flickering pictures

On October 26, 2007, the CBC ran a story on the ZENN, a clean, silent, fully electric car made in Quebec. The award-winning car was being sold in the U.S., Mexico and Europe, but had been waiting a staggering 18 months for Canadian safety approvals to come through. Two weeks after the CBC story shamed the federal authorities for their sluggish approval processes, safety certification was granted. Coincidence? Likely not. But that’s not what this post is about.

Here’s the skinny on the ZENN:

The good:

• No gas.
• No emissions.
• Surprisingly roomy.
• No noise.
• No oil to change, mufflers to replace, etc…

The not-so-good:

• Maximum speed of 25 mph (40 km/h), so no highway driving.
• Maximum range of 50 miles (80 km) between recharges.
• Silent cars may not be so great for blind pedestrians…
• Eight hours for a full battery recharge (or four hours for an 80 per cent charge).
• In spite of these limitations, it still costs $14,000 — about as much as a Hyundai Accent.

The ZENN site includes a handy-dandy calculator to tell you how much it would cost you to drive a ZENN for a year, according to your annual mileage and electricity prices in your area. With our low power prices here in Montreal, if I drove this car 100 miles (160 km) a week, it would cost me about $50 a year — less than a dollar a week. With current gas prices, going that same distance with a gasoline engine would cost about $800. And you can charge up at home while you sleep, so no more wasting time at gas stations.

As for emissions, it’s all good and well to have a car that doesn’t directly pollute, but if your power comes from coal- or oil-burning plants, you’re not doing the environment much of a favour by jacking up electricity demand in your area. And here at least, where the standard cruising speed is 65 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, driving 40 km/h anywhere at all is likely to get you some honking, some tailgating, and a detailed lesson in the finer points of Québécois cursing.

Seems to me like this is a great step in the right direction, but way too limited in range and speed to appeal to anyone who wants a car for more than bumper-to-bumper commuting. And if most of your driving is in heavy rush-hour traffic, wouldn’t you be better off on a bus?

Image via the Natural News Network.

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