Announcing that your community is NEV-friendly is a sign that every town or city should display with pride. It’s a sign that you and your fellow citizens recognize the value of using NEV’s to make where you live quieter, safer, less crowded and more Earth-friendly. It’s a sign of the future and when you have one out in front you’re letting the world know that this is a concerned, forward-looking place. The kind of place we’d all like to live in.
You of course know about the NEV, right? No, the desert is Negev. Well maybe you recognize their other name: LSV. Sorry, wrong again-it’s not a WWII landing craft.
It’s a car-rather a class of cars: Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV) or more broadly, Low Speed Vehicles (LSV). You may even have seen some on your local streets; there are a few out there and the most common ones look and perform like golf carts on steroids.
Maybe overstated. Think more like a golf cart after a triple espresso at Coffee Loft, because these NEVs are hardly hot performers. Legal top speed is 25 mph (faster than a typical golf cart) and they are restricted to streets with speed limits of 35 or less. Avoids risk of clogging I-10, or even most streets beyond the city limits, with these little amp-runners.
They also differ from golf carts because they are required to have all the basic safety stuff-like lights and turn signals, seat belts and safety glass. License plates too. All this makes them street legal-on low-speed-limited streets only. But the current ones (most common are those manufactured by GEM) that you see silently gliding through residential neighborhoods or parked two-to-a-space downtown owe more to a golf cart than to a conventional car-in both technology and appearance.
They aren’t a luxury ride by any stretch of the imagination: tiny wheels and tires, surrey tops and side curtains. And how about A/C? Not available, but you can get a nice chrome-caged retro-looking fan as an option on some models.
And at this point I can predict with near certainty, you just tuned out. Got your attention with the electric thing (Hey, no three-dollars-a-gallon gas worries), maybe a nod at quiet and compact and who can really say no (at least not in public) to clean and “green.” But no A/C-no way, NEV! So I’ve been hustling something I admit has limited appeal-but think about this proposition.
There are lots of days here-admittedly fewer in summer than at other times-when people drive around topless (the cars obviously-this is LA but not that LA) so no cooling and minimal weather protection seems OK then. Remember too that this is a neighborhood vehicle-you’re going to use it for short hops with lots of stops. Even the best car air-conditioner is going to be marginal under these conditions, so the comfort difference isn’t going to be as much as you first feared.
And think of how cool (and trendy-even socially responsible) you’ll feel driving through traffic as quiet as a gentle breeze and as clean as the air around you-or as clean as it would have been except for all those SUV’s stuck in traffic and belching out crud like a paper mill. Your NEV experience is like the calm of cruising under sail-in contrast to the rush of a power boat. Wow, maybe I got a marketing theme: “On the water it’s sailing, on land it’s NEVing.” OK so it really needs some work….
Anyhow if you don’t sail, never go topless and think that air-conditioning is as necessary to life as the air itself, you can still make it into the NEV future. One NEV manufacturer, ZENN cars (Zero Emissions, No Noise) is about to offer a real air-conditioning system (compressors and refrigerant and all that stuff) on their latest car. And this NEV isn’t a “Super-Golf-Cart” type. It is a conventional, albeit small, hatchback two-seater with a big cargo bay. Think of a three-quarters scale Chevy Aveo and you’ve got the picture.
And I assure you that I’m not a flack for ZENN, I’m just excited by their product because I believe the ZENN car (or a similar vehicle) with its amenities and style will attract a critical mass of owners. Owners who will demand that their communities put in the infrastructure and enact the local laws to make NEV’s practical and easy to use for local travel.
I recently visited Celebration, Fla., which as you enter proclaims that it is NEV-friendly spot. And residents take advantage of this. You see electric vehicles in use all over this beautiful self-contained community-shopping, going to dinner, picking up the kids. All everyday activities that don’t require a three-ton, 300-horsepower, 13-mpg, fossil-fuel burning vehicle to accomplish.
Wouldn’t you like to see this where you live? The Town Center concept in Fairhope is a start, but lots more needs to be done even there. Whatever your town or city, don’t wait around for the future to come someday-make it happen now by demanding NEV-friendly infrastructure and laws for your community.
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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