In the far northern reaches of Wedgwood—land of jumbo single-family lots, towering conifers, and no sidewalks—a quintessential Seattle house party: salmon on the grill, a keg of local micro-brew, the occasional waft of sweet smelling smoke emanating from the garage, and people huddled on the deck wearing way too much clothing for a few days past the summer solstice, the milestone that inspired said party.
But then the outlandish silver and black thing in the photo below quietly zips up the dirt driveway and parks behind a corroding 1982 Lincoln Town Car.
It’s all electric. It’s street legal. And some dude made it in his Shoreline garage.
That dude is metal sculptor David Crow, whom I came outside to find rummaging around in the bushes looking for a suitable rock to put behind the back wheel just in case the parking brake slipped again.
Apparently Mr. Crow has not been idle since also creating what could be the most awesome gas-powered motor vehicle of all time, the Red Stilletto:
Crow calls his reverse trike-configured electric vehicle the TAD-EV. He claims it can be built for about $10,000, and that it “is capable of freeway speeds, tire burning acceleration, and has a range close to 100 miles.” It recharges in about eight hours from standard household 110 volt AC.
As with all electric vehicles, the key component is the batteries. Crow opted for heavy but cheap, using standard lead-acid golf cart batteries. There are 16 stuffed into the vehicle, and they account for about 1100 of its 1600 pound total weight. But all that weight set down low in the trike does have one upside—it makes it much harder to flip.
Since it only has three wheels, it can be registered as a motorcycle, thereby avoiding the long list of costly safety features required for cars. And because it has seat belts and a roll cage it’s legal to drive without a helmet.
Efficiency can vary widely depending on operating conditions, but Crow estimates on average the vehicle can travel three to four miles for every kWh of electrical energy consumed. For comparison, a Nissan Leaf that is loaded with expensive high-tech components including regenerative braking gets about 4 miles per kWh.
The TED-EV is all about a simple, practical design response to the need for urban mobility under the increasingly demanding constraints of our rapidly evolving world—a perfect fit for the “radically retrenched,” post-peak-oil world envisioned by author James Howard Kunstler. (My warped mind keeps wandering to Mad Max visions of fleets of TAD-EVs charging across barren outback salt flats.)
In my view, the best long term strategy for the future of urban transportation is to build cities in which cars are not a prequisite for life. That is, places where it’s an attractive choice for people to walk, bike, or take transit for a significant portion of their daily trips. But even in such a scenario, motorized personal vehicles like the TAD-EV will still have their place.
And really, there’s no need to wait for the future—inexpensive, electric, TAD-EV-style vehicles would bring benefits to both our city and our planet right now. So why are we still relying on guys in garages to make these things?
