GEM
Here's the article, page 1:
On most mornings when he thinks there might be a swell, Tim Brown, who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif., takes a cup of coffee and his labradoodle and heads out to check the waves. His three-finned surfboard is strapped down and ready, overhanging the tiny roof of a curious metallic-gray-and-white machine that looks one part Volkswagen Beetle, one part iMac and one part golf cart.
He climbs in, settles the dog in the passenger seat, turns a key, hits the "forward" button and rolls away in near silence through tree-lined streets toward the beach, ready for neighbors' friendly waves and tourists' dumbfounded stares. It's another day in a GEM car.
GEM stands for Global Electric Motorcar, and since 2000, when it bought the company, DaimlerChrysler has turned out thousands of them at a shiny factory in Fargo, N.D. A tiny insect-like electric with a stripped-down, surprisingly tall body on which even doors are optional, the GEM looks like an outsized Happy Meal toy. "I have dogs bark at me because they've never seen a car like this," said John Trevino, another Laguna Beach GEM owner.
But it is a real automobile — all 5 horsepower and 48 volts of it — legal in 30 states, including New York, Florida, Michigan and California. And it has been quietly creeping onto American streets, assisted by a low-key but deliberate marketing campaign and, lately, by enthusiastic owners.
"Besides being fun and adventurous getting to cruise around town without any doors, you can put four people in for double dating." said Mr. Brown, a chiropractor, who shares his GEM with his wife, Becky. "I could be on the payroll for GEM." Since he's been showing his around, he said, "I'm sure that no less than 20 people have told me that they're going to buy one."
Mr. Trevino and his wife, Kerry, defy the barking dogs to ride out often in their GEM, with their 20-month-old son in a car seat. They liked the car so much that they bought three more, which they rent out to vacationers at nearby hotels.
"Our son loves it," Ms. Trevino said. And Mr. Trevino added, "Most of our renters have kids because the kids are like, `Oh, let's go rent that thing.' "
The GEM has obvious environmental and economic advantages — no emissions, and so what if gasoline prices rise — and Mr. Trevino points out that it's visible on the road, "as tall as a minivan." But it won't replace the family car. Its maximum speed is 25 miles an hour, and the federal government classes it as a neighborhood electric vehicle, limited to roadways where the speed limit is no higher than 35. It is not required to have heavy-duty bumpers or air bags, though it does have to carry three-point seat belts, headlights, brake lights and turn signals. And though it can be recharged in the family garage, plugged into an ordinary 120-volt household outlet, for as little as 50 cents, Daimler said, depending on local electric rates, it needs a recharge after 20 to 30 miles. Where the cars are street legal, they are subject to registration and insurance rules that apply to ordinary vehicles.
So far, at least, Daimler has no plans to make the GEM faster or to increase its range, and no strategy to use it as a wedge into selling full-size electric cars. Many of the 28,000 GEM's the company estimates are now being driven in the United States are used on internal roadways at places like college campuses and state parks, or by police officers giving out parking tickets, and many of those were donated to government agencies or nonprofit groups in an aggressive 18-month giveaway program begun in 1998 to put them into circulation. (Some, like the four at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, spend most of their time inside buildings.) Daimler's initial interest in GEM's was to meet a mandate, now defunct, that a small percentage of automobiles distributed in California and New York would have to produce no emissions.
The company still makes occasional donations. It is lending 38 GEM's for use by delegates at the Group of 8 economic conference on Sea Island, Ga., next week — one, an American-flag-festooned four-seater, is for President Bush. But, to Daimler's delight, the GEM is also attracting customers at dealerships (dozens of GEM dealers, in several states, are listed at www.gemcar.com). Buyers pay $7,000 for a base model to $13,000 for one that's fully loaded.
(Page 2 of 2)
According to Richard Kasper, president of the GEM division, the car is turning a profit. And though he wouldn't release actual sales figures, he said in an interview in Fargo last month that sales for 2004 were running 30 percent above projections.
The Global Electric Motorcar was the brainchild of Dan Sturges, now director of Mobility Lab, an automotive research center in Southern California that he founded in 2001. He first envisioned the GEM when he was an automotive-design student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1986. "I was just interested in the future," he said in a telephone interview last month. "When I couldn't find any manufacturers to produce any prototypes, I set about to start up a company."
That company attracted backing and made the trans2, a GEM forerunner, in Livonia, Mich. But after 350 were sold, at $7,000 each, the molded plastic body panels began to weep an oily fluid that ruined the finish, required a recall and essentially bankrupted the company. A private investor from Fargo bought its assets for under $300,000 to start Global Electric Motorcars, began production and sold GEM for "somewhere north of $30 million" two years later, Mr. Sturges said. He is philosophical about missing the windfall, expressing gratitude that the car was kept alive.
