle. 
Many of those improvements made it into the final product, and John will
happily show you all of them.

Our initial impression of the Sparrow was very positive.  The paint job was
superb, combined with very good attention to detail in the seat, dashboard,
and carpeting.  The little storage compartment behind the seat seemed too
small for anything useful at first, but would later prove to hold a 25 foot
10GA SJ cord, several CD's, tools and fix-a-flat, my laptop bag (not the
small one, either) and digital camera.  It's also held a 60 pound bag of
turkey chow (not at the same time!), chinese lunch for the office, or three
smallish bags of groceries.  John had left his dealer plates on when he
brought the thing north from Pennsauken, so Anne and I both got to try a
short test-drive before he left.  Initially the motor was quite noisy - John
said that would quiet as the brushes wore in, and it did.  Acceleration was
surprisingly good - I thought a 1600 pound vehicle (including driver) would
be much slower with only 20 HP pushing it, but it can get out of its own way
quite well.  

After John left, we had a week (while hunting down insurance) to look, but
not drive.  Once this purgatory was over, we began the task of working in
the battery pack, starting with a five mile trip, a recharge, a ten mile
trip, a recharge, and on up to 35 miles.  Let me tell you, driving a lime
green sneaker around *surely* turns heads.  It's been nearly a month now,
and I don't think anyone's crashed a car from looking at us drive by, but
I'm sure there were some close calls.

As luck would have it, that first week we drove the Sparrow, we had a
controller failure.  It occurred during charging, after a 15 mile run. I
was standing nearby and heard a "pop-pop" sound, which I tend to associate
with capacitors blowing up.  On opening the door (there's one door, on what
we normally consider to be the passenger side) I smelled burned electronics,
but not very much - almost small enough to think I imagined it.  However, on
trying to move the vehicle after charging was complete, the controller
refused to pull in the main contactor, or show its "ready" LED.  This was on
a Friday morning.  A call to the west coast confirmed my suspicion, and
Corbin's helpful staff shipped a new controller for Saturday delivery. Since I
said I was capable of changing it myself, Peter took a few minutes to go
over the details of the swap with me, and gave me pointers on setting up the
LVDT throttle adjustments.  Saturday morning brought a downpour, a new
controller, a tarpaulin, and a working Sparrow after about an hour with some
wrenches.  

We now have a thousand miles on the new controller, and that was the last
problem I've seen with the thing.  I've got a 42 mile commute to work, Anne
has a 35 miler, and we both have 110V outlets available at work.  We arrive
at work and back home with plenty of power, even though home is up one heck
of a long hill.  In fact, the only time we have managed to come close to
running low on power is when we charge up, let the vehicle sit a full day,
and try to drive 40 miles the next day.  Both times we've tried this, we
came close to empty after 40 miles of mixed city and highway (65 MPH)
driving.  There may be some hidden power drain working there, I haven't had
the thing off the road long enough to investigate...  The E-Meter display is
a great help at teaching you to "drive electric".  I usually run in amps
mode at first, then switch to volts later in the drive.  There's an analog
ammeter, too, which makes a nice complement to the E-Meter in volts mode - I
first thought it was useless, but it is nice to have both visible at the
same time when you're worried about range issues.

I think it will be a couple more cycles before the battery pack is at its
peak for charge retention.  You should figure to draw about 1 amp hour per
mile travelled, and my feeling is that right now I should be able to draw
over 50 amp hours from the pack.  Colder weather increases the AH/mile
ratio, but I still make it to work, even in 32 degree weather.  I've seen
expected distance ratings from 40 to 70  miles, but I'll go with a max of 50
for right now.  Summer weather may improve things - I'll let you know.

The Sparrow is amazingly stable at highway speeds, showing no tendency to be
blown around or bothered by trucks passing.  Cornering is solid - I haven't
had the guts to really see how hard you can push it, but so far I've barely
gotten it to feel light on one side, and I'm turning as fast as I feel any
need to.  Noise is down to a belt-related squeek-squeek kind of sound, which
seems audible only from inside the cab.  I haven't found the top of it's
highway speed yet, but it seems to do 70 MPH quite well... 

Fit and finish are overall less than Maserati-like, with some of the
fiberglass pieces not *quite* matching up perfectly, but honestly better
than I expected from a hand-formed, hand-built piece.  Everyone who sees it
is impressed by the quality, the gloss of the frighteningly green paint, the
roominess inside and the comfort of the Corbin seat.

John was right about the windshield wiper - Rain-X is *definitely* your
friend.  The sharp curve of the windshield makes the wiper take a c-curve
set, and that just sort of rides back and forth on the window, refusing to
clear anything towards the center of the glass.  I'll be experimenting with
different blades, and trying looser springs, in hopes of making something
work out better.

The tail-lamp assembly is equipped with a brake-lamp flasher, which is very
noticable in the dark hours, but the lamp is a bit too dim in daylight for
my tastes.  I'm told that Grote makes an LED replacement for the tail lamp,
I'll report how that works out.  The headlamp is a standard rectangular
sealed-beam, and surprisingly bright.  I may replace it with an H4 capsule
type, with intent to put in a yet brighter lamp, assuming there's enough
amperage headroom on the DC-DC converter which provides the 12 Volts.

The thing that's most surprised us, though, is the very positive reaction we
get from the public.  Nearly everyone who sees it understands that it's a
supplemental vehicle, not a replacement for your gasoline car.  They also
seem to be able to picture themselves driving a Sparrow to work and back,
and few think the $14,000 price tag is an obstacle - the most common
reaction to that is "a lot less than a full dress Harley", or maybe "That's
not bad, these days...".  Kids think it's the coolest thing ever, and aren't
put off by the size or strange shape or electricness.  That's worth a lot,
as today's kids are tomorrows consumers.  We must have given out fifty
brochures in the first weeks, and are waiting on a new shipment from Corbin. 
Another very common reaction is "That makes sense.  This is the car for the
year 2000...".

The CD player works fine, although when the motor controller is engaged I'm
afraid there's no chance of any AM or FM radio reception.  Speakers are
limited to two small units in the back of the seat - I'll probably hide a
couple under the dash some day when I'm bored.

While I could wish for more range, a better windshield wiper (they have a
vertical articulated wiper in the works, BTW, for future models), or a seat
which could move forward and back (it's integrated with the battery
compartment cover, so it don't move.  The seatback tilts, though...), I'm
happy as the proverbial clam with Sparrow #38, and I expect there'll be
another in our household, although we may have to wait until 2001 for
Corbin to catch up with their backlog of orders.  :-)


Yours from inside the green menace,

Phil Salkie (and Jen Hamilton and Anne Troop, too)
phil@howman.com