EVLN(DChrysler put GEMs for lease at SLO Stanley Motors, Coburns Sparrow)

[Bruce EVangel Parmenter <brucedp@yahoo.com>]

EVLN(DChrysler put GEMs for lease at SLO Stanley Motors, Coburn’s
Sparrow)
[The Internet Electric Vehicle List News. For Public EV informational
 purposes. Contact publication for reprint rights.]
 --- {EVangel}[Thanks to Allen Hopkins]
[ http://web.sanluisobispo.com/content/slo/2001/06/25/home/slo43320.htm
]
Monday, June 25, 2001 Singing the auto electric Adrian Rodriguez The
Tribune

They’re faster than a speeding golf cart. That’s what most people think
about electric vehicles. But with oil prices drilling holes in so many
pocketbooks and gas prices driving so many people up the wall, more
and more car dealerships are selling what seems so futuristic, yet so
out-of-date. They’re faster than a speeding golf cart.

That’s what most people think about electric vehicles. But with oil
prices drilling holes in so many pocketbooks and gas prices driving so
many people up the wall, more and more car dealerships are selling
what seems so futuristic, yet so out-of-date.

One San Luis Obispo auto merchant joined the ranks this month when
Daimler Chrysler put General Electric Motor Cars called GEMs on the
lot for lease at Stanley Motors. The first dealership in the county to
offer low-speed electric vehicles, Stanley Motors hopes that GEMs will
fill a niche in San Luis Obispo: those short trips to the store and
around town.

It is a niche that few San Luis Obispo drivers have discovered, but
it’s one that GEM dealers are banking on.

GEMs aren’t the only electric cars in the county. In fact, there are
two different schools of thought with regard to solely electric
vehicles; low-speed carts that can carry up to four people and
hundreds of pounds, and smaller cars that can take one person far,
fast.

Brian Coburn of Atascadero has owned both types in the last 20 years,
and he says that he prefers the small and fast version. He also said
he has to schedule an extra 10 minutes while running errands to answer
questions about his little green machine, the Corbin Sparrow.

People have an image of electric cars being a glorified golf cart,”
Coburn said. “But driving electric vehicles is just fun. It’s like
driving a car on rails, and most people are enthusiastic about them
when they see them.”

Coburn’s Sparrow, a boot-shaped electric motorcycle with three wheels
that carries one person, takes him into Atascadero — and as far as 35
miles — on a three-hour charge in a 220-volt electrical socket in his
home.

The first thing that people worry about is the safety, because they
don’t see how something so small can be safe at high speeds,” he said.
“It is a three-wheeled car, so you do have to use common sense, but
most of the weight is below the axle so it’s pretty stable.”

He said that his brother Mark Coburn introduced him to his first
electric car in the early 1980s. Although that car got a bad rating in
Consumer Reports, he said he enjoyed using electric cars so much that
he was willing to wait a year to lease his Sparrow.

Now Coburn uses it to drive to work to save gas. He said he owns a
gas-powered car, too, and considers the Sparrow secondary. But more
often than not, Coburn admits that “the van sits.”

Don Reaber of Paso Robles drives a gas-powered Mazda pickup and had
never seen the Sparrow before. He agreed that it would be fun to drive
to work and back, but that he probably wouldn’t buy one.

The only thing I don’t like about it is that you can’t carry anything
big in it,” Reaber said. “I have two kids. It has a neat little look
to it, though.”

That’s where Ron Cogan, president and CEO of Green Car Group in San
Luis Obispo, hopes the GEMs will come in. He said that these three-
and four-seat cars, which drive up to 25 mph and can be used on any
roads with a 35 mph speed limit, may be just the vehicle for downtown
San Luis Obispo.

The GEM makes a lot of sense,” Cogan said. “There’s no question that
these cars are different, but if you live in an area where you can get
around and do your errands on roads that are posted for 35 mph or
less, it would be very convenient and functional.”

Out-of-date’ is no exaggeration when describing electric cars; not
many people know that electric cars cruised streets as early as 1850.

Even fewer know that they actually outnumbered gas-powered cars by 2
to 1 at the turn of the 20th century, according to the Renewable
Energy Policy Project, an organization that investigates the
relationships among policy, markets and public demand to advance
renewable energy technologies.

But by 1910 drivers found that the raw power, in the form of
gas-powered engines like those in today’s cars, were a sign of
prestige, progress and power. The electric car was left to collect
dust in the American garage.

Now on the verge of making a comeback, drivers might think that they
are made to replace gas-powered cars, Cogan said.

When the microwave first came out, some people looked at it as a
replacement of the oven, but it’s not,” he said. “It’s job was only to
augment the functions of an oven.”

Cogan said that electric cars should be thought of as secondary
vehicles.

We don’t use microwaves to cook a turkey,” he said.




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=====
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