On a stormy afternoon last month, Mr. Kasper proudly showed off the sparkling 100,000-square-foot plant in Fargo, which employs 80 people and is capable of turning out 200 GEM's a day. Skeletal, evolving cars hung from a mobile assembly line.
At the early stages, components like disc brakes and the G.E. engine, which spins backward to charge the battery during braking or coasting, were bolted to a tubular steel frame. Soon came the windshield and six lead-acid batteries, rechargeable through 3,500 to 5,000 miles. Toward the end of the line, cars picked up options like doors, a pickup truck bed, a plastic trunk or a clip-in carrier for golf bags.
Inside a door-equipped $10,000 GEM, Mr. Kasper pointed out the slide-down windows, windshield wiper and stereo, and a heater-defroster that the GEM communications manager, Christopher Mohs, said was powerful enough to get him comfortably to work in a North Dakota winter. Mr. Kasper showed off the simple controls — a fast-or-slow switch, blinkers, horn and a digital display of speed and charge level.
Off for a ride with four people aboard, the little GEM surged forward, creating a pleasant whirring hum. Like any electric, it produces prodigious torque, which gets it up to speed in a hurry, yet it rides smoothly. There is no shifting of gears or engine smoke, just pure, quiet energy. At speed, it was at once reminiscent of a golf cart and a small sports car.
With this little car, suited to the short trips that are most common for Americans, Daimler is staying in a business others have left. Ford and General Motors both sold electrics, including larger cars, in the 1990's, but have ended their programs and called back their full-size models for crushing. (Many big automakers focus instead on gas-electric hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles.)
LARRY OSWALD, GEM's chief executive, said that at first Daimler's attitude was "simply the realization that these cars would qualify and with minimum investment, at least meet the letter" of the no-emissions mandate. Then, he said, "I think there was a transition of thinking."
Now GEM's seem to be finding niches in the market.
Don Jenkins an entrepreneur in Key West, Fla., rents them to tourists and locals who quietly ply the streets of Key West, and more recently, Myrtle Beach, S.C. He said that electricity to charge the 30 cars on his main lot runs only around $140 a month. He gets $29 to $39 for two-hour rentals and $139 to $189 overnight, and has no trouble finding customers. "It feels good to drive one," he said. "They're not real cheap to rent, but 99 percent of renters seem very happy that they did."
Two years ago, Larry Dustman of Chandler, Ariz., bought a GEM to get around his home at Stellar Air Park, a fly-in community of 500 homes where, he said, there are now at least 11 other GEM's. A loophole in Arizona law at the time allowed buyers a $10,000 state refund on a new clean-air vehicle, making GEM's essentially free. The state soon closed the loophole, but Mr. Dustman was so smitten that he started NEV Accessories, a GEM accessories business, alongside his longtime sales of add-ons for the Thing, a utilitarian VW sold in the United States in the 1970's.
Today, he offers GEM add-ons like front and rear towing hitches, roof racks and high-performance wheel setups, including burly off-road knobbies or larger-radius wheels with low-profile tires, that can speed a GEM up to 30 or 35 m.p.h. Custom gearing can make them go even faster, though Mr. Dustman warns that this is not for use on public roads. He also builds custom steel beds, boxes and a hot box for GEM-based food vendors and is trying to develop rooftop solar energy collectors that will let the car recharge itself.
Back in Laguna Beach, the section of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs through town is often full of Hummers, BMW's, Cadillac Escalades and other vehicles far larger and faster than the GEM. While this tends to keep the Trevinos on the back streets, Mr. Brown motors along on the main drag unconcerned.
"People come up close behind you because you're only going 25 miles per hour," he said. "I know they have to get places quickly, but at the same time, I want to make them aware that there's a different way of doing things. Plus, I mean, you get to stop and smell the roses."
cute but 20 to 30 miles per charge? how long does it take to recharge? how to recharge in the city?
this must be what i saw recently parked on houston. i thought it was a suped up golf cart. would be good for summer rentals on the island (or whereever) - could leave it out there and take the train back and forth to city.
did this link come from autoblog?
The problem with all these cheapie electrics is that they're really
not cheap when it comes to batteries. Those that use them for
recreation or getting around a plush community could care less, I suppose. but they ARE NOT practical vehicles for transportation, per se. They are basically golf cart replacements. I'd rather pay $4500
to $5000 for a plush golf cart by Club Car that I know is reliable. I've heard some horror stories about this company and Chrysler's
failure to stand behind these vehicle. I hope the situation has been resolved by now.
|
- steve 6-04-2004 7:26 am
Here's the article, page 1:
On most mornings when he thinks there might be a swell, Tim Brown, who lives in Laguna Beach, Calif., takes a cup of coffee and his labradoodle and heads out to check the waves. His three-finned surfboard is strapped down and ready, overhanging the tiny roof of a curious metallic-gray-and-white machine that looks one part Volkswagen Beetle, one part iMac and one part golf cart.
