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ePower Synergies Inc. is a “designer, developer, and manager of transportation systems for sustainable eCommunities.” The company would like to offer Niagra Falls tourists the chance to rent a ZENN Neighborhood Electric Vehicle. According to The Buffalo News, Brian M. Klumpp Jr., vice president of marketing and sales for ePower, thinks electric vehicle rentals would be "a great way to help attract people to this neck of the woods." Local Tourism Advisory Board member Debora Krieger pointed out that "Earth's Favorite Vehicle's" 35-mile range would leave ZENN drivers attempting to nip across the border into Canada stranded somewhere between Lewiston and Niagara Falls. What then? Ever the pragmatist, Mr. Klumpp Jr. said they'd tow 'em back.
7 Comments on “Niagara Falls! Slowly I turned. Step by step… into my electric car....”
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I know consumers can, on occasion, be a little short sighted. However, I’d like to think that the average renter would note that a vehicle with a 35 mile range wouldn’t be the ideal choice for an extended trip.
Most electric power in Ontario comes from coal fired power plants!! So when they come to recharge the batteries on their little beauties, guess what?
The base sources of power in ontario are nuclear and hydro. They actually sell a lot of coal power south of the border: heard an activist on TV complaining about this yesterday, otherwise i wouldn’t have know.
He feels we should stop selling the power and stop polluting the air. Apparently it’s easy to increase and decrease coal power production because all you do is throw on more coal, or so he says.
I have to interject here…I am an engineer at an Ontario nuclear plant and our plant alone (with 6 active reactors and 2 being refurbished) powers a fifth of Ontario alone. Niagara Falls itself has a rather large hydro plant run off of the falls. The misunderstanding about selling coal fired electricity south of the border is a bit of a muddy point as we too sell our electricity to the US. What the activists seem to misunderstand is WHEN we sell the power which is after peak hours (between about 7 at night and 7 in the morning). We run at full tilt all the time (that is the idea anyways…) and when there isn’t demand in Ontario and we have extra left over, that is when it is sold to the US. Same goes for the coal plant…so don’t let them confuse you into thinking that electricity is just sold to the highest bidder, we have Ontario to supply first. Now, to tie this post back with cars (this is a stretch) what our company is planning to do instead of selling power to the US off peak hours, is create hydrogen to power cars. I am sure that greenpeace will have a problem with that too though…
Great 3 stooges reference.
“Neighborhood car”? Do we really need that term in our vocabulary? Is this a replacement for golf carts for apartment leasing agents or what?
Whoever the target market for this thing is, I guess it isn’t me. Pretty sure this won’t pay for itself in making the twice a week trip to the coffee shop that’s 8/10ths of a mile away, and this won’t get me to work & back and if I happen to go somewhere for lunch or run an errand.
If you can make use of this thing you should probably just be walking instead.
Hey this might not work well in great metropolitian BigCityVilleAmerica but for those of us in small towns and cities this would be great!
My VW Cabrio burns through a tank of gas every 10 days or so. I could drive this electric car on on charge all over town for 2-3 days.
I know it’s a tough argument to make b/c my distances are so short, I could just about drive a dually pickup – so what if my mileage was only 10 mpg. On the other hand the price of these electrics will be high so it’s another mark against it.
What I want is a 150 mile per charge 4 seater about the same size as my Cabrio. Would do everything I need to including going to see Grandma (one charge each way).
We are aiming towards 2 city cars for daily drivers with a larger vehicle (VW van would be nice) for out of town weekend trips. Van would last forever b/c it would not do that many miles per year and the two city cars would be CHEAP (buy ’em used).