Three-wheeled car in 2009

Zap to do three-wheeled car in 2009
Zap, the electric car company based in Santa Rosa, Calif., is adding another electric car to its lineup.

The three-wheeled Alias, due to go into production in 2009, will have a top speed of over 100 miles an hour and go 150 miles on a charge, according to Zap. It will sell for $30,000. The Alias will also likely come with a hybrid range extender, a small gas motor that can power the car or charge the battery.

The Alias will actually be made by a joint venture between Zap and China's Youngman Automotive Group. The company has an animated video of the prototype here. Zap said last year it planned to release a $30,000 electric car in 2009 but didn't mention at the time that it was a three-wheeler.

Zap also sells a three-wheeled low-speed electric car. (Check out the test drive here. It was a bit scary to drive, but we got noticed.)

Until recently, three-wheelers have occupied a niche of a niche of a niche. Some European companies made them back in the 1950s and '60s. And an evil villain drove one in Goldmember, the third movie in the Austin Powers trilogy.

Some three-wheelers, though, are going upscale. Venture Vehicles plans to bring three-wheeled hybrids and electric cars that would sell in the $20,000 range to the States starting next year.

Three-wheelers don't weigh as much as their four-wheeled counterparts, so they can go farther on a charge than regular electric cars. They are smaller, too, making them easier to park in cities.

Three-wheelers can also get to the market faster because they are classified as motorcycles, which means there is less safety testing. And they can be fun to drive. Venture's cars, based on a car design from the Netherlands, will tilt into turns like a motorcycle.

Zap, though, has many skeptics, and the company has many projects still in the works. It is also coming out with the Zap-X, an electric SUV later this year.

Zap, for its part, notes it is working on these projects with Group Lotus, a British car company. The Alias, in fact, grew out of the Zap-X project.

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5 reasons to buy an electric car: reader comment from zappedone
5 Reasons to Buy an Electric Car
Submitted by nhayssen on Thu, 01/31/2008 - 14:52.
1. Zero Air Pollution
ZAP stands for Zero Air Pollution. We believe electricity is the fuel of the future. With electricity to power our transportation, our world can tap into renewable resources like hydroelectric, solar, wind, or geothermal power; resources that lessen our environmental footprint. Furthermore, studies show that millions of electric vehicles can recharge at night using existing surplus electrical generation; a vast, virtually untapped resource.
2. Save Gas
Gasoline is a precious natural resource and vital to the world economy. ZAP vehicles use no gasoline and require no oil changes. Using less fossil fuel can help relieve our current energy shortages while ensuring that future generations can rely on the same inexpensive, useful, petroleum products that we all take for granted.
3. Save Money
Gas keeps getting more expensive. Imagine all the money you can save by ZAPPING to work every day, rather than driving your gas vehicle. The typical electric car costs a penny per mile versus ten cents per mile with gas. Electric bikes and scooters are even less expensive. Plus, electric motors have fewer moving parts, meaning fewer trips to the mechanic. If you live close to work, you can save thousands of dollars per year by replacing your car with a ZAP bicycle.
4. Save Time
Traffic congestion and parking shortages eat away at our busy days, but a ZAP vehicle can help you save time, especially in busy urban areas. ZAP bikes and scooters slice through traffic jams and finding a place to park your ZAP neighborhood car is a snap.
5. Help the Economy
Today, the majority of USA's foreign trade deficit is attributed to imported oil. Using a ZAP vehicle will reduce our reliance on foreign oil. Furthermore, by investing in advanced transportation technologies, the USA can take the technological lead in offering energy efficient products that emerging economies around the world can use to build their own transportation infrastructures.

Lisa Marie Presley Elvis Presley Pregnant Husband Michael ...

Lisa Marie Presley is having her third child, first with her fourth husband, musician Michael Lockwood.

Lisa, 40, is upset that the “media” is having fun at her expense by calling her fat, rather than pregnant, because she says on her MySpace blog, that she’s pregnant, not fat:

“After being the target all week of slanderous and degrading stories, horribly manipulated pictures and articles in the media, I have had to show my cards and announce under the gun and under vicious personal attack that I am in fact pregnant.

Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight. Starting with a London publication and then New York and Chicago all writing false defamatory degrading stories about all of the dark possible reasons I could be putting on weight. The US tabloids have been calling all day wanting confirmation on all kinds of insane theories.

They couldn’t wait to find out if my weight gain was because I was just overeating, in which case It would be open season and they can do the old following in her fathers sad and unfortunate demise story again or less interesting for them and probably much to their dismay, I could just be pregnant and therefore have a legitimate reason for weight gain at which point they should probably wipe the saliva off of their fangs and put them back in their mouths or they may expose the black little souls that they are.

Now that things are confirmed, hopefully they can stop all of the harassment and I can stop dodging the continuous bullets. It is unfortunate that I couldn’t have announced something that is this much of a blessing and that has made us so incredibly happy under better circumstances.

How they have handled themselves with this has been nothing short of irresponsible and disgusting.

Pardon my seething contemptuous tone but ladies, You KNOW if you were pregnant and you felt you were expanding uncontrollably by the moment as a result and the worldwide media started badgering and harassing you for it, plastering you everywhere in an unflattering light, you would be mortified as well.”

Lisa’s rep said, “The couple are incredibly overjoyed.”
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Lisa Marie Presley has confirmed, with excitement and yet a great deal of reluctance, that she and husband Michael Lockwood are expecting their first child together this fall.


The 40-year-old Elvis heir announced the impending stork delivery Thursday in a message titled "Confirmation under the gun" on her MySpace blog. The post came in response to the spate of unflattering speculation in the media on her rapidly expanding midsection.

"After being the target all week of slanderous and degrading stories, horribly manipulated pictures and articles in the media, I have had to show my cards and announce under the gun and under vicious personal attack that I am in fact pregnant," she wrote.

"Once they got a glimpse of my expanding physique a few days ago, they have been like a pack of coyotes circling their prey whilst eerily howling with delight...They couldn't wait to find out if my weight gain was because I was just overeating in which case it would be open season and they can do the old following in her father's sad and unfortunate demise story again or less interesting for them and probably much to their dismay, I could just be pregnant..."

While Presley regrets the circumstances that led to her divulging her happy news, she is nonetheless thrilled that she is expecting.

"It is unfortunate that I couldn't have announced something that is this much of a blessing and that has made us so incredibly happy under better circumstances," she wrote, going on to further explain her ire.

"Pardon my seething contemptuous tone but ladies, you KNOW if you were pregnant and you felt you were expanding uncontrollably by the moment as a result and the worldwide media started badgering and harassing you for it, plastering you everywhere in an unflattering light, you would be mortified as well."

Lockwood, 46, is a guitarist and music producer who toiled as Presley's musical director and oversaw her 2005 album, Now What. They married in January 2006 in Japan, with ex-husband Danny Keough serving as best man.

Presley has two children from her union with Keough, 18-year-old daughter Riley and 15-year-old son Benjamin. This will be Lockwood's first child.

ABOUT 40,000 pairs of sunglasses with a "vision hazard"

Harzardous sunglasses recall
ABOUT 40,000 pairs of sunglasses with a "vision hazard" have been recalled after being given away free with Marie Claire magazine.

Pacific Magazines, which publishes Marie Claire, voluntarily recalled the brown-coloured sunglasses distributed with the February edition of Marie Claire as part of the magazine's Sunsmart campaign with the Cancer Council, NSW Fair Trading Minister Linda Burney said.

She said the sunglasses did not meet the lens performance requirements of the mandatory Australian safety standard for sunglasses and fashion spectacles.

"Testing identified the glasses posed a vision hazard and should have carried a label warning wearers not to use the sunglasses while driving,'' Ms Burney said.

"The sunglasses may affect the visibility of flashing blue light emitting diode (LED) signals and, for those with colour vision deficiencies, they may affect the recognition of green traffic signals.

Ms Burney said the sunglass lenses could also affect people's perception of moving objects.
Magazine readers can receive a black pair of the sunglasses by returning a brown pair to Pacific Magazines.
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Alberta Ferretti to launch sunglasses - Elle UK
Alberta Ferretti to launch sunglassesElle UK, UK - 16 minutes agoThe company has signed a 7 year license deal to produce sunglasses and optical frames which will hit Alberta Ferretti boutiques this summer. …