He climbs in, settles the dog in the passenger seat, turns a key, hits the "forward" button and rolls away in near silence through tree-lined streets toward the beach, ready for neighbors' friendly waves and tourists' dumbfounded stares. It's another day in a GEM car.
GEM stands for Global Electric Motorcar, and since 2000, when it bought the company, DaimlerChrysler has turned out thousands of them at a shiny factory in Fargo, N.D. A tiny insect-like electric with a stripped-down, surprisingly tall body on which even doors are optional, the GEM looks like an outsized Happy Meal toy. "I have dogs bark at me because they've never seen a car like this," said John Trevino, another Laguna Beach GEM owner.
But it is a real automobile — all 5 horsepower and 48 volts of it — legal in 30 states, including New York, Florida, Michigan and California. And it has been quietly creeping onto American streets, assisted by a low-key but deliberate marketing campaign and, lately, by enthusiastic owners.
"Besides being fun and adventurous getting to cruise around town without any doors, you can put four people in for double dating." said Mr. Brown, a chiropractor, who shares his GEM with his wife, Becky. "I could be on the payroll for GEM." Since he's been showing his around, he said, "I'm sure that no less than 20 people have told me that they're going to buy one."
Mr. Trevino and his wife, Kerry, defy the barking dogs to ride out often in their GEM, with their 20-month-old son in a car seat. They liked the car so much that they bought three more, which they rent out to vacationers at nearby hotels.
"Our son loves it," Ms. Trevino said. And Mr. Trevino added, "Most of our renters have kids because the kids are like, `Oh, let's go rent that thing.' "
The GEM has obvious environmental and economic advantages — no emissions, and so what if gasoline prices rise — and Mr. Trevino points out that it's visible on the road, "as tall as a minivan." But it won't replace the family car. Its maximum speed is 25 miles an hour, and the federal government classes it as a neighborhood electric vehicle, limited to roadways where the speed limit is no higher than 35. It is not required to have heavy-duty bumpers or air bags, though it does have to carry three-point seat belts, headlights, brake lights and turn signals. And though it can be recharged in the family garage, plugged into an ordinary 120-volt household outlet, for as little as 50 cents, Daimler said, depending on local electric rates, it needs a recharge after 20 to 30 miles. Where the cars are street legal, they are subject to registration and insurance rules that apply to ordinary vehicles.
So far, at least, Daimler has no plans to make the GEM faster or to increase its range, and no strategy to use it as a wedge into selling full-size electric cars. Many of the 28,000 GEM's the company estimates are now being driven in the United States are used on internal roadways at places like college campuses and state parks, or by police officers giving out parking tickets, and many of those were donated to government agencies or nonprofit groups in an aggressive 18-month giveaway program begun in 1998 to put them into circulation. (Some, like the four at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, spend most of their time inside buildings.) Daimler's initial interest in GEM's was to meet a mandate, now defunct, that a small percentage of automobiles distributed in California and New York would have to produce no emissions.
The company still makes occasional donations. It is lending 38 GEM's for use by delegates at the Group of 8 economic conference on Sea Island, Ga., next week — one, an American-flag-festooned four-seater, is for President Bush. But, to Daimler's delight, the GEM is also attracting customers at dealerships (dozens of GEM dealers, in several states, are listed at www.gemcar.com). Buyers pay $7,000 for a base model to $13,000 for one that's fully loaded.
- steve 6-04-2004 7:29 am [add a comment]
(Page 2 of 2)
According to Richard Kasper, president of the GEM division, the car is turning a profit. And though he wouldn't release actual sales figures, he said in an interview in Fargo last month that sales for 2004 were running 30 percent above projections.
The Global Electric Motorcar was the brainchild of Dan Sturges, now director of Mobility Lab, an automotive research center in Southern California that he founded in 2001. He first envisioned the GEM when he was an automotive-design student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1986. "I was just interested in the future," he said in a telephone interview last month. "When I couldn't find any manufacturers to produce any prototypes, I set about to start up a company."
That company attracted backing and made the trans2, a GEM forerunner, in Livonia, Mich. But after 350 were sold, at $7,000 each, the molded plastic body panels began to weep an oily fluid that ruined the finish, required a recall and essentially bankrupted the company. A private investor from Fargo bought its assets for under $300,000 to start Global Electric Motorcars, began production and sold GEM for "somewhere north of $30 million" two years later, Mr. Sturges said. He is philosophical about missing the windfall, expressing gratitude that the car was kept alive.
On a stormy afternoon last month, Mr. Kasper proudly showed off the sparkling 100,000-square-foot plant in Fargo, which employs 80 people and is capable of turning out 200 GEM's a day. Skeletal, evolving cars hung from a mobile assembly line.
