Posts tagged ZapXebra at AutoblogGreen

Posts with tag ZapXebra

Ohio refuses to license electric 3-wheelers

Posted May 5th 2008 9:11AM by Jeremy Korzeniewski
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Legislation and Policy, Zap, On Two Wheels, Green Daily, USA

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, drivers in Ohio are facing problems when it comes time to register their electric three-wheeled vehicles. Most states classify three-wheelers as motorcycles, but Ohio adds one more item to their definition of a motorcycle: a saddle. This means that three-wheelers which have a normal "car-like" seat are unregisterable as a car, because they have fewer than four wheels, or a motorcycle. Two vehicles are mentioned in our source article, the ZAP! Xebra and the NmG from Myers Motors (pictured above), a company based, ironically enough, in Ohio. According to Josh Engel, chief legal counsel for the BMV, "It's not the first time that the law hasn't caught up with technology," adding that the state of Ohio is supportive of electric vehicles. Basically, the law needs to change, and Tom Hunter, communications director for the BMV, suggests that the real solution would be to classify the vehicles as neither cars nor motorcycles. A special class of vehicle would be created, and hopefully a motorcycle endorsement would not be required. We'll keep you updated if anything new comes of this issue. Thanks for the tip, Ken.

[Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer]

Prospective Zap dealer chokes on electric vapor!

Posted Mar 25th 2008 9:17AM by Sam Abuelsamid
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Zap, Green Daily

The world desperately needs vehicles with alternative powertrains, such as battery electrics. The potential to make a killing in the business is huge, as is the potential to lose everything. The auto industry - as anyone who has ever gotten involved in it knows - is hugely capital intensive so investors are needed. However, people tend to be unwilling to put large quantities of cash unless they see a potential return. In any new business arena there are startups who fail without drawing much attention to themselves. Unfortunately there are also those that draw inordinate amounts of attention to themselves before they ever produce anything. Those in the latter category tend to poison the investment waters for those who may actually have something real to offer.

Such is the case with Zap! and their heavily-hyped electric vehicles. The Santa Rosa, CA company has been around for quite a number of years and has actually managed to sell a number of electrical products mostly related to mobile power products. However when it comes to electric transportation, their products are limited to the Chinese built three wheel Xebra "sedan" and "truck". Wired has now pubished a detailed article on the often sordid 16 year history of Zap! and its two primary leaders Gary Starr and Steve Schneider. Schneider and Starr have apparently "built" a business on alternating press releases about world-beating new electric cars and issuing new stock to continue paying the bills, including their salaries. Meanwhile enthusiastic prospective retailers of Zap products like Ehab Youssef and Joseph Gottlieb with little experience in the realities of the car business, have plunked down large amounts of cash for the right to sell vehicles that either come nowhere near meeting their rated specifications or never materialize at all. It's a sad tale but well worth the read. For those Zap representatives that often post in the comments here, please feel free to try and refute anything you feel may be incorrect in the article - but only if you have facts to back it up.

[Source: Wired]

TTAC tests the ZAP Xebra, hates it

Posted Mar 14th 2008 6:35PM by Jeremy Korzeniewski
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Zap

Paul Niedermeyer over at TTAC got the chance to drive a ZAP Xebra pickup and his review pretty much reads as you would expect. The car is poorly assembled, slow, short range and dangerous. He goes so far as to refer to it as a motorized wheelbarrow/hair-shirt - which, despite what you think of the car, is pretty funny. Was there anything that he did like about the Xebra? Nope.

We have had the opportunity to drive the Xebra, and we also found the machine to be a bit on the slow side. We also noted the small interior and poor build quality. We still maintain, though, that the vehicle is fine for what it is. If used as a vehicle to get to the grocery store, campus, library etc, it'll do fine. If you actually plan to drive the Xebra every day, or on high-speed or high traffic roads, you should look elsewhere.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

Zap opens joint advanced battery development office in Beijing

Posted Aug 2nd 2007 2:17PM by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Zap

Zap's moving to China. OK, it's just opening a new nanotechnology battery "joint development office" with Advanced Battery Technologies, Inc. (ABAT) in Beijing, the two companies announced today. The reason for opening this office is "to expand their research, manufacturing and marketing of advanced batteries for electric cars using the latest in nanotechnology."

