Zenn and the art of small, electric vehicles

In fall of 2009, Clifford plans to start selling the City Zenn, which will go up to 80 mph and have a range of 250 miles on a single charge. It will launch in Europe first, then Asia and South America. Clifford declined to say when it would be offered in the United States, but he did say it will cost somewhere "in the low 20s."

The next-generation batteries that will power the new Zenn vehicle don't even exist yet. They're being developed by EEStor, an Austin, Texas-based technology firm in which Zenn Motors invested $2.5 million in May 2007. The proposed 300-pound 52 kilowatt-hour ceramic battery would charge in roughly five minutes, use no hazardous materials and be virtually unaffected by temperature, EEStor reps said. It would be able to power a mid-size car for more than 200 miles at highway speeds, according to a press report from Zenn.

So far, electric vehicles' success has been thwarted because the technology did not exist to make batteries large and light enough for long-distance operation. But EEStor executives are confident their new technology will redefine automotive battery use as we know it.

"With any startup, you have some minor speed bumps and/or market opportunities that come up from time to time," said Tom Weir, vice president and general manager of EEStor. "But we see no show-stoppers at this point."

Mayeda says if they can build it, customers will buy it.

"People are coming into our store who have never driven an electric car before, but who are interested in getting one of their own," Mayeda said. "You can just imagine what would happen if I said, 'Here, I've got this 80-mph electric car right here.' Even if EEStor is late, it's going to be great."

Electrifying the masses
Not everyone is bullish about NEVs. Only about 2 percent of American drivers are willing to seriously consider an electric vehicle, said Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore. That's slightly higher than the numbers in 2000, when 1.3 percent of the population expressed an interest in electric vehicles.

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The technology hasn't been welcomed everywhere, either. Connecticut, Delaware, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Wyoming have banned electric vehicles on public roads.

Then there is the issue of where to get the all the electricity to power the vehicles. As it stands right now, the existing power grid in the United States could fuel 180 million electric cars, according to a 2006 Department of Energy study.

Research by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that by 2030, if a large percentage of Americans are driving hybrids or electric vehicles and charged them at 5 p.m. at 6 kilowatts of power, then up to 160 new power plants nationwide would be needed to supply the extra electricity.

But the ORNL study also found that if the same number of vehicles were plugged in after 10 p.m., when the toll on the power grid is lowest, charging at low-demand levels would require no additional power plants, and, at high-demand levels, would require only eight additional power plants nationwide.

And a 2007 study by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council found that if 60 percent of cars sold in the United States were plug-in hybrids, no more than 8 percent of the electricity available would be used.

The bottom line? With their emission-less technology but impracticality as primary transportation, NEVs present a potentially alluring — but currently unconvincing — choice for many eco-aware drivers.

Spinella, for one, has taken a wait-and-see approach: "It is a viable source of transportation, but the interest is not going to grow unless the issues are addressed."

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