Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: shared electric or other alternative vehicles?

[D&J Bygott & Hanby (kibuyu]

At Milagro we use a shared GEM just for within-community work, i.e. 
transporting heavy loads between car-park and houses. It's  reliable as long as 
you maintain the batteries (keep topped up with distilled water), keep them 
charged and replace them when they start getting weak. They should last at 
least 3 years.

It's important to assign routine maintenance to an individual rather than just 
hope everyone will do it - they won't. 

Our landscape is fairly flat, however, and when our charge is getting low we 
can usually roll back to base. I don't know how a GEM would perform with hills. 
You might do better to invest in a hybrid which has that extra power when you 
need it.

David
Milagro CoHousing

----- Original Message ----
From: Terry (Sarito) Whatley <terry.whatley [at] gmail.com>


  Does anyone have any recent experience with community-owned
electric vehicles?  I've spoken with 2 people who had GEMs
who said that they had serious reliability problems.
  Some of our residents are looking into getting a shared electric
vehicle for local travel in this small hilly town.