For Alden: Pros and Cons on the Zap Xebra
Hopefully we can get an actual owner to chime in here, but this is my impression of the Zap Xebra so far:
The Xebra is an adorable, fun little car … but it is little. You can’t ride it on highways, and you may be stuck at 25-30 mph up steep hills. They have a range around 20 miles, and take several hours to fully charge. I’ve also heard they don’t do very well in cold weather.
However, and this goes double if you can hook it up to a solar system, you really cut down on emissions. There is a variety of options – 4 seater in the SD, or 2 seater with a truck back in the PK, they also come with upgraded battery, charger and solar panel (Xero) options. Also, sometimes you can find cheap, gently used models on eBay for thousands less than (their already inexpensive) price.
You can also check out some owner and more informational pages at Xebraworld.com. Damn. This makes me want one all over again. One thing that you’ll enjoy about this car if you’re into tinkering, is that they can be modded over and over again. Add this here and that there, and there’s a strong community of geeks (COMPLIMENT! lol) to help it happen.
I’ve enjoyed my xebra sedan for about 3 weeks now and it is still doing just what I had planned on it doing. I get to work in the same time with no outta pocket expenses for the day except for lunch or the occasional Dunkin Donuts $1.49 mocha coffee with cream-n-sugar. Being straight comissions you might have a big fat zero for the day and fuel being what it is you’ve spent $8 bucks just getting to and from work. My only trouble has been trying to tint the windows myself only using the junk tint sold @ Lowe’s and Advanced Automotive. Don’t bother with the rubbery type ’cause it’s junk. My biggest gripe is leaving an unlimited source of juice @ home. Instead of adding another battery & such can I purchase a “battery booster” pak and charge it in the house overnight then grab-n-go when needed? How can you charge the batteries while driving? If you were stuck on the side of the road with no a/c ability how does someone recharge your batteries w/jumper cables? where do you put the gator clips? If I did have a solar panel where would I attach the leads? With a booster pak can you back feed the 6 main batteries thru the 12 volt auxillary outlet? which would lead back to the dc to dc inverter? and then where? All in all it’s been a good ride. I’m pretty plain and all since I don’t give a lick about rims & stereos. It’s getting hotter but with four windows to put down and my travel time is in a.m. then p.m. & not in the heat of the day I think I’ll be fine.
I have had my Zap for 1 year now and although it has not been a perfect ride (with a gearbox failure and later a charger failure), I still love my EV. I got the Discover EV-1 batteries reccomended by my dealer and have been able to travel up to 35 miles on a single charge in stop and go traffic doing close to 40mph. It is all in how you drive the zap that determines the range. I have over 7000 Zap miles on my EV already.
Instead of boosting my batteries, I think it is better to get more charging stations by making cities and businesses aware that it doesn’t cost a lot to put in a 110v charging outlet and it will help the environment and ev ownership as people are aware they can do without the gas station on every corner (which is happening anyway because the high prices is reducing demand).