Vision Motor Cars' Light-Duty All-Electric Pickup
Like anyone, I’m loath to post unflattering pictures of myself, but I had to laugh when I saw this one, so I thought I’d go ahead.
I spent most of last Thursday in Charlotte, NC with Vision Motor Cars’ CEO Brooks Agnew and COO Ed Kowalski. After several hours’ conversation on business strategy in Amelie’s, a fabulously hip French bakery that has become my Charlotte office, I test drove the latest version of VMC’s light-duty all-electric pickup truck, the “Everest.” I look extremely uncomfortable — almost frantic — backing the truck out of a parking space in Amelie’s cramped lot, desperately trying not to hit anything.
In my defense, and as I mentioned earlier, driving the Everest takes some getting used to, in several respects; it has a clutch to “feather” shifting between its five forward speeds. But there are so many differences between this and my little (45 MPG) six-speed VW Jetta diesel or the six-speed BMWs (an ’85 735i followed by a ’95 540i) I had earlier, it’s hard to know where to start. First, this isn’t an internal combustion engine with a flywheel that needs to keep spinning; you couldn’t stall it if you wanted to. And because of the high torque at zero RPMs, you can take off from a stop in 3rd or even 4th gear, and forget about shifting altogether.
It’s reliable, inexpensive, and all-electric, with a range of about 100 miles. It’s a great little truck for folks who work locally and don’t like the concept of our country’s borrowing a billion dollars a day to support our addiction to oil, and sending that money to our enemies.