The electricycle gets registered! (long)

[Eric Udell <eric@CONCH.NET>]

 Here's the whole sordid tale:

After waiting for a month, I called ZAP to find out how the registration paperwo
 rk
is coming along. To refresh your memory, the scooter didn't come with a title
since in CA it didn't need one ( you can read the story and see the photos at
http://www.electric-vehicles.com ) and nobody seemed to know what it would need
 in
FL. Shelly Starr from ZAP called Talahasee ( the capital of FL) and spoke with
someone at the DMV who said what we would need is a Manufacturers Statement of
Origin, known as an MSO. This would need to be signed by the a ZAP representativ
 e
and a SunCom rep, which is the Chinese company that ZAP gets the scooters from.
Shelly had an MSO drawn up using the VIN ( vehicle identifacation number ) that
they had on file for my scooter, and shipped it to me FedEx. The next day I
stopped by the tag office and checked to see how much this was going to cost me,
so that I could bring a check the next day and do this quickly and only end up a
little late for work. The girl behind the counter said that it'd be $125 or so,
because I'd have to pay the sales tax that I didn't pay CA. The next morning I w
 as
at the counter when they opened.
Well, I should have called in sick to work, because everyone in the tag office h
 ad
to have a part in looking over my paperwork, and the office manager had to call
the capitol to check on whether or not registering something without a gas engin
 e
was even possible. Then there was a big discussion on how many cc's the scooter
was, since this is one of the ways that the classify scooters, with anything ove
 r
50 being technically a motorcycle. I told them that it only barely did 25 mph, a
performance envelope that puts it at the bottom of the local scooter population,
and if they had to put something down under cc's they ought to put it down as
49cc's like other mopeds.
Next they sent a girl outside with me to check that the VIN on the scooter match
 ed
the one on the MSO. It didn't!!! I had never checked it, actually I never knew
where it was. I had figured that ZAP knew from their paperwork and that they'd
hook me up right. OOPs. It turns out that the VIN on a scooter is stamped on the
frame on the left hand side, near the ground where you put your feet. In this ca
 se
it's right in front of the centerstand.
As bad as having a different number was, the number that was there was VERY
difficult to read, causing the girl to not even go on record as to what the numb
 er
was, just that it obviously did not match the MSO. We went back inside to find
that the office manager was now convinced that I had to also go to the Police
Department and check to see that my scooter was even legal to drive on city
streets. I maintained that this decision was already made by the state, and that
the local Police had essentially nothing to say about it. This argument wasn't
flying in the tag office, and besides they now wanted me to confirm with Traffic
Officer Gomez the VIN on the scooter.
Happily, the Police department is only a mile or so away from the tag office, so
  I
could make a few trips on the very limited range that the ZAP scooter has. When
 I
got to the Police department I had Officer Gomez paged, and after a half hour of
waiting I called up to dispatch to see if they had any idea when he might be
arriving. It turned out that he was at the tag office, waiting for me, and nobod
 y
there had seen fit to tell him that I had gone down to the PD to meet him! We go
 t
that fixed and a couple of minutes later, Officer Gomez pulled up on his Police
Special Kawasaki 1000. I pulled the scooter around for him and we proceeded to t
 he
requisite question "how many cc's is it?". We then went over all the normal safe
 ty
equipment, like lights and the horn, and when that was satisfactory we started
checking out the VIN.
It was definately not theVIN on the MSO, and Officer Gomez had to head back insi
 de
the PD to check on ordinances. When he returned, he had with him an older office
 r
( perhaps a detective, he was in plainclothes) who asked about the cc's and then
asked me to put the scooter on its side so he could have a closer look at the VI
 N.
He scraped away some of the rust and excess paint and between him and Gomez they
decided on what the VIN was. It was a few digits different in the body of the
number, and the ZAP MSO also had four zeros on the end, which the scooter didn't
 .
The older officer then said that the only thing that they could check was the VI
 N,
because it's up to Talahasee to decide what's legal on the road (that statement
sounded kinda familiar...) and that all scooters are supposed to have a second
copy of the VIN in another location, perhaps we ought to look for that to confir
 m
the numbers that we can't read too well. After 10 minutes of searching the scoot
 er
we were unable to find any.
The officers decided that I'd have to go back to the tag office and check with
them about the second VIN, and that I could use the numbers that we found on the
frame for the title, once the MSO matched. I'd have to get a new one from ZAP.
That sounded like the easy part, so I called Shelly back, and told her that I
needed the new MSO to end in 688, not 975 like the existing MSO that I had. I al
 so
suggested that she put the MSO in Ella's name ( the scooter is a gift to my
girlfriend), not put the zeros on the end of the VIN and asked where the second
VIN was. She told me that it should be on the battery rack under the seat. I
checked and found nothing, it looks like mine does not have a second VIN locatio
 n.
I hoped that the tag office wouldn't know to look.
The next day I got the newly redone MSO with 688 ( the final three numbers as se
 en
by officer Gomez) but still with the zeros at the end in Ella's name. I called h
 er
and she stopped by to register the scooter during her lunch hour.
The tag office was totally confused about seeing "another" electric scooter, ("
 we
had some guy in here yesterday with one just like that!") and the girl that went
outside to check the VIN came back saying that it was not 6880000 like the MSO
claimed (or 688 like officer Gomez said it was), but 888. After a long wait whil
 e
they called Talahassee again, the decision was that with the extra zeros on the
end of the VIN they could not give Ella the title. Besides, they said, the numbe
 r
isn't 688 like the MSO says, its 888. AARRGGHHH!!! Ella was very upset, and let
 me
know.
That night I called Shelly again, and this time she agreed to leave off the zero
 s
and send us a third MSO with 888 as the last three numbers of the VIN. Apparentl
 y
all the other scooters that ZAP has have zeros at the end of the VIN.
Yesterday I got anther FedEx from ZAP with the new MSO in it and Ella got a chan
 ce
to get to the tag office after work, looking for the same girl who checked out t
 he
VIN the last time, that way the number would stay 888. If this try worked, it
would be at least a little appropriate since it was her birthday. I hoped that t
 he
tag office wouldn't ruin her day. I had also suggested that she do it at 4:30 (i
 t
wa a friday), that way all the public servants would be looking to go home and b
 e
motivated to just finish the paperwork, whatever the numbers were.
There was some grief over what to put down as the cc's of the scooter, but
somebody remembered me saying that it was like a 50 cc scooter in performance at
best, so they put it down as 49cc's and gave Ella a plate and a title. Hey, not
bad. Only 6 weeks after getting the scooter...
This will allow us to start putting some real miles on the scooter. As I write
this, Ella is off running some errands with the electricycle, and she'll start
using it to get to work on monday. I'll keep everyone informed as to how it all
works out.

Eric Udell
eric@electric-vehicles.com
http://www.electric-vehicles.com
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The electricycle gets registered! (long)