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Go Home Electric Cars Have Arrived! ...sort Of.

THE VINE JULY 25, 2008

Electric Cars Have Arrived! ...sort Of.

BY AUTHOR INFO NEEDED

Why wait for the Chevy Volt? Some drivers, sick of high gas prices, are flocking to an electric car model already on the market:


Under pressure from rising fuel prices, towns across the United States are passing bylaws to permit the use of golf carts on their streets as an alternative to cars...

"You can definitely save on gas - my cart's electric, but even the ones that run on gas hardly use any of it," said Paul Heideman, mayor of Ashkum, a town in rural Illinois.

Numerous other towns in Illinois, Indiana and North Carolina have implemented similar regulations or are considering them. And in several places where the carts are an increasingly common sight, another benefit is becoming clear: with no windows or doors to separate drivers from each other, or from pedestrians, the texture of daily life is changing. "It leads to a friendlier atmosphere," Heideman said.

Sure, most carts top out at about 20 mph, and you can't exactly commute on the freeway, but for most short trips, why not? (Well, the other downsides are that the carts can cost $2,000 if you don't already own one and could easily get squashed by the average SUV.)

--Bradford Plumer

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8 comments

I would bet on a bright future for plug-in hybrids. Uses electricity for short hops and gasoilne for larger trips. And is basically available today.

- r-ennis

July 25, 2008 at 11:15am

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But 20 mph golf carts on public roads are a total freaking nuisance.  Unlike the equally pokey bicycle, they're too wide to get around easily, so on any halfway busy street, cars are going to pile up behind them.  

- aeromonas

July 25, 2008 at 11:46am

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Does the picture look to anyone else like Bush is getting a driving lesson?

- bigfish

July 25, 2008 at 12:07pm

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Around the neighborhood, maybe, but otherwise what aeromonas said.

- cspencef

July 25, 2008 at 12:33pm

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Brings to mind "The Prisoner," where everyone toodled around in golf carts and then Patrick McGoohan made a valiant attempt to escape until one of those nifty giant bouncing white balloons chased him down. Goddess, I'd kill for one of those giant bouncing white balloons.

I'd love to see some golf cart road rage, though. Maybe equip all of them with big foam Nerf hammers so when somebody cuts somebody else off at 10 mph they can pull over and flail away at each other with the hammers.

Also, since they'd all be dorky looking and slow, marketers would face new challenges. Instead of all these smooth-sounding names (Acura, Infiniti, C-class), the golf cart names would have to go in the other direction: Ford Bumblepuppy, Lexus Tiddley Wink, BMW Plotz.

Be the first on your block in the new Chevy Turd Blossom!

- williamyard

July 25, 2008 at 1:52pm

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By the way, in my sentence "...since they'd all be dorky looking and slow, marketers...", I intended the pronoun "they" to refer to the golf carts, not the marketers.

An editor by trade, I rue such sloppiness, regardless of the veracity of its unintended implications.

- williamyard

July 25, 2008 at 2:15pm

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Oh man...

And legally unleash the the snowbird retirees upon the roads of America in golf carts? I guess the bright side is that since the vast majority of golf-cart users are that these same folks aren't driving around their 76 Chevy Caprice in traffic. At least with all the old timers riding these one could nudge them out of the way once the step-and-glide drivers have run down the cart's batteries. Maybe some clever marketer will come out with a family mini-SUV version and call it the Esplanade.

Mr. Yard...

When I think of people riding their golf carts around the first thing that comes to mind is Mr. Roarke and Tatoo arriving to shuttle you to your latest fantasy....in this case they'll take you to a far away place packed with beautiful women participating in golf-cart crash derby.

- singlespeed

July 25, 2008 at 2:40pm

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This all sounds far fetched, but we have to mind scale here.  Remember all of those posts with which Mr. Plumer has imbued us regarding the suburban retreat?  If residents are packed into dense metropoli, entire counties need not be traversed in the home-work commute, and thus the need for speed is diminished.  

I just hope that they make "bottom convertables" so that the flooring can be removed and drivers can drop their feet to the pavement, pedelling as a Flinstone might.

Yaba-daba-do!

- dylanposer

July 25, 2008 at 5:23pm

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