Electric low-speed vehicles want you to know they're not golf carts anymore. They went to community college. They got their GED. They're somewhere between a golf cart and a real car, which is the exact spot on the transportation hierarchy occupied by nothing anyone has ever wanted to buy.
These companies looked at America and thought: You know what this country needs? Vehicles that can't merge onto highways. The business model requires Americans to voluntarily limit their transportation options in a nation where people drive F-350s to check their mailbox. Bold.
LSVs top out around 25 mph. That's slower than an e-bike. Slower than a moped. Slower than your neighbor's kid on a Razor scooter who keeps cutting through your yard. But it costs more than all of those combined and takes up a full parking space.
The pitch is that these fill some magical gap in the market. What gap? The gap between people who need to go somewhere and people who don't need to go anywhere? Americans already solved short-distance transportation. It's called walking to your actual car.
Someone ran the numbers and decided suburbanites would pay twenty grand for something that can't leave the subdivision. That same suburbanite will sue the HOA over fence height regulations but will definitely embrace a vehicle that makes them look like they're driving to a shuffleboard tournament.
The real genius is selling this during an election year when gas prices might spike. Convince people they're making a smart financial choice by buying a second vehicle that can only operate in a four-block radius. Accounting.
Every manufacturer in this space is betting Americans will rethink their entire relationship with personal transportation instead of just buying a used Honda Civic for three thousand dollars.
They're not even betting. They're hoping you'll confuse environmental anxiety with a reason to own a golf cart that's allowed on some streets.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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