The ZENN of Driving (electric vehicle)

http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/the_zenn_of_driving/C41/L41/

After you’ve driven a million miles like I have, or so it seems, driving really isn’t that enjoyable. It’s more like a necessary evil, something you need to do to go fishing. And today, with oil supplies dwindling and global climate change being blamed largely on the internal combustion engine, I almost feel guilty when I start up my trusty Toyota.

But last Friday, I suffered no guilt as I cruised around Helena in a new electric vehicle called the ZENN, which stands for Zero Emissions, No Noise, and is called “Earth’s Favorite Car,” by its makers. I enjoyed every minute of it, and now, you can, too.

I admit some trepidation as I buckled in behind the wheel--and when I turned the key, but nothing noticeable happened. But after a few minutes, I was having a blast, especially watching all the looks we were getting. What were they thinking?

We stopped on the drive-up to the Downtown Walking Mall to take these photos, and immediately had a dozen people surrounding us and asking questions faster than we could answer them--and also a few University of Montana fans complaining about the “bobcat colors.”

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will be: golf carts. Also dangerous obstructions impeding traffic on thoroughfares.

It would be nice if the law allowed it to go 30MPH (typical neighborhood speed limit around here.) According to the article, it can do 35 if the governor is circumvented.

I'd also prefer not to use the lead-acid batteries.

it would be great. I hate to drive my van when I run errands because it seems like a waste. But, I try to do everything in one day and plan my route so I use as little gas as possible.

zalinda

of course, here in the good ol USA, everyone wants an SUV to destroy the country with.

...change the first law of thermodynamics which says...OHMYGOD...energy still has to come from somewhere.

The rate of output of the dangerous fossil fuel waste from electricity has risen by 500 million tons per year in the last decade, with lots of cheering from the anti-nuke car consumer car culture:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat5p1.html

Of course, a decade ago, people were still waving their hands over the ZEV laws in California that were supposed to make 10% of the new cars sold in California either electric or hydrogen by 2002. So far as I can tell, Governor Hydrogen Hummer's hydrogen Hummer is the major of consumer of automotive hydrogen in California, and that's pretty pathetic, since he needs a GM engineer to sit with him whenever he drives the thing.

Electricity can be made cleanly and used wisely, I believe, but I also believe it will not happen. In any case, the use of electricity for cars is hardly wise use.

The consumer car culture, the incredibly ignorant, venal, consumerist claptrap put out by the moral equivalents of the Walmart executive Amory Lovins, whose hydrogen hypercar was supposed to be in showrooms by 2005, is apparently in desperate throes, has all these Potemkin villages but the tragedy of fossil fuels moves on, unabated.

One should not be surprised to hear anti-nukes, who couldn't care less about dangerous fuel use, promoting this sort thing. Their religion has always been more than a little delusional.

People think they need to save their cars when actually what they really should be trying to save is their flesh.

And the direct use of fossil fuels for cars is so much better? :eyes:

You come on here and attempt to shoot down every single energy option which is not nuclear. You appear to be a smart guy, your nothing-but-nuclear obsession notwithstanding. What in the world is wrong with a diversified approach? Solar? Crap. Wind? Double crap. Tidal? You would probably say that it is too localized.

There is no one, grand energy source which will instantly solve our energy problems. For now, we need every scrap of (hopefully clean) energy we can get, even if it doesn't instantly produce exojoules of energy.

Your tag is "NNadir". 'Nadir' is defined as an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything. Quite appropo of your posts in this forum.