If you’re lucky enough to live in a gated retirement community (The Vill-a-ges, Flor-i-da’s friendliest home town!) or you don’t need to ever break 25MPH on your daily commute, then here’s an electric roadster. Sure, at $13,000 it costs more than most compact sedans, but it’s cute! And red! And eco-friendly, sorta, with its six lead-acid batteries.
Available through Hammacher, “The 4,000 Watt Roadster” is legally a “Low Speed Vehicle” that can go up to 25MPH with a range of up to 60 miles. The rear compartment can apparently hold six bags of groceries or two sets of golf clubs.
Kind of like a golf cart, which is also electric but can be had for under $13,000. I wonder if this roadster can be used on a golf course. Now that’d be something since, unlike most golf carts, this thing has a built-in radio with MP3 playback.
The 4,000 Watt Roadster [Hammacher Schlemmer]
Looks like someone misses the Smart Crossblade.
I like eco-friendly products as much (or perhaps much more than) than the next guy, but even I think this is a silly vanity tool.
The fact is that outside of a golf course, gated community or private island, a 25 mph car is just going to annoy every other driver behind you. (And there will be a long line of them behind you.)
Plus, for about $10,000 less, you can get an A2B electric bike (http://1greenproduct.com/2009/07/03/a2b-electric-two-wheeler/) that will go approximately the same speed, take up much less space and not involve any lead acid.
(You can get a small trailer to hook onto the back of the bike and carry some groceries.)
I suppose the Electric Roadster *might* make sense for someone with a lot of $$$ and plenty of mobility or balance issues. But if that were the case, for practicality’s sake, I’d rather buy a small gasoline car like the Toyota Yaris – http://www.toyota.com/yaris/
- Aaron Dalton, Editor, 1GreenProduct.com