At the early stages, components like disc brakes and the G.E. engine, which spins backward to charge the battery during braking or coasting, were bolted to a tubular steel frame. Soon came the windshield and six lead-acid batteries, rechargeable through 3,500 to 5,000 miles. Toward the end of the line, cars picked up options like doors, a pickup truck bed, a plastic trunk or a clip-in carrier for golf bags.
Inside a door-equipped $10,000 GEM, Mr. Kasper pointed out the slide-down windows, windshield wiper and stereo, and a heater-defroster that the GEM communications manager, Christopher Mohs, said was powerful enough to get him comfortably to work in a North Dakota winter. Mr. Kasper showed off the simple controls — a fast-or-slow switch, blinkers, horn and a digital display of speed and charge level.
Off for a ride with four people aboard, the little GEM surged forward, creating a pleasant whirring hum. Like any electric, it produces prodigious torque, which gets it up to speed in a hurry, yet it rides smoothly. There is no shifting of gears or engine smoke, just pure, quiet energy. At speed, it was at once reminiscent of a golf cart and a small sports car.
With this little car, suited to the short trips that are most common for Americans, Daimler is staying in a business others have left. Ford and General Motors both sold electrics, including larger cars, in the 1990's, but have ended their programs and called back their full-size models for crushing. (Many big automakers focus instead on gas-electric hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles.)
LARRY OSWALD, GEM's chief executive, said that at first Daimler's attitude was "simply the realization that these cars would qualify and with minimum investment, at least meet the letter" of the no-emissions mandate. Then, he said, "I think there was a transition of thinking."
Now GEM's seem to be finding niches in the market.
Don Jenkins an entrepreneur in Key West, Fla., rents them to tourists and locals who quietly ply the streets of Key West, and more recently, Myrtle Beach, S.C. He said that electricity to charge the 30 cars on his main lot runs only around $140 a month. He gets $29 to $39 for two-hour rentals and $139 to $189 overnight, and has no trouble finding customers. "It feels good to drive one," he said. "They're not real cheap to rent, but 99 percent of renters seem very happy that they did."
Two years ago, Larry Dustman of Chandler, Ariz., bought a GEM to get around his home at Stellar Air Park, a fly-in community of 500 homes where, he said, there are now at least 11 other GEM's. A loophole in Arizona law at the time allowed buyers a $10,000 state refund on a new clean-air vehicle, making GEM's essentially free. The state soon closed the loophole, but Mr. Dustman was so smitten that he started NEV Accessories, a GEM accessories business, alongside his longtime sales of add-ons for the Thing, a utilitarian VW sold in the United States in the 1970's.
Today, he offers GEM add-ons like front and rear towing hitches, roof racks and high-performance wheel setups, including burly off-road knobbies or larger-radius wheels with low-profile tires, that can speed a GEM up to 30 or 35 m.p.h. Custom gearing can make them go even faster, though Mr. Dustman warns that this is not for use on public roads. He also builds custom steel beds, boxes and a hot box for GEM-based food vendors and is trying to develop rooftop solar energy collectors that will let the car recharge itself.
Back in Laguna Beach, the section of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs through town is often full of Hummers, BMW's, Cadillac Escalades and other vehicles far larger and faster than the GEM. While this tends to keep the Trevinos on the back streets, Mr. Brown motors along on the main drag unconcerned.
"People come up close behind you because you're only going 25 miles per hour," he said. "I know they have to get places quickly, but at the same time, I want to make them aware that there's a different way of doing things. Plus, I mean, you get to stop and smell the roses."
- steve 6-04-2004 7:31 am [add a comment]
cute but 20 to 30 miles per charge? how long does it take to recharge? how to recharge in the city?
- dave 6-04-2004 3:56 pm [add a comment]
right, lots of recharging. At around 50 cents per charge it's pretty cheap though. If practical, the rooftop solar recharger is way cool.
- steve 6-05-2004 6:46 am [add a comment]
this must be what i saw recently parked on houston. i thought it was a suped up golf cart. would be good for summer rentals on the island (or whereever) - could leave it out there and take the train back and forth to city.
- linda 6-04-2004 7:39 pm [add a comment]
did this link come from autoblog?
- dave 6-04-2004 10:51 pm [add a comment]
Nope, I read the times auto section. I think your link is broken.
- steve 6-05-2004 6:39 am [add a comment]
The problem with all these cheapie electrics is that they're really
not cheap when it comes to batteries. Those that use them for
recreation or getting around a plush community could care less, I suppose. but they ARE NOT practical vehicles for transportation, per se. They are basically golf cart replacements. I'd rather pay $4500
to $5000 for a plush golf cart by Club Car that I know is reliable. I've heard some horror stories about this company and Chrysler's
failure to stand behind these vehicle. I hope the situation has been resolved by now.
- anonymous (guest) 9-28-2006 2:57 am [add a comment]