October 21, 2004

You’ll get a charge out of this car

Doug Scott in his electric mini-car, which he uses to drive on short errands around town. It has a range of 50 miles and reaches a top speed of 25 mph on one charge.

By Lauren Heaton

Look closely at the tiny, egg-like vehicle that’s been rolling through the village lately, and you’ll find it’s not NASA preparing for a lunar landing but local resident Doug Scott on his daily trip to town in a mini-car that won’t go over 25 miles per hour and uses no more fuel than that of a 72-volt battery.

It’s the village’s first electric car, which, as Scott puts it, “is nothing more than a glorified golf cart.”

Equipped with heat and a flatbed for groceries, small cargo and passengers who like a cool breeze in their face, the car serves every need Scott, 87, would have in Yellow Springs. And it does it waste- and gas-free.

Scott became enamored with the GEM electric car when he and his wife, Dorothy, saw many people driving the vehicle while visiting their son in Hawaii. It was the car’s beautiful egg shape that first attracted the Scotts.

“Ever since I was a young man I’ve wanted an electric car,” Doug Scott said. “And I thought this one was so pretty!”

Scott admits that conservation was not the motivation for his purchase. As a younger man in his 30s, Scott said, he wasn’t terribly ambitious. But he always wanted to do three things during his life: travel down the Colorado River, sail in the Caribbean and own an electric car.

“I’ve now done all three of those things. It’s a completion of all my childhood dreams,” he said.

Living off the fruits of his accomplishments, Scott takes his car to Tom’s Market every day. He also goes to the post office and the library, taking side streets as much as possible to avoid traffic on Xenia Avenue.

A Depression-era child, Scott learned not to waste anything and has always driven fuel-efficient cars. But as he and Dorothy Scott, who is also 87, grow older, they travel less out of town and find less need for a full-size sedan, he said. When he sees Hummers around town doing the same things he does in his mini-car, he said, the need for conservation becomes even more apparent.

“It’s positively criminal to use a 200-horsepower machine to go the grocery store,” he said. “This has three horsepower, and it’s all I need,” he said of his car.

Scott can drive his vehicle for 50 miles before he needs to recharge it. Every night he plugs his car into an outlet in the garage, and in the morning it is ready to run again. In the month and a half he has owned it, he has never run the battery past half full, and he believes it “should last forever,” he said.

The Scotts designed their car on the GEM Webs site. The base model cost $7,000, and accessories such as doors, heat and the flatbed were another $4,000.

The electric components makes the car seem more like a toy than a functional machine, and Scott says he’s embarrassed to have such a “faddy” car. But the size and scope of the vehicle serves as more than transportation, he said.

The car is self-restricting and prevents the Scotts from driving too fast or going out of town when they shouldn’t. Their daughter, Sheri Scott, takes them out of town for doctor’s appointments and takes care of other needs as they arise.

“Further deterioration has got to come eventually, and we might as well prepare for it,” Doug Scott said.

According to Scott, once as he drove in the car by Tom’s Market, a man sitting on a bench eating ice cream took notice of the odd vehicle.

“Slow down, man, slow down!” the man yelled.

Many in town laugh when they see it, Scott said.

“I won’t be doing any superhighways in it,” he said. “At top speeds of 25 miles per hour, I can’t get into too much trouble with that.”