ZENN Car

[Uncle Al]

This is great

I wish they were available in the U.S.

ZENN Car

Uncle Al

[Sylvain]

This is great

I wish they were available in the U.S.

The company is closed. Anyway, they couldn't go fast (not highway-suitable).

[phathack]

There is spin off company from ZENN that is selling cars today.
There is a US dealer in Elkheart, In.
The current car has a range of 104 Miles and a top speed to 68 mph.
That would handle all my Metro Area driving needs.

[DALederle]

So how fast could they go?
That is always one of the factors AGAINST electric cars. How fast can they go? Which is a safety factor if you are putting them on the road with gas powered cars. They have to go fast enough to avoid accidents.
The other factor against them is range. A range of 100 miles, the longest I've read about for an electric car, just doesn't get it for most of today's motorist. As a RP, retired person, I can plan trips to not exceed 100 miles but what happens when you encounter detours and traffic congestion. Then you risk not getting back home.
I hope they solve some or all of these problems with some form of alternative vehicles but right now the gasoline powered engine still does what nothing else does. Sadly.
We absolutely have to clean up our polution problems. But It becomes, mostly, how do you sell the public?
As much as I think Al Gore is wrong and muddleheaded over his view of Global Warning, I can understand his take on it. People have tried for years to warn us about the health risk of air polution. And it is epidemic throughout the world. But that message doesn't seem to get out. It's always THE OTHER GUY who is dying because of air polution (or cigarette smoking or lung cancer, etc.). But the world does get up in arms over global warming and saving the whales (something else I am in favor of). So if they have to sell us a bill of goods over global warming to get us to clean our air, well....then maybe that's a good thing in its own way.
It's just to bad this kind of individual initiative doesn't get a chance to get off the ground!
Anyone know more about this story?
Dennis A. Lederle
Live Long and Perspire!

[Kirbstone]

Now there was this serious hype about an electric car that could out accellerate a Ferrari &c &c., and on the test day in front of a large audience it did just that...until after 150 meters it arrived at the end of the flex!!!

Frankly the current (excuse the pun) state of Electric car expensive technology leaves me totally cold. I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole.

Comically Toyota with their hybrid cars choose to mate all this with PETROL engines, not turbodiesels, which would be much better. A close friend has a Prius and also a diesel Avensis. The Avensis is what they take on a long journey, as it is MUCH more economical than the petrol/electric Prius. Another school classmate turned up to our 50 year-out reunion in a Hybrid Lexus....also petrol. He likes the silence & smoothness, but he made the same comment. It would have been better with a modern diesel.

Tom K.

[crfriend]

Frankly the current (excuse the pun) state of Electric car expensive technology leaves me totally cold. I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole.

It depends very much on the intended usage. An all-electric would be a bad fit for me due to the short ranges involved (I commute 60 miles/day, and in winter that also requires heat, fans, and de-icers which all eat electricity like it's going out of style), a hybrid would be only a marginal fit as I spend about half my time on large motorways and about half in stop-and-go urban traffic which is where the hybrid excels; however, Sapphire spends most of her time within about 40 miles from home and seldom ventures much father than that, so a hybrid -- or even an outright electric -- might work quite well, save for the initial capital outlay. So, one needs to choose wisely based on one's driving patterns.

Comically Toyota with their hybrid cars choose to mate all this with PETROL engines, not turbodiesels, which would be much better. A close friend has a Prius and also a diesel Avensis. The Avensis is what they take on a long journey, as it is MUCH more economical than the petrol/electric Prius.

Part of this may be that Toyota do not have deep experience with turbo-diesel technology; that tends to be a European strong point. Too, Toyota sells strongly into the US and in the US typical diesel technology hasn't changed all that much in 50 years -- it's still loud, stinks to high heaven (mainly sulphur, which the Europeans seem to have learned to refine out but the technology hasn't reached these shores yet), and doesn't perform as well as petrol-powered engines (a technology/design mismatch). So, diesel is almost a non-starter here save for heavy trucks.

The performance on long-haul journeys is down to what I alluded to above -- without the battery-charging effect of stopping the battery doesn't receive a charge which means it's down to the petrol motor to provide all the motive power. This means you lose one heck of an efficiency win, and one gains a positively massive amount of complexity for that loss of gain. If you drive long distances on motorways, as hybrid is not for you.

