Glorified electric golf carts for all

I really love the concept of NEVs but the speed is just a bit too limited to be useful for me. Almost every place I go regularly (work, grocery store, etc.) requires that I briefly travel on a 45/55 MPH speed limit roads where I think the speed differential would cause issues. It's the same reason I generally avoid riding a bike.

It would probably cost more, but I'd something like an electric Suzuki X90 or Samurai with ~50 miles of range and a max speed limit of 55. Pre-pandemic my plan was to pick up a used Nissan Leaf with depleted range for a bargain and use that for all of my local driving.

In Texas, NEVs are allowed in gated communities, more or less. I see a lot of them at my buddy's house in a gated community.

I know someone in my city neighborhood uses one, but I'm not sure it's legal. I've never seen one at the grocery store.

I think NEVs are great, and I'd love to see more of them. I'd much rather share a road with them as a cyclist.

I grew up in a small town built around two golf courses. It was a very conservative area, but the electric vehical rate was also very high because about half of the people there had golf carts and many of them were electric. People drove them everywhere and would often send their not-quite-16-year-old kids off in them. Many homes were designed with a 3rd small garage door specifically for golf carts. The local state rep even got a bill passed to change the law so it was legal for them to cross the highway at a stop light, which was reasonable as horses and buggies were permitted to do so. You probably only got 20ish miles out of a good charge, but that's more than enough when the farthest part of the community is barely 2 miles away.

Point being, no one sold this community on golf carts because they were electric and efficient. People loved them because they were affordable, simple, and practical.

Peachtree City, GA is our state's golf cart capital. Over half of the residents own and use golf carts as the predominant form of travel.

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/georgia/tiny-town-in-ga/

https://visitpeachtreecity.com/explore-100-miles-of-cart-pat...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peachtree_City,_Georgia

The Villages, FL is even bigger on the golf cart concept.

The average transaction price was high only because Tesla, and maybe pandemic pricing. In 2019 it was entirely feasible to buy a 258 mile range Chevrolet Bolt for under 25K brand new. People spending twice that did so because they wanted to, not because there weren't less expensive options.

The distinction between NEVs and actual cars is more a legal one than a practical one. Basically, there's very little stopping an NEV from going faster than 35MPH. This is a legal limit but not a practical limit inherent to the design. You could feasibly build one that can do 40-50MPH and not massively increase the budget. There would be safety concerns and other concerns; but it's not that hard technically.

The point here is that most of the cost of these vehicles is the battery, not the electrical engine. There are a lot of cheap electrical vehicles for sale in China. Most of those actually ship with lead acid batteries because they are cheaper. They have unimpressive ranges and performance. And most of those are not street legal at all. But they are dirt cheap.

Elektrek has been running a "Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week" series of articles that highlight some of the more wacky, weird, and wonderful designs people have come up with. Some of the more serious form factors there look like they could be perfectly alright for well under 3000$.

For a long time I've pondered building hybrid NEVs for dense cities, probably as rentals. The idea is to find a design that fits use cases that existing transportation doesn't provide for.

Think of a golf cart for 2 (1 front/1 rear, so about half as wide) made out of a tubular frame with a plastic accordion wind/rain guard that slides over the top. It has an e-bike drivetrain and a flat wide cushioned seat. Wheel base wide enough and frame low enough to prevent tipping. Cargo space behind the second seat, and panniers. It's small, so more of them can fit in a protected lane, and it's easier to pull off the road for storage/service/charging, and the e-bike parts would hopefully be easier and cheaper to maintain. You can go to the grocery store and pick up a week's worth of food while being sheltered from the elements. You would not use it to commute.

The majority of people in the inner city don't have much money and may currently spend 2-3 hours on a bus to pick up groceries. They may not be able to bike, and bikes would be inconvenient for errands. A $1000 used Honda Civic would be more feasible for them than a NEV. So maybe something closer in price to the Civic that met most of their needs (sans commuting) could be both economical and useful and better for the environment and city. If the city was strategic with roll-out, then neighborhoods in food deserts could be targeted with a protected lane created on a road leading to a grocery store or other conveniences.

I think Vice was reading my mind. I've been researching EV's that could work in my area and this [1] is probably going to be my first experiment into EV's. I am currently trying to hold off until there are more configurations and competition but my aging vehicle might force my hand. The EV side-by-side would be perfect for me specifically for going into town for groceries.

Full sized heavy duty EV trucks are a long way out. Ford will soon have a light duty and Dodge may have something slightly bigger given their plans to drop the Hellcat TRX in place of EV's. For full size vehicles my personal preference will be to hold out for 3D printed solid state batteries and more off-menu options to not be web connected.

[1] - https://ranger.polaris.com/en-us/ranger-ev/

The bit that would be hard is the "all for one" thing with cars. People don't drive a massive SUV to the store because they can only afford 1 car. It's because they can only park 1 car.

When I lived in the city a small car like this would have been great, but as I had 1 parking spot for my apartment, I wouldn't have been able to have both a Gas and an EV.

What states have the biggest tax breaks? Is there any state where you can actually get one of these "cars" totally free?

Something like an electric Smart ForTwo or Japanese kei cars would suffice for a huge segment of the population.

There is some wiggle room between the “I must have two giant SUVs for my one kid family” crowd and the “all cars are evil, let’s ban cars and your 70yo grandmother can just take the bus or ride a bike” crowd.

To put it in perspective, average price for ALL new cars was north of $45K in 2021. So we are speaking of barely 25% difference. Which is mostly yes, because electric cars for now tend to concentrate to the luxury-ish segment.

How are these for safety in a crash? I get they are slow, I more mean, what if an SUV mows them down?

Bikes of course have no safety to them, but are nimble and can escape a bit better.

Basically only works in areas that have a nice climate year-round. Good luck selling anybody in Washington state on these. We'll be using Nissan Leafs instead.

Might be quite practical if self driving as well. Slower speed hopefully means less processing power required.

They work really well in Zermatt a large beautiful Swiss Ski Resort near the Matterhorn.

How hard is it to convert a golf cart to a NEV?

I think Aptera is a better option.

Wonder how easy it'd be to unlock the speed on NEVs.

Yes, but can we make them look cool?