Miles Automotive

These cars from Miles Automotive are the new kids on the Neighborhood block.

Of course, being the new girl around here myself, I'd never hold THAT against them; )

What's to know? Miles Automotive has two NEVs for sale, an off-road version (it's the same car, seems to me...but it goes faster, so if you've got a huge sprawling ranch or just want to drive it on campus or whatever, here's your car), and at least two dealerships on my list...

...the ZX40 is a quite cute little neighborhood car, and probably will be stiff competition for the ZENN! It's about the same price, and they're claiming a range of 40 to 50 miles. Maximum speed, of course, is 25mph by law...for now.

The ZX40S is a little more expensive, a bit quicker on the acceleration, a bit longer on the range, and a bit more bullish on hilly terrain; ) In my opinion, worth the extra couple thousand.

...they're electric cars imported from China, but based on the Japanese Kei car, Daihatsu's "Move".

Kei cars, according to Wikipedia, are mini-cars from Japan produced to take advantage of favored tax and insurance status.

Gee, the Japanese government apparently made LAWS promoting (or at least not discouraging!) the use of small, fuel-efficient cars. Go figure. I was amazed to discover that Japanese companies have been mass-producing these tiny little (extremely) fuel-efficient cars for years, but they're not available in the United States. Why not? You might ask. Oh, because there's no market. Americans don't want tiny little cars.

Or, possibly, because the auto/oil lobbyists and their corrupt lawmaker buddies wouldn't allow us the choice.

So how'd it get to China, you might be asking...?

Yes. Well, Daihatsu sold their "Move" to China and called it the "happy messenger". Isn't that cute? The Happy Messenger. Why don't we call cars something friendly like that, instead of some obscure combination of scrabble-letters and numbers, some city name like "sebring" or "tacoma", or some version of "predator"?

Oh, that's right...


...because we Americans are still (mistakenly) marketing our cars to BOYS, and they like that sort of thing; )

The Kei cars have names like the Subaru Cappucino and Honda Life. Really! I'm not making this up. The Daihatsu Move even has a version called the Latte.

Here are a few more bites of food for thought on the Miles ZX40:

• the boss is a businessman, not an EV-enthusiast gone into production. In other words, the business model is probably based on something besides smoke, mirrors, and good intentions - which is a good thing if you don't want an orphan car.
• according to the gossip, Miles Automotive has its own money, so doesn't need to be pimping its business model to investors. This cuts down on the smoke and mirrors factor, too.
• the car's a Daihatsu underneath, albeit one that's been modified to run on electricity. All the parts you might need to replace eventually are mass-produced and reasonably widely available (in Japan).

These are cool. I'd definitely drive one; )

There can be hope only for a society which acts as one big family, not as many separate ones.
- Anwar Sadat

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