Green Options

Let the movie stars blow their royalties on fancy, high end electric cars.

I’m fine in with my Sebring-Vanguard CitiCar, and would be equally so in ZAP’s four-door, all-electric, three-wheeled Xebra Sedan, especially if I lived somewhere with only three relatively moderate seasons and not where there are too many hills. ZAP, or Zero Air Pollution, has been a leader in advanced transportation technologies since 1994, at least those vehicles that are both practical and affordable to us non-celebrity types.

While presenting on Ecopreneuring at the Solar Living Institute’s SolFest in Hopland, California, this past August, I had an opportunity to drive Zap’s Xebra. It’s amazing the difference a few decades can make in the driving experience: from CitiCar to Xebra. The Xebra, pronounced “zebra,” is a lot smoother and its breaking system more consistent than my CitiCar (admittedly, a 30-year-old collector vehicle). This Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV) has a top speed of 40 mph, but I shouldn’t be driving over that anyway given the posted speed limits in town. Having driven a Geo Metro for years, driving a ZAP Xebra felt almost the same (at low speeds), but without the fumes, fuel and gas station stops.

Editors note: this is a guest contribution by Adam Shake

When I was a kid, my buddy Carl’s parents had a golf cart.  It was a small blue one with outdoor carpeting on the floor boards.  Open to the sky with a freshly charged battery and it begged to be driven, and oh boy, did we drive it.  A bit too long as it turns out, and there was Carl’s Dad, waiting on the front steps when we arrived home 2 hours late.

The only thing that could have made that day better would have been if the golf cart had been a Chrysler Pea-Pod.