Great Lakes Green Pages

Outside in the lobby of the theater was a unique vehicle. I have seen it before and never get tired of seeing it. It is a three wheeled electric car made by Myers Motors.  I first met Dana Myers briefly at an E4S event in Akron.  The car in the lobby is called the NmG and stands for No More Gas.  It is an all electric vehicle and perfect for a guy like me.

Dana Meyers took the stage to great applause, so apparantly I was not the only one in the room to have heard of the NmG.  We know that Cleveland and NE Ohio know how to make cars.  Never planning to be in the car business or retail, but he decided to jump in full force and make an all electric car.  We need electric vehicles like these for several basic reasons.  First there is a finite amount of oil on the planet.  The world took  125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil and the the next trillion will only take 30.  All electric vehicles cost less to drive no matter the price of oil.

Secondly there is the issue of congestion.  In 1900 only 25% of the world’s poulation lived in cities.  We are around 50% and by 2050, we can expect that number to rise to about 75%.  Not only is there not enough pavement for all these commuters, there is precious little real estate for parking.  It is expected that we will have 1.4 billion cars in the US by 2030.  If you have even been in traffic in LA at rush hour, or tried to find a parking spot in Chicago you can see the advantage of a tiny car like the one created by Myers Motors.  No matter what you try to tell people, most daily commuters get into their larger car all alone and drive 10-15 miles to work.  The NmG has a range of about 50 miles at 70mph, and seats just one.  Their real goal is not to replace everyone;s car, but to get every two car family to make their daily commuter car an NmG.  To address those who travel to work in pairs or who might want to use their car a little more often, they are planning the release of their DUO-a cute two seater.

Thirdly there is the obvious environmental issue of pollution caused by petroleum based vehicles.  Electric vehicles have no CO2 emissions.  Sure there are emissions generated from the power plants that generate the electricity to charge electric vehicles, but that is a fraction of the amount of pollution emitted by today’s autos.  Furthermore, as we add more and more highways and roads, few people talk about noise pollution cased by so many big cars on the roadways.  Electric vehicles are quiet.  If you think they have no pick up, you are wrong.  Some electric cars are being used in racing and tested against traditional vehicles.  The NmG gets up to 75 mph, and since it has immediate pick up, can reach higher speeds quicker- a plus at the on ramps.  Other advantage of the NmG over other electric cars is the size and weight.  When you try to take a standard car that seats 4, you need more batteries, more power, all adding more weight and thus needing more power….  The simple idea of a small commuter car makes it extra efficient.  It can plug right into the household electric to charge.  Most electric cars being developed operate on 220 and need a converter box to charge up.  That converter is expensive and neither your utility or your car salesman want to pay for it.  Besides, a few of these big cars means adding huge capacity to the existing infrastructure.  If all households adopted one NmG, about 80% could easily be charged at night on a daily basis without any extra infrastructure being necessary.

Lastly, Myers Motors is good for the economy.  They are all built in Ohio.  They use local talent to build their cars.  Through efficienies and economies of scale, they have managed to get the sales cost down from about $30K to $23K.  The largest cost of any electric vehicle is in the batteries and as we see advancements in batteries, we can expect that price to drop even further.  Myers has a commitment to keeping production right here in the US.  When they analyzed the cost of shipping the finished cars from China, they realized they could produce them for the same cost right here, and put Americans back to work.

Susie Sharp shows off the NmG from Myers Motors

You can order your NmG or DUO from Myers Motors here.  The only question left is what color do you want? They have 3 shades of purple.