ZENN and the art of not getting killed

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By Dan Neil, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Recently, I had a chance to test-drive the new electric ZENN low-speed vehicle in Los Angeles. And I lived to tell the tale. ZENN -- Zero Emission, No Noise -- is a Toronto-based company that takes a French Microcar MC-2 city car and stuffs it with six lead acid batteries and a 7.6-hp electric motor. The resulting LSV is certified to operate on city streets with no higher than 35 mph speed limits, while the car itself is limited to 25 mph. (www.zenncars.com).

The car weighs less than 1,300 pounds, so it actually gets off the line pretty well and motors around congested city streets with aplomb. The problem is that no one in Los Angeles drives the speed limit and, on busy city streets, the ZENN constitutes an adorable rolling roadblock. Also, since these kinds of cars are not engineered to pass American crash tests, they are somewhat vulnerable in the event of a collision with, say, a Vespa.

The ZENN also has a hugely noisy cabin, the result primarily of a lack of any kind of suspension bushings to speak of. I think the car could spare 20 pounds for more isolated shock tower mountings.

Still, the ZENN would be huge fun to drive in low-speed environments such as Santa Monica or Playa del Rey or just about any planned unit development of retirement community you can name.

Thoughts? Electric cars are the future of personal mobility, but the tradeoff between battery weight, cost and power are still difficult to reconcile for most consumers. Also, smaller and lighter car design -- without which electric mobility would be impractical in the short term -- has to coincide with efforts to reduce the average fleet size. It’s just unnerving to drive these Euro-sized city cars around big trucks and SUV’s.