Monday, March 26, 2007

Possibilites for the US Army continued.








Pictures of the ZAP Xebra PK Truck.

March 7,2007 After a positive response for its Xebra Xero, electric car pioneer ZAP has designed a solar option for the three-wheeled electric workhorse - a photovoltaic panel that ZAP says can offer short-distance driving on sunlight alone. ZAP intends to showcase the new Xebra Xero (pronounced zebra zero) Truck at up-coming industry events for automotive fleets. The Xebra truck is a city car, available as a 4-door sedan or 2-passenger truck, good for city driving up to 40 mph and will cost about US$12,000 with the Xero Solar Panel Option. The car recharges normally by plugging into a standard 110 volt outlet for a full charge in up to six hours and a 50 percent charge in 1.5 hours. The ZAP Truck converts into a flatbed or dump-bed that can tilt to allow maximum exposure to the sun.
“If the Xebra Xero is exposed to sunlight during the day, and your commute is short, you can get pure solar powered driving,” says ZAP Chairman Gary Starr. “If you want to ensure 100 percent solar generated commuting, you can purchase a larger system that can sit on your rooftop.
The potential use for the Xebra truck in the military would be for the national or state guard. I'm thinking of catastrophes such as Katrina or even smaller things such as hurricanes or tornadoes. When conducting humaniterian missions such as bringing food, clothing and water to people who's homes were destroyed. They could use The Xebra truck to transport these things. Its payload capacity as of now is 500 pounds. With research and development it could also serve as a miltiary base transport, transporting munitions, fuel, spare parts, etc to anywere on a base. Of course it would have to be worked on to get its payload capacity larger.


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