Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) makes one of the few truly all-electric vehicles available today. I thought I would mention it in light of the discussion raging in Rick’s post from yesterday. I have friends who own these and have actually driven one on multiple occasions. The question is how useful is it, really?
The GEM is classified as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle under Federal law. This means it doesn’t have to have all of the safety features required of other cars, but is restricted to roads with a speed limit of 35 mph and has a top speed of it’s own of only 25 mph. It plugs into a standard 110v electrical outlet and gets about 30 miles to the charge. I’ve noticed they are very popular with large universities who use them for their maintenance departments and security services. My friends who have these live in Palestine, Texas. It is a joy to drive and does a great job of shuttling them from their home to downtown and most locations nearby. They use it so much that I considered the car’s appropriateness here in East Dallas.
My non-neighborhood friends refer to my neighborhood as my Bubble and are shocked when I venture out, say north of NW Highway. Yet there are many similarities to East Dallas and a town like Palestine. I can see the GEM being ideal for going between my house in Hollywood to my office in Lakewood, or the Whole Foods (when it opens), or the cleaners or other neighborhood services that I use so often. It even looks like it might be a good idea if one frequented Lower Greenville after dark. Might be a lot of fun at White Rock on a pretty day. Clearly, it won’t do to go much outside the Bubble.
Even within the Bubble I have concerns about that maximum 25 mph speed. Seems kind of slow for Abrams or Gaston, so I tried it out by voluntarily limiting my speed to 25 mph as I drove to the cleaners and to 7-Eleven on my way to the office. I admit it was disappointing. I crossed the Monte Vista-Brookside bridge with no other cars anywhere in sight. Before I got half way to La Vista, I had two cars on my bumper. The speed limit was 30. It worked better going up Abrams because I was headed north and most of the traffic was headed south. Going towards downtown on Gaston worked well also as long as the lights were red. At the point that three of them went green all at the same time and all going in the same direction, the problem with the 25 mph limitation became apparent again.
My conclusion is that a 35 mph speed would be much, much better here. I haven’t give up on the idea, but would recommend that anyone wishing to try the GEM be ready for a lot of hand signal communication from other drivers.
