It's easy to get caught up in the Tesla Motors fantasy. A slickly styled $100,000 roadster with Lotus origins, a few thousand laptop batteries in the ass, and two measly cents per mile to run it. What's not to love? Well, plenty (particularly if you're one of those whose $5,000 deposit sits in limbo somewhere and whose driveway sits empty). Delay after delay — technical glitches, corporate power struggles, you name it — has rained on Tesla's endlessly ballyhooed parade. Yes, the Tesla Roadster is a tasty little ride — on paper, at any rate. But all this hurry-up-and-wait, will-they-or-won't-they business does tend to short-circuit one's enthusiasm for the car. Meanwhile, however, one little company is busy turning E.V. dreams into E.V. realities — and has been doing so for more than a decade. Since 1994, Santa Rosa, California-based ZAP! Electric Vehicles (ZAP as in Zero Air Pollution) has delivered more than 100,000 battery-powered and cars and trucks in seventy-five countries. Okay, so the three-wheeled Xebra sedan and truck don't quite make the heart flutter the way a Tesla Roadster does. But hey, there's something to be said for actually existing. Write a check for $11,200 and the Xebra's yours to keep. Hell, they'll even throw in a free year of electricity for the thing. And ZAP's got big plans, friends, including a 322-horsepower, three-wheeled sportster called the Alias and a cheeky little four-wheeler called the Obvio, not to mention a thoroughly modern 100-percent-electric crossover vehicle called the ZAP-X (developed with Lotus Engineering, in fact). Even eco-savvy UPS has plugged in to ZAP. The company just leased forty-two Xebras for parcel deliveries in congested urban areas in Northern California. The Xebra truck can hit 40 mph, carry 500 pounds of holiday cheer, and recharge at a standard 110-volt household outlet. So while Tesla's dream machine remains just that — a dream — ZAP! hums along as the little company that could.
Photos courtesy of ZAP! Electric Vehicles.