ABAT is the company that makes the lithium-polymer and nanotech batteries that Zap recently agreed to use in their Xebra EVs and other products. The purchase agreement was for $5.168 million worth of batteries. As always, improved batteries sound great. In this case Zap and ABAT are saying the life expectancy of these batteries is over 1,000 charges, and will offer "three to five times greater performance in terms of range and speed, as well as faster charge times, in some cases as little as ten minutes." We'll be waiting for the test drive.

[Source: ZAP, Advanced Battery Technologies, Inc.]

Continue reading Zap opens joint advanced battery development office in Beijing

Zap! gets 65,000 trees in the ground in time for Earth Day

Posted Apr 16th 2007 8:09AM by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Culture, Zap

As I mentioned after hearing Zap! chairman and co-founder Gary Starr speak at the AFVI show, Zap! is trying to plant a million trees by 2010 through the Zap! Challenge. The company recently sent out an email announcing that they have helped to plant "over 64,862 trees since launching our campaign the beginning of this year." So, in time for Earth Day this year, they'll have 65,000. Let's say 70,000 by the end of April. Carry that out and it comes to about 210,000 for the year and 840,000 by the end of 2010. Looks like they're on track, but will need to kick things up a notch or two to meet the noble goal.

While Zap! does plant 200 trees (actually, they pay someone to plant the trees) for every car they sell, they also take direct donations to cover the tree-planting costs. $25 nets us 200 trees. And, if putting your picture up on Flickr is not enough for you, Zap! says that they'll put pictures of anyone driving an EV or planting a tree up on the company website.

[Source: Zap!]

Chicago Auto Show: Gallery of Zap's current vehicles

Posted Feb 7th 2007 4:55PM by Jeremy Korzeniewski
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Zap, Chicago Auto Show

Don't think that I didn't drill the on-site ZAP representative for any information about the ZAP\Lotus APX collaboration, but, alas, he knew nothing. Is it just vapor-ware? The jury is still out on that one, hopefully more information will be coming in the next few months. Not all was lost, however, as I did come away with a gallery of high-quality images of ZAP's current production models. As you may know, they already have a series of three-wheeled vehicles for sale, including a four-door, a truck and a little Segway-like scooter. I took pictures of them and you can see them in all their electric-only glory here.

Gallery: ZAP's current models

Xebra sells on eBay for $10,800. Winner outbids 8,000 others?

Posted Oct 4th 2006 12:17PM by Sebastian Blanco
Filed under: Etc., EV/Plug-in

Steve Palmer is the freshest owner of a Xebra electric vehicle after submitting the winning bid of $10,800 on a recent eBay auction. While the Xebra's actual retail price is under $10,000, the squat little EVs are only sold through authorized dealers and are not available everywhere right now. Palmer said his high bid would allow him to get the Xebra faster than through the standard channels. He claimed that he "really wanted the car so my family and I could enjoy this newest technology."

What I don't fully understand is Zap's press release announcing the auction. Zap sells the Xebra in the U.S. and claimed that Palmer outbid almost eight thousand other bidders to win the car. Excuse me? Eight thousand? Since the auction has ended, the details are no longer available on the auction site, but doesn't that seem like an awful lot of people to be bidding on one of these niche cars? I mean, the Reggie Bush exclusive NFL/Rebuild New Orleans merchandise items have between 24 and 51 bids as I write this. And that's the number of bids, not bidders. Something seems odd here. But if it's true, then Zap had better get a lot of the Xebras to market pronto, is all I'm saying. We'll let you know you if Zap clears things up.

[Source: Zapworld]

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Sam Abuelsamid	137	25
2	Jeremy Korzeniewski	135	4
3	Sebastian Blanco	124	3
4	Xavier Navarro	64	8
5	Domenick Yoney	51	0
6	Marc Geller	13	0
7	Alex Nunez	12	1
8	Noah Joseph	2	0

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AutoblogGreen

Ohio refuses to license electric 3-wheelers

Prospective Zap dealer chokes on electric vapor!

TTAC tests the ZAP Xebra, hates it

Zap opens joint advanced battery development office in Beijing

Zap! gets 65,000 trees in the ground in time for Earth Day

Chicago Auto Show: Gallery of Zap's current vehicles

Xebra sells on eBay for $10,800. Winner outbids 8,000 others?

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