Alternatives To Traditional Gas Guzzlers
Have recently checked the price of gas? It is just going thru the roof! There is a lot of buzz on the internet about steeply rising oil prices and this MSNBC article reports oil prices reaching an all time high of $106 a barrel, so I was prompted to find out some alternatives to our traditional gas guzzler vehicles.
They can be solar powered vehicles, electric vehicles, CNG vehicles or hybrid vehicles. When automobile giants such as Toyota promise hybrid vehicles in a few years as reported in this New York Times article then I suppose you can conclude that vehicles using alternatives to petrol are here to stay. And when there is the matter of fuel efficiency of up to 120 miles per gallon, I would sit up and take notice. Wouldn’t you? CNN’s article about hybrid vehicles talks about electric vehicle manufacturer ZAP and Hybrid Plus’s new offering, which will permit conversion to a plug-in variety. Of course this conversion is for a very steep $24,000 to $36,000 depending on the vehicle and size of battery pack. And in any case these are the hybrid or the dual power source vehicles.
I am more interested in electric vehicles, you know the kind you charge, rather like you would a cell-phone, and go. I like the fact that these have no carbon emissions and do not use any fossil fuel and so are eco friendly and are way cheaper to run. I am seriously considering buying an electric moped because it just makes so much sense when you have to travel short distances and have lots of little errands to run. And I saw and rode one of these recently; have you heard an electric scooter? Neither have I! Simply because the engine is so silent!
I found that ZAP, quoted by CNN as a pioneer in the field of electric cars, offers a range of electrical mopeds/scooters and bikes as well. ‘Zapino’ in the picture here has a list price of $2995. I thought it looked rather natty too!
The Zappy 3 EZ scooter is more modestly priced at $580 while an enhanced version, the Zappy 3 Pro Electric Scooter is priced at $900.
One more good idea I thought was the electric bicycle, which is like an add-on for your bike, so you can undertake longer cycling excursions and when you are fagged out with too much pedaling, you simply switch to the electric power mode! These electric bike options will cost you $349 or $449 depending upon your requirements.
The World’s Cheapest car, ‘Nano’ was launched in