A ZENN Holiday
From Deb Seymour’s Christmas 2008 Letter:
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Xmas ’08 Hello Deb’s Friends and Family!
My name is Zoë and I am Deb Seymour’s new all-electric ZENN car!
ZENN stands for “Zero Emissions, No Noise” and is manufactured by the ZENN Motor Company in Toronto, ON. (www.zenncars.com). I am what they call a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle (NEV), which means my miles per hour are capped at 35 mph. No highways for me! However, given that Deb, like many urban Seattle-ites, hardly ever uses the highway to get through town, I am perfect for her daily driving needs!
I am easy to drive and easy to maintain. No oil changes! I can be plugged into any standard 110- volt wall outlet and my range is 30-50 miles per charge. I only take eight hours to fill my batteries up from empty and only four hours to get to 80%. However, as Deb rarely runs my batteries down past the half-way point, plugging me in here and there for little segments of time during the day works well to give me a 3-5 mile boost.
Considering that the farthest Deb ever drives from her house on a regular basis is her three times a week Pilates Class in Shoreline, WA (5.2 miles each way from Deb’s front door) and that Deb’s web design office at DebWebWorks is only 1.2 miles each way from her house, I am the perfect commuter vehicle. Deb’s local grocery stores, the bank, the post office, doctors, etc., are all about the same distance, so I easily get Deb around to those places too!
Deb found out about cars like me earlier this year, when she ran into her Ballard neighbor Dan M.
driving my cobalt blue ‘’07 ZENN car cousin. They were scooting across the Fred Meyer parking lot in their silent, electric car manner when Deb spotted them and gave chase. She said it was love at first sight (with the car, not the man- Deb already has one of those!) and after Dan gave Deb the scoop, she went to MC Electric Vehicles in downtown Seattle and did a test-drive. Need I say more?
Living with Deb is fun! She is a creative, interesting, smart, and busy girl. While I missed some of her life’s events in the first part of the year, Sweet Pea, Deb’s cat, told all. Not only is our Deb still busy with her ever-increasing web design business at DebWebWorks (www.debwebworks.com), she is still playing with her dynamite band, the Debonairs, (www.debseymour.com), still dating the huggable, lovable and wonderful Mr. Jason Wood, visiting friends and family, helping her parents out with various projects, playing tons of Scrabble, watching movies, working out, reading books, gardening…and going green!
Yes-besides buying me, this is what else Deb’s done this year:
- Bought all new energy efficient appliances (you should seen her electric bill plunge!);
- Installed rain barrels to harvest roof rainwater (ditto water bill!);
- Cut her trash production down to one 16-gallon can a week (ditto trash bill!);
- Re-insulated her basement (Mmn! Warm!);
- Installed a solar hot water system! (Yes, solar does work in Seattle!)
Back to me, though, I confess: I am quite the subject of conversation amongst the neighbors! All of them have come by to ask Deb questions about how I work, and some of them have even taken a ride! Then there are the complete strangers who walk up to us wherever we go. Since I can’t speak for myself, Deb gets to “toot my horn”, telling folks all about my features.
Luckily, Deb keeps a large pile of brochures on my dashboard to give out. She has even applied to the ZENN motor company to become an official ZENN Ambassador, meaning that she will get T-shirts and ball caps and even more fun stuff give away.
Deb and I have also joined the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association (SEVA) and are busy working on all sorts of projects to increase EV awareness. I, of course, love going to the monthly SEVA meetings where I get to visit with all my other electric car friends: everything from home-built conversions to gasoline hybrids. Truly, the pre-SEVA meeting tailgate party is an EV love fest for us cars as well as our owner/drivers!
That about does it for my part of the letter and I’m off to re-charge. However, Deb, who is sitting here looking over my shoulder, is itching to get on the keyboard and get a word in herself:
Deb: GOOD GRIEF! First my cat purloins the penning of my 2005 Christmas letter and now my electric car does? What is this world coming to? Hopefully a cleaner, greener future! It truly has been a year of marvelous wonders: a once-in-a-lifetime election, increased community participation, new ideas being floated about and in my personal world, all sorts of energy saving gadgets and devices. “Going Green” has become a passion in my life and has been extraordinarily exciting! For all the greening details and other questions…(“How much did the car cost?” “Really? Solar hot water works in rainy Seattle?” “Gee, Deb, did you really slash your electric bill in half this year by simply buying a new refrigerator?”) …visit my blog at www.debgoesgreen.com and feel free to post queries and comments! –D.
Sweet Pea: Of course I goaded the new car into writing this letter! We cats are sneaky that way…(it’s called revenge.) You see, unlike Goldie Girl Honda (Deb’s’03 Civic) or the Gray Broad (Deb’s ’82 Dodge Van) I can’t hear Zoë approaching. She’s that quiet! (I don’t like being fooled!) Plus, she isn’t very warm to sit on. No oil engine drips on my fur (I love getting all greasy!) and she’s not big enough to really hide under for crouching purposes. But if driving an electric car saves the planet’s birds and mice and all the other things I like to eat from Massive Climate Change Disaster, I’m OK with it! Not to mention, it’s kind of fun to watch the three cars squabble about who gets to park in front of whom…ever seen a jealous Honda? –S.P.
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