Meet the Zap Electric Cars.

Zap Xebra Sedan

These make an awesome first car. Cute, eco-friendly, cheap to operate, inexpensive to buy, and...

...Hey Mom? Dad? Are you listening?

They Don't Go All That Fast.

Oh, and also it doesn't hold too many passengers. Teens get into accidents when they're DISTRACTED by a carful of noisy yakking FRIENDS.

• Top Speed: 40mph.
• Range: About 40 miles.
• Passengers: Four. Really!
• Size: Small car size...10 feet long, five feet high, four and a half feet wide.
• Battery: Low-budget. Well, look at the bright side...it's well-known, established technology, so it doesn't cost an arm and a leg. The bottom line is, it works.
• Charger: 110v onboard charger, meaning you can charge it up anywhere. Takes a while, though...if you want to charge up fast, better take the optional 220v charger.
• Weight: About 1500 pounds.
• Price: About $10,000, with mostly everything you want already standard.

Announcement: If you're already a Zap Xebra owner, there is a safety issue (now resolved in the new models) that you need to be aware of. Visit xebraworld.com to learn about the windshield tinting blocking out the traffic-lights thing (click on the link at the very top of the page "xebra owners click here").

Zap Xebra Pk

• Top Speed: 40mph.
• Range: About 40 miles.
• Passengers: Two, and cargo.
• Size: Minivan size. About ten and a half feet long, four and a half wide, nearly six feet tall.
• Charger: 110v onboard charger, same as the sedan. Also comes with the optional 220v charger.
• Weight: Light for its size: 1250 pounds.

Zap Xebra Zero

This is the Xebra sedan...

...with solar panels so that you can generate your own electricity from the sun's light.

If you like the idea of emissions-free driving, but don't like the idea of simply moving your power-dependence from the pump to the grid...

Now you don't have to.

You have the option of a solar panel on top of the car, as seen here...

If you're envisioning a perpetual motion machine, however (and I was, too; ), this isn't quite all that. But it is pretty cool to be able to independently generate some electricity to drive on.

Zap says the cartop panel is good for a short commute, if you've got direct sunlight...so I suppose you can gather sun while your car sits in the parking lot at work for the commute home. No need to plug in at work, maybe.

This isn't a half-bad idea, and goes one more step to demonstrate to me that Zap is the kind of car company which is listening to its customers.

What about the new Zap-X crossover? Read FutureCars's review and make up your own mind; )

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.
- Blaise Pascal

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