Well, our in-house English translator, John R. Bopp, as in me, a Nevadan who fell in love with the Basque country, came across an exciting discovery.
It turns out that a Quebecois startup, Girfalco, has been showing off its new concept car for a few months now: an electric car with three wheels, two seats, that’s fast, rapid, and downright quick.
Azkarra S (Girfalco)
It’s so fast that they assure that in simulations, it can reach 62mph/100kph in 2.5 seconds! We weren’t kidding when we said it was damned fast. Plus, its top speed is 240kph or 149mph, with at least 200km or 125mi of range.
You can see the interest this project is raising, especially in the Francophone world, given the large number of appearances in the press around the world.
We admit that we like cars, and we’re especially interested in electric and hybrid cars. But the reason we’re dedicating a blog entry to this car is mostly due to the name the project’s sponsors have chosen for it: Azkarra, which means “fast” in Basque. It’s a perfect name for the car, but we have to admit, we were surprised to see the company had chosen a Basque word.
Given the surnames we found on the website, it doesn’t seem like any of the people at the company are of Basque origin, but we can’t forget the large number of Southern Basque descendants who live in North America.
Azkarra S (Girfalco)
So, for the time being, we’re left with our curiosity. But since we’re going to give them a blog entry, we hope that they’ll clear up our questions.
Ya tenemos la respuesta de uno de los propietarios de Girfalco, que nos explica la razón de que su vehículo se llama “Azkarra”:
One of the owners at Gifalco tells us why the model is called Azkarra
Let me first thank you for your interest in Girfalco and its first electric vehicle, the Azkarra. The Azkarra is indeed named after the Basque word meaning “quick”. In all honesty, we had searched for a name for our vehicle by first translating various words (e.g. thunder, quick, wind, etc.) in various languages, which made us come across “Azkarra” and a few others words that could be of interest, in case “Azkarra” was already used for a vehicle. It always was my favorite, because the Basque Country is one of the few destinations that is on my list of places I have to visit again; I had the chance to visit part of that region around 20 years ago (i.e. San Sebastian and Bilbao) and I found it to be filled with architectural treasures and cultural richness. My ancestors helped built Quebec and Canada, and I can certainly appreciate the importance of preserving the language and culture of the Basque Country; not unlike the French in North America, the Basque language and culture are part of the world’s heritage and richness that will benefit current and future generations. Should you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to contact the undersigned. Thank you and please accept my kindest regards, Simon Luc Bouchard
By the way, the information we’ve found has said that starting in the middle of January, they’ll start accepting the first pre-reservations to attain one of these cars. The sales price for this fastest, most powerful, and most expensive model, the Azkarra S, will be C$97,000 (about €69,000). Expensive? Well, everything’s relative, and they’re expecting to build 25 units of this model for 2017. Plus, its name is in Basque, and that always raises the price!
Clean Technica – 2/12/2016 – USA
Girfalco Unveils 3-Wheel Azkarra EV — 0–62 MPH In 2.5 Seconds, 124 Miles Range
The Quebec-based electric vehicle startup Girfalco has now unveiled its high-performance 3-wheel electric vehicle, the Azkarra — providing us with a few surprises. The model is seemingly deserving of the moniker “high-performance” with its acceleration of 0 to ~62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.5 seconds; its peak power of 225 kW (in the “S” version); its top speed of ~149 mph; and its range of ~124 miles per full-charge.
