Yuba may ZAP gas prices -
Zapino, Zappy and the Zapcars pulled into Marysville on Thursday, promising a reinvented wheel, zero air pollution and a 3-cents-a-mile cost that lets drivers laugh at gas prices.
"Things like this," said Doug McCoy, Yuba County's director of administrative services, "are the future."
He was looking at the green, three-wheeled Zaptruck plugged into an electrical outlet at the county Government Center and comparing the ride of such electric vehicles to the 2003 Mercedes E320 he drives.
"I was impressed with how smoothly these run," said McCoy, 50, who came here this year from Michigan and knows something about vehicles, electric or gas-fueled.
Santa Rosa-based ZAP was established in 1994. Its name is an acronym for Zero Air Pollution.
The ZAP cars, intended for short trips around town, can travel at up to 40 mph and go 40 miles between charges.
Since most county vehicles average only 5,000 to 7,000 miles a year, Yuba is considering adding a few of the electric vehicles to its fleet.
The sedan has a list price of $11,700 and the truck $12,500, although Dave Fields, who works in fleet sales for ZAP, added that's the manufacturer's suggested retail price.
The vehicles "are leaving the combustion engines in the dust," said Fields — and doing so quietly since one of the first things test-drivers said they noticed is the silence of a vehicle powered by electricity.
"You hear the breeze, you hear the birds," he said.
He was touting the electric vehicles as a second car for the family, not the way to commute to Sacramento but a perfect alternative for short trips around town.
The Zapino is a motorcycle and the Zappy a personal transport vehicle that the driver stands on and moves along sidewalks at speeds up to 15 mph.
The demonstration has its origins in a government technology conference in Sacramento that Tara Repka Flores, assistant director of administrative services for Yuba County, attended earlier this year.
Getting the electric vehicles from Santa Rosa required a flatbed diesel truck and trailer, but McCoy said such traditional transport will be stepping aside for Zapcars and other electrical vehicles of the future.
"Detroit's demise was its unwillingness to change," he said. "They'll be playing catch-up forever."
ZAP, in a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, observed: "With the recent increases in the cost of oil and increasing concern about the environment and the effects of global warming, we believe there is a large and untapped demand in the areas of transportation and consumer products.
"During the energy crisis of the 1970s, Japanese automobile manufacturers penetrated the United States market when domestic automobile manufacturers failed to anticipate changes. ZAP believes a similar opportunity is present today, enhanced by heightened environmental awareness, climate changes and economic pressures."
ZAP said it hasn't reached profitability, reporting net losses of $11.9 million in 2006, $28 million in 2007 and $2.4 million in the first three months of this year, according to the SEC filing.
"We can give no assurance that we will be able to operate profitably in the future," ZAP said.
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