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JEFFREY One thousand. RUSSELL

News wink! The loopy two-seat, no-door coupe y'all see on these pages is the electric car of the future.

That's because the whispering charge-'em-up-at-domicile, electric-miracle substitute for the piston-powered passenger car that's been transporting us for the past hundred-and-some years is not gonna happen. Not in the next four years every bit the California Air Resources Lath continues to demand, probable non in the side by side 10 years, maybe not e'er (which goes out most xv years, the extreme limit of any technologist's imagining).

So much for California dreamin'.

What nosotros'll have instead of electric real cars, these technologists say, are bombardment-powered niche vehicles. Which brings us to this Jewel E825. Its niche is "neighborhoods." In fact, a lot of folks call it a "NEV," short for "neighborhood electric vehicle."

Officially, though, it's a "Low Speed Vehicle," a category new in '98 from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. LSVs are limited to a peak speed of 25 mph and must have basic safe equipment including headlights, taillights, terminate lights, turn signals, mirrors, seatbelts, side reflectors, a parking brake, a safety-glass windshield, and a VIN. They're exempt from crash testing, and they have no airbags. LSVs tin can exist registered and licensed in at to the lowest degree 16 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Nevada. NHTSA okays them for roads with speed limits of 35 or less mph, but states take the last say almost where they can operate, if at all, and some states might confine them to slower roads.

The Large Two in NEVs are Global Electric MotorCars, LLC, of Fargo, North Dakota, maker of this GEM E825, and Montreal-based Bombardier, Inc., which manufactures everything from Ski-Doo snowmobiles to Learjet and Canadair aircraft.

Once you've whacked your way through this thicket of acronyms, a NEV looks a lot like a Lexus-class golf cart. Peradventure we should say Porsche-course. Whereas golf game carts top out at only 12 to fifteen mph, the exam GEM did a scorching 26 mph at the rail. Nevertheless, think golf game cart and you won't be far incorrect. The E825 is about five feet shorter than a Miata and nearly a human foot narrower. Two of them would fit end to terminate in a typical parking place.

This front-commuter'due south powertrain consists mostly of off-the-shelf components from the golf-cart manufacture. The iii.v-horsepower General Electric DC motor is geared directly to a Dana Spicer differential. Six Trojan 12-volt XH30 deep-cycle lead-acrid batteries --ii of them over the forepart wheels and four under the seat --feed 72 volts through a GE solid-state controller.

These standard parts are combined in a style that increases speed, compared with a golf cart, at the expense of range. Golf game carts more normally employ six-volt batteries connected in series for a total of 36 volts. The Precious stone has "longer" gears --an 8.nine:1 terminal drive compared with the 12.0:one reduction typical for golf game carts --and the GEM controller has unique software.

The Precious stone goes its own way in construction details, too. The frame consists of aluminum extrusions welded together. The overhead loops that serve equally roll bars and roof supports are besides aluminum extrusions bent to shape, powder-coated, and bolted to the frame. The fenders, the hood, and the cargo-carrying bustle on the back are fiberglass. Well-nigh of the other body parts are vacuum-formed ABS polycarbonate.

The rack-and-pinion steering gear and the hydraulic half-dozen.three-inch-diameter pulsate brakes at all iv corners are existent automobile parts from Italy's minicar industry. In front end is a swing-arm suspension made of extremely bulky cast ductile iron. A simple live axle is used in dorsum. Both ends take coil-over shocks.

Let's see, at 25 mph, real cars are probably withal in the parking lot. The GEM is more than competent at a flat-out footstep most people don't think is up to driving speed. The steering feels right, the brakes are nicely linear with no squish in the pedal, the accelerator is unjerky. In keeping with its 980 pounds, the machine has a sturdy sense about it and a reasonably compliant ride. At 69.5 inches to the peak of the door loops, the E825 is about minivan pinnacle. You sit up, on a chair-height bench, with a tower sort of view.

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