According to a press release from the American Motorcyclist Association a package of public land bills will close a million acres of public lands from motorized vehicle use. The package of over 160 land bills would designate about one million acres as Wilderness land.
Automotive Fleet published an article a few months ago about purchasing NEVs for fleet purposes. Using a question an answer format, the article covers key decision-making criteria to be considered such as operating costs, maintenance issues, payload and battery related topics. It should be helpful for fleet managers considering adding NEVs to their stable of vehicles.
Transport Canada posted video footage from recent crash tests of the ZENN and what appears to be a GEM model to bolster their contention that LSVs represent a safety problem when mixing with regular vehicles on public roads. Transport Canada states that:
A low-speed vehicle may look like a car, but it is not a car. It is not required to meet the large number of safety standards (up to 40) that a regular passenger car must meet. The low speed vehicle class was originally intended for controlled low speed environments, like gated communities, where the risk of a LSV entering into a collision with a faster motor vehicle would be lower than on public roads. Transport Canada’s crash test results to date confirm that low speed vehicles provide a substantially lower level of occupant protection than conventional passenger cars.
According to The Gazette in Montreal, ZENN’s CEO Ian Clifford responded
Releasing these images without the statistical frame of reference is somewhat irresponsible on Transport Canada’s part. …Our assessment is that low-speed vehicles are among the safest vehicles on the road. I drive our vehicles all the time. I drive the vehicles with my children in them.
I contacted GEM to confirm if it is indeed a GEM model in the video and get their response to the testing but have not heard back from them, perhaps after the holiday.
In a recent conversation with Dynasty Electric Vehicles General Manager Danny Epp about the plug-in electric vehicle tax credit he revealed that Dynasty is looking to have a lithium battery pack option available for mid-2009. The company is currently talking to several China based producers with the expectation that the battery packs will cost around $4,000, about twice as much as their maintenance free battery option. If the vehicles qualify for the recently passed $2,500 plug-in electric vehicle tax credit then vehicles with the lithium battery pack option would be available at the same or slightly lower price that customers are currently paying for vehicles with the maintenance free battery pack option. Mr. Epp stated that the lithium pack will have twice the life of the lead acid battery pack, can charge faster without damage and has more range because it can discharge to a lower level. The size of the pack is also smaller so you can have the same power in a smaller space or add additional cells, although at an additional cost. No changes have to made in regard to where the battery pack fits in the vehicle. Dynasty is trying to create the best value for the customer by balancing the trade-off between more cost for more battery power filling the same space or less cost for the same power at less weight and less volume.
We also started talking about changes in the current market. Epp reported that despite the recession sales had been increasing and attributed the increase to both higher fuel costs and more awareness of the vehicles. He also noted that his customer type had changed from relatively lower income environmentalists to higher income individuals looking to make a statement, especially if they have larger cars. The vehicles can almost be viewed as a “personal offset”. Epp himself views the vehicles as an “appliance for the house” and tries to sell them from that perspective. Most of the companies sales are in the US and they currently have twelve dealers. For more on Dynasty.
While many municipalities are passing regulations allowing LSV use there is also an undercurrent of safety concerns related to the vehicles.