Some of you may have noticed us driving a funny little car lately (see photo). It is a fully electric local use vehicle (LUV) and was lent to us by one of our partners, the South Bay Environmental Services Center. You can find out more about the benefits of these vehicles and sign up for a free trial yourself at http://www.southbaycities.org/node/794.
The SBESC is partnering with the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) to see if we can end up with cleaner air and use less foreign fuel with low speed electric vehicles.
If we charge these vehicles in the middle of the night, they are using electricity that would otherwise be wasted on the grid. Therefore, if charged this way, they could be considered zero carbon! You can see this more clearly by looking at the electricity grid supply and demand curves at the bottom of the http://www.southbaycities.org/node/794 website homepage.
Driving the car takes no particular skill. It just takes a sense of humor and you can’t be too attached to your ego! It is little like the 1963 VW Beetle in that it is ultra small, no amenities – and has a top speed is 25mph. But the singularity of purpose makes it appealing like an mp3 player is appealing. You could carry your laptop around and play music and everything else – or you could just go for a run with a tiny mp3 player.
On the positive side, it goes 0 – 25 very quickly and it is fun and easy to tool around in. We use it much more often than we ever expected to go to the beach, the construction site the supermarket or visiting friends.
With a sticker price of about $11K it is certainly worth a try. Having had the experience of driving it and logging every trip, it is clear that an electric vehicle makes sense for the majority of the trips we take.
Miles Electric Vehicle
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We forgot to mention one of the best parts. In tracking the electricity used by the vehicle, the cost is about $7.00/ month!