There is no doubt that neighborhood electric vehicles are very popular across the US, and indeed many countries around the world, but how often do you use your NEV?
I use mine daily for a 16 mile round trip to a small town, as well as run around the desert here at Slab City east of Niland, CA.
Hi Tincup
How do you find your NEV for journey capacity per full charge and reliability?
It’s very reliable but when I park it, it goes right on the charger. I built a solar charging station, 2 6V Trojans and two 230W panels to a 2000W inverter, works great:-) It’s a little over kill on the panels but I use the station for other things.
I think solar panels will come more into play with NEVs and EV in the future. The technology is perhaps not as advanced yet to make a massive difference but it can only get better.
I drive my GEM eS daily… usually to a senior housing to pick up my friend Joe and go to coffee… about a 6-10 mile round trip… we often go grocery shopping and are asked about the car… last weekend I participated in a car show… had a ball and got a good start my summer tan… at least the first burn… it was a show at a senior center and was a wheelchair show… thought the GEM fit in… I spoke to a lot of people who wanted to know about the car… have two shows this weekend am hoping to have another GEM car or two come along with me… I hand out GEM books from a dealer sponsor and my hand out… because I have the 9.6 motor in my car I don’t have the rang as I tend to motor along with traffic… on the way to the last show the road I took was a 30mph street and I stayed about 25-27… picked up a Jeep that wanted to ride my rear bumper and I ran it up to 35 for a couple of miles. the road changed to 40mph and I pulled off to let the Jeep by but pushed for a mile at 40… just because I could… put about 25 miles on the car… got home with one green and the yellow bar although the Battsix would not change from red bars to anyother color… even in the garage as I was turning the car off… I have doors on my car and will drive it until temps get below 35
Bob
We have four GEMs at work and they are driven most every day. All have more than 10,000 miles. We never leave the property, so all trips are short.
I’ve used my GEM eL for trips around town to pay tax bills, visit the Motor Vehicle department and go for lunch or light shopping. It’s very convenient to get in and out of being just the right height to simply stand up or sit down with no gymnastics required. I get a lot of looks, waves and yells plus plenty of people to talk to wherever I park it. It’s a lot of fun but rides a bit rough and has no storage. It won’t replace my Prius V wagon but it sure is a blast to drive around town in the good weather.
Your comment “no gymnastics required” made me laugh lol
But I know exactly what you mean.
As my only vehicle, I use my lithium-powered 80+ mile range GEM for every trip I take. I’ve only rented a car twice in the last two years for trips the GEM was not able to handle. First car rental was $29 total, and second was $38 total (with a free half tank of gas included this time). Both times were for 250 mile round trips that no EV except a $100K Tesla could have made. Rentals can be had for $11/day Fri-Mon at budget. Virtually no changes in lifestyle to save about $6000/year in transportation expenses.
I haven’t had my LandMaster for long but I use it every day. No real long runs yet but where I live in downtown Atlanta, most of my miles are routes avoiding the grid of faster, busy roads.
I may never need the range of Lithium but will probably go AGM at the next battery change just to avoid the maintenance of the flooded cell batts that it came with. I had an AGM battery on my Honda Goldwing and it was really worth the difference.
I also have an 80 watt solar charging station but haven’t really gotten to where I really use it much yet.
My car is a 5.9 L V8 Durango that gets around 13.5 MPG. My goal was to avoid using it as much as possible for in-town runs and this is working out well so far. It’s been a real pleasure not buying gas or caring what the price per gallon is at any given moment.
The LandMaster sits fairly high and I’m fairly short legged so I had to add a ‘gymnastics’ strap to the top frame to help clear the hip guard when getting in and out.
[QUOTE=Androidian;15327]I haven’t had my LandMaster for long but I use it every day. No real long runs yet but where I live in downtown Atlanta, most of my miles are routes avoiding the grid of faster, busy roads.[/QUOTE]Even if you don’t use the max range often (I sure don’t) lithium still offers some compelling advantages. Lifecycles, no self-discharge, more power to the motor, more efficient charging, less maintenance. It’s just that initial price you have to get past first.
[QUOTE=Androidian;15327]I also have an 80 watt solar charging station but haven’t really gotten to where I really use it much yet.
My car is a 5.9 L V8 Durango that gets around 13.5 MPG. My goal was to avoid using it as much as possible for in-town runs and this is working out well so far. It’s been a real pleasure not buying gas or caring what the price per gallon is at any given moment.
The LandMaster sits fairly high and I’m fairly short legged so I had to add a ‘gymnastics’ strap to the top frame to help clear the hip guard when getting in and out.[/QUOTE]My former 5.9 L V8 Dodge Ram also gave my encouragement to find alternatives. That big cast iron engine takes forever to warm up. My typical 3-5 mile local round trips were not enough for the engine to ever get warmed up, and I was getting about 5 MPG. Spending $120 a month in gas for a total of 150 miles of local trips a month was driving me crazy. An NEV was perfect for such short trips.
In just gas savings alone, just for these local trips, I’ll payback the $7500 for the GEM and lithium conversion in about 5 years.
Actually we have two of them. The 5.9 and a 5.3L. Both are approaching 200k and both are 99’s. I need to get one off the books but we can’t tell which one is going to die first.
We won’t be buying any cars for quite some time now, if ever so we have to stretch the ones we have. But it would be nice to ditch one for the insurance alone.
Do you think that NEVs will act as a useful stepping stone to motorists buying more traditional EVs? Or are they totally different and unconnected markets?
There is a growing feeling that perhaps EV manufacturers missed the boat by not using hybrids and NEVs as more of a stepping stone towards higher sales of EVs.
one of the golf cart companies offers a hybrid… not sure who or if it’s on their NEV model… sounds interesting… there was a guy on the Yahoo board who had a Trans two that he was going to add an ICE to it but haven’t seen any recent posts… have seen GEMs out of AZ that are on eBay or Craigslist with ICE… not sure you can go to the DMV and say… ‘please register my GEM and try to over look the noise’…
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bgeery… I’d love to convert to Lithium… spoke to a guy here at a Plug In meeting… who said he could do it for me… using 24 batteries… ???.. but didn’t have a charger idea to charge the pack… want to come to Denver and do a conversion?
Bob
bgeery… I’d love to convert to Lithium… spoke to a guy here at a Plug In meeting… who said he could do it for me… using 24 batteries… ???.. but didn’t have a charger idea to charge the pack… want to come to Denver and do a conversion?
Not up for a road trip, but you can call or email me for any help I can offer.send me a PM. I am not mechanically inclined at all-- If I did it, just about anyone can do it.
24 cells would work fine. I used 25 cell to increase the voltage just below the max that the controller will allow, increasing the power and top speed a bit. If your GEM does not have the Zivan charger, the easiest thing to do is use an off-board charger, like a Zivan NG-1 or 3. With a 75-100 mile range on lithium, it’s a reasonable solution. Swapping out the built-in charger with an NG-1 is also probably an easy job after a little investigation. I later model GEMs, I don’t know how integrated the BDI and charger are. In the earlier models, there is virtually no integration, so I could have swapped in just about any charger I wanted.