Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been choosing colours for the taxi: the chassis, the mudguards, the carpet and the seats.
Last year we produced renders which we assumed would be unchanged on the prototype vehicle. Red body and blue seats, just like the new electric trains in Adelaide.
The first change was with the seats: the blue vinyl was too bright and it contrasted too harshly against the red chassis. There aren’t so many vinyl colours to choose from either, so the blue seats became a question mark.
After consultation within the team and with CESVI we chose dark grey seats, to match the carpet we used in Trev several years ago and will use again on the taxi.
After consulting more with CESVI staff in Zimbabwe we discovered issues with the cultural appropriateness of the colour red. So we produced three chassis colour options (orange, yellow and red for comparison) and emailed them through to Zimbabwe this afternoon.
Within 2 hours, we received a reply from the director of St Albert’s hospital in Zimbabwe, who had printed the rendered options and had walked down the hill to the Waiting Mothers’ Shelter. She showed it to 48 pregnant women in the shelter (who are, after all, the intended users of the African Solar Taxis).
The results were clear:
– orange: 42 votes
– yellow: 3 votes
– red: 2 votes
Orange it is! Yay consultation and yay Internet.
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