Charge up and avoid the charge

The British motorist seems to take the ever increasing cost of motoring on the chin. It doesn’t seem to matter what the price of a good old gallon of petrol (or diesel) is. We seem happy to hand our cash across the counter to oil companies and the government without so much as a whimper. We even swallow Ken’s Congestion Charge.

There is however, a solution for urban motorist. Microcar-ZENN, an electric microcar manufactured in France and developed in partnership with Canada’s Feel Good Cars is about to become a viable alternative for the UK. The market leader in microcars, and the company that gave its name to the genre, Microcar, is now to introduce the award winning ZENN to the UK – which is to be the lead European country for the company’s EV thrust - in both two and four seater form.

The average urban speed in the UK is now somewhere around 20mph (or considerably lower in London), the average trip for an urban driver is rarely more than 10 – 15 miles. Daily urban motoring is not much more than 40 miles per day. So issues of range and speed don’t really enter the user equation when the need for a car is considered logically. The Microcar-ZENN electric can easily exceed those parameters on a regular basis. Now, here’s the rub. Whilst a conventional internal combustion-engined car sees its fuel consumption soar in city driving, it makes little difference to the Microcar-ZENN electric. All the driver needs to do to top up is to plug into a power supply. Essentially, no costs, no pollution at the point of use, no road tax, no parking problems, no congestion charges.

With a targeted 60 mile range on a full charge under typical urban driving conditions and a top speed in excess of the average urban level, the Microcar-ZENN electric packs many of the features that have hitherto been missing from the sub £8,000 EV market, including regenerative braking and optional lithium ion battery power.

Microcar compact low-emission urban vehicles are manufactured in France and distributed in the UK through over 60 dealerships by Microcar UK. The range includes EFi petrol models in both two and four seat versions that offer fuel efficiencies of 60 plus MPG, starting at on the road prices of £6,495.