The Zenn of delivering the mail in Washington
For package delivery companies and the Post Office, the rising cost of fuel is taking an ever larger bite of revenues. In Washington state, Carolyn Triebenbach has found a solution. As a rural letter carrier Triebenbach does her daily twenty-mile route on only $0.40 worth of electricity. She uses a new Zenn NEV to deliver mail to 520 homes in Sequim. When she has a particularly heavy load of mail after a long weekend, she may have to take a 20-30 minute
[Source: Peninsula Daily News, thanks to Domenick for the tip]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John 10:58AM (2/11/2008)
Hi Carolyn:
I would like to hear more from you about your experiences with the Zenn. I live in Barbados and I think the Zenn would be perfect for here. The island is 21 miles by 14, so the 50 mile range on the Discovery batteries would be adequate for most people.
I am thinking of bringing in one as a test vehicle for a year to see how it performs here. A couple of questions for you:
1. Does the right hand drive conversion really cost US$5000. That seems really steep. We drive on the left here in Barbados, so I would need that.
2. Typically, do you get the range (35 or 50 miles) as Zenn advertises? How is this range affected by heavy loads.
3. How does increasing the car's max speed to 35mph affect the range. The maximum speed here on most of the roads is 60kph, which is 40mph, but with traffic, average speeds are closer to 30kph.
4. Have there been any reliability issues so far?
Thanks so much.
Jhn
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carolyn 2:36PM (2/02/2009)
not a typo i paid 5000 extra to get it into the us not for the rhd the article was a little off the mark, base price was 12500. but tax and import tax and i had it shipped to the post office cost 5000. so would this car work for you? I think after you get the real price (the total total) you would be into the car for nearly 18000. and for a little more the MILES ev might be better as it seats 4 and goes as far as the Zenn, you can upgrade the motor(not recomended by Zenn) to the zenn35 so that it can go 35 or more, not recomeneded because the owners think they can drive it like a car (YOU DONT WANT TO DO THAT) you MUST treat it like a ev. you cant peddle to the metal you must avoid pulling out in front of someone, you must drive like EVERYONE is goine to hit you and break you in to a MILLION SMALL PLASTIC PIECES. to be sure the batteries are the most disippointing i have had a full set replacement and then two batteries replaced and am awaiting the delivery of two more for replacement, i have only 5500 or so miles in nearly two years JULY 10 i Do LOVE my Zenn but im am waiting for the day when batterie tech catches up with the car, plan a trip to a location and get your friends to let you plug in while you are there, with a small area of travel it would make a great car, as for the miles im sorry to tell you that i do not get the amout that other driver get because i stop too much, each time you take off from a stop you pull out a power surge, the slower you pull out the better as to drag is drawn out and not a zap of power if you drive like a regular trafic driver, stopping at stop signs and bus stops etc you could get perhaps 35-40 i stop and go 500- 600 times a day on my route so i get about 22 miles and when i cant make my 20 mile route i park it, its too scarry to drive a 8mph. hope this helps and sorry its not timly i dont visit the site too often. let me know if you need to know more........zenn mail carrier carolyn
calebe 9:22AM (2/14/2008)
Zenn offers a right had drive model for about 500 dollars extra. I think there was a typo in the write up. 500 not 5000
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John M 9:48AM (11/27/2007)
"she may have to take a 20-30 minute brake later in the day"
Presumably the Zenn has regenerative braking, and she's recharging the motor .... or, more likely, you actually should have written BREAK instead of brake!
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Domenick 9:58AM (11/27/2007)
I was about to send a short note to them about that through the other comments page. >_< http://www.autobloggreen.com/contact/comments/
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MarkR 2:50PM (11/27/2007)
Sounds like a contract delivery person.
Heres my question for Carolyn. Do they reimburse for mileage?
If so you could really rake it in with a cost of only 0.40 cents per 20 miles. Puts a whole new wrinkle in mileage reimbursement. Unless maintenance costs make up for the savings.
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Chris M 4:05PM (11/27/2007)
This is a mostly rural route, too! There are lots of suburban mail delivery routes that would be perfect for this type of vehicle, and even more for EVs that could achieve freeway speeds.
We really should be encouraging the USPS to go electric on their shorter delivery routes - it would save them a bundle, and help hold down postage rates.
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Wipa 12:19PM (11/28/2007)
Until today, I had never heard of the Zenn. After I read this article, I became very excited about this vehicle. After visiting the Zenn website, I became very un-excited about this vehicle. Yeah, yeah, I know it's described as a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle, but I thought at least it would be able to do 35 MPH, and hoped for even more. Unfortunately, it's top speed is only 25 MPH. That's great if you only plan on traveling on residential roads which in most areas confines you to a very small radius.
The problem with this vehicle is that it's drivers will venture out onto arterials where the speed limit is at least 35 MPH, jamming up traffic, and annoying other drivers. Consequently, the usefullness of this vehicle is minimal.
As for the mail person who uses this vehicle to deliver mail on a rural route, that means this vehicle is used on roads with speeds in many cases much higher than this vehicle can travel. Consequently, this vehicle will do more to piss off people, than it will to spread warm fuzzies about saving the earth.
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Brian OH 6:18PM (11/30/2007)
Some strange comments here. How many of you
work for bigoil? It has taken ICE vehicles
100+ years to "develop", and you expect a
comparable EV overnight. It is happening but
obviously not overnight. Negativity just plays
into the hands of bigoil. Who gives a * whether
its brake or break - its great not grate.
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litesong 9:55AM (12/19/2007)
NEVs are limited by law to 25MPH. Washington state & others are considering laws to let them drive 35MPH. In some cases just a new software program will let them drive the higher speed.
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carolyn 12:47AM (12/21/2007)
how about a word from the owner....my zenn has now had the power up-grade and can now do the max allowable speed of 35 (yes 35) passed in to law last aug or sep the reason for a slow speed is that the car is mostly plastic(light weight so it can go somewhere) not medal and no safety features like air bags...the car is intended for city use, but the speeds i deliver at don't exceed 30 with lots of stops so if i am in your way you are driving on the sholder
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bill guthrie 6:27PM (8/31/2009)
Hi Carolyn, hope your Zenn is still working well for you. We may something a little more suitable for you and many other Postal Carriers very shortly. Please give me a call 415-963-2244
StuckOnSmart 9:26AM (1/05/2008)
I applaud you Carolyn for being open-minded. If the naysayers would get OUT OF THE WAY perhaps we could ALL do something meaningful on this planet.
The SELFISH mentality of the majority is -- they are blind to anything that they don't easily perceive affects them.
I'm looking into these type options myself. I currently have a luxury car (2000) which gets 31mpg which I use for trips, and a cycle trike which gets 52 mpg. Annually, I drive 2,000 miles in the car, and 10,000 miles on the trike.
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