An interesting point of note is that electric cars enjoyed a bit of a heyday in the early 20th Century for use in urban centers where electricity was common and when the internal combustion engine was still regarded as a "dirty" technology (compare and contrast to the "tailpipe emissions" of horses and I'd like to know how they came to that conclusion). So this is not really all that new; what is new is all the other bells and whistles that we modern types expect -- like heat in the winter and A/C in the summer, 300 Watt sound systems, and electric *everything*.

[Big and Bashful]

I just think that an electric car might work for a city dweller. If you need to make a journey of 500 miles you would have to take days to include recharging time. I have just bought a small French box, it gives me over 60 miles a gallon of diesel on short runs, long runs and over my local hills. So far I am well impressed. Also as a big man in a small car (a Renault Clio 2003 year, 1500cc diesel) I am not cramped, it is comfy enough and cheap enough to run. It seems even better because it works, unlike my Jeep, the Jeep is determined to put me off automatic gearboxes. Ho hum!

[Kirbstone]

Because of the price of petrol in Europe and the emissions-related road taxing policy of most E.U. governments, the european motor industry have made it their business to evolve a generation of seriously frugal, quiet and powerful common rail turbodiesels for private cars.
Nowadays something like 75-80% of all new cars sold here are turbodiesels. Most of the expensive marques, e.g. Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Jaguar &c. all offer their top range models diesel powered.
I did a long trip towing a large boat trailer with a friend last week end and the conversation turned to specific fuel consumption. My 16 year-old petrol Merc. delivers at best 32 miles per Imperial gallon, not towing. At best I get about 400 miles on a tankful, & my annual road tax is over 600 Euros. He drives a newish Renault Laguna Diesel which returns some 56 MPG and he gets up to 900 miles on a tankful. His annual road tax is a small fraction of mine. No contest.

My next Merc. will be a diesel, for sure.

Tom K.

[Sylvain]

Because of the price of petrol in Europe...

The price of gasoline is high in Europe because it is taxed, and it is taxed to keep its price high because there is hardly no oil field in Europe. Remember the 50's, before one could drill in the sea and when the US were the largest oil producer in the world.

[Big and Bashful]

There are a few reasons for the high price of fuel, in the UK the tax and duty are horrendous, about 80% of the price at the pump. Also the fact that crude oil is priced in dollars, and sterling is now devalued against the US dollar and even more so against the Euro, means that the pathetic pound in my pocket gets me precious little fuel.

[Gregg1100]

My 1998 Citroen Xantia 1.9 TD goes every bit as quick as a petrol version-averaging out at 45 mpg. The newer Mercs and BMW diesel cars go like scalded cats- seriously fast off the mark.
As are most TD cars in Europe. My son has a Citroen C5, with the 138 bhp HDi engine- pulls like a train, accelerates like a sports car, all while averaging out at nearly 50 miles to a gallon. A big car too.

[Since1982]

If someone ever comes out with an electric car that costs less than $8,000.00, goes 1,000 miles without recharge, has a center driver's seat and steering for a 3 seat car, I'll be first in line to buy one. Does anyone know of any such thing out there now?? hope hope hope..

[Big and Bashful]

I have just retrieved my trusty Jeep from the garage, the imp inside has been retrained and is changing gears in all the right places. Downside was the refueling. 55 litres of LPG and just over 1/2 tank of petrol cost me over £100. Ouch! That was 260 miles worth, Ouch again! It is now parked up and my little Clio will be on duty until I have to move something bigger than it is!

[Uncle Al]

The price of fuel/petrol.........

Not to shock anyone but even with a $.10 a gallon discount at my
local grocery store, I paid $146.00 for 39 gallons of gas for my truck.
(I have a 42 gallon tank.) Most of the time I get a full month of
driving on one tank.

Even with this kind of discount, my wallet cry's and wails each time
I go to the fuel pumps.

( - I used to think that $.32 for a gallon of gas was expensive.)

Uncle Al

[john62]

here in Australia we are paying about $1:50 per litre, my Toyota Yaris takes about 35 litres and the cost to fill is $50 or so and I can get about 600 km per tank.

John