Green Vehicles inc. Bang or Bust?
Friday, August 29th, 2008
Click the article to read the source on GreenVehicles.com web site.Date: 09/23/08
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We took a drive up to Green vehicles inc. to see the Buckshot above. While I was not allowed to drive it as it is there prototype I did get to ride in it. The truck seem to perform very well. It has a real bed to hold cargo and stands about six feet top of cab. This is an AC powered system coupled to a Transmission. So it has a Low gear for climbing hills and pulling a load. Construction is similar to the ZAP line in that this is a Chinese car that has been retrofitted to be electric by Green Vehicles inc. So the fit and finish is really about the same. Not great but not good either.
We will see if Green Vehicles inc actually does improve this. As a work truck this thing has serious potential. My reservations now are more about the Company itself. Green Vehicles seems to be allot of talk. When I visited them they had recently within the last few months moved into there new location. But my first thought was. If your going to have EV cars arriving here in late October And November shouldn’t you be setting up your warehouse? Where is all the stuff you need to set up and PDI your cars?
I left with more question than I came with. One would hope that a potential investor and reseller interested in the factory would at least leave with some paper work telling me when to expect the vehicles to arrive and be shippable. And when to send my Techs for training. etc.. But these details don’t seem to exist yet. Thus my feeling that maybe they are talking a very big game?
They certainly might have a better product in the Buckshot than the ZAP PK.
The Triac also seems nice but again it was just a prototype sitting in the room. Nice Leather covering the cheep China interior. But its a prototype.
I am keeping my fingers crossed about Green Vehicles inc, While they did not really impress me with my visit if they deliver in a few months then its simply because they are new. But in order for all of us to feel confident and secure that any new company can deliver real electric cars to us they will need much better customer service skills. Perhaps they have yet to bring those people on staff. The Buckshot shows promise with a real cargo capacity and a real American sized cab for “Joe Sixpack” sized Americans.
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Update: 10/28/2008
Flabbergasted, yes I said flabbergasted... We have been expecting to hear back form Green Vehicles INC. for a month. We have been actively working with the Owner Ehab Youssef, to set up our Green Vehicle Dealership here in Santa Barbara. Unfortunate I must say I am so unimpressed that I will instead focus on ZAP. While ZAP has its problems it seems as though Green Vehicles is even better at the smoke and mirror tricks than ZAP. The Founder of Green Vehicles claims he started his company because of his frustration with ZAP. Well imagine my frustration with Green Vehicles. After courting them for over 2 months, sitting on a sizable amount of cash to invest into Green Vehicles INC, we still have not even received a return phone call.
Our Last conversation with Ehab was about our dealership set up, we should have heard back over 3 weeks ago. But instead we hear nothing. We are expected to secure a retail location, pay rent and wait for no one to call us back? My biggest beef with ZAP is there lack of a Dealer Network. It would appear that Green Vehicles INC. has even bigger issues. Lack of communication with their interested dealers!
Even after we drove 6 hours to visit them, only to find a partially empty warehouse with lots of electric bicycles in it. Their representative tried to get me into selling those instead. We could see only a “Prototype” Buckshot. Our host did not even know we were there as potential dealers!!. Do they communicate with each other at Green Vehicles? They don’t want to communicate with us. It is shocking to me that we could show so much interest in Green Vehicles INC. and even try to help promote there products all to be ignored!. In this rotten economy it looks to me like Ehab’s lack of business skills will kill Green Vehicles INC. even before it gets started!
All I can say right now is be extremely cautious with Green Vehicles INC. they may tell taller tales than ZAP.
In fact we are extremely happy with our ZAP PK now that we have modified it some. Once ZAP gets its Dealer Network in place you should see lots more of them, After all ZAP is the only Car Co. to-date that is mass producing electric cars.
Beware of the Electric Car Company Green Vehicles INC.
At least until they go Bankrupt…
Update: 1/05/2009
Over this last week we have now received a few emails from Green Vehicles. Seems they noticed our post on there blogs asking when, where etc.. since we have been waiting from November for our Cars that we put a deposit down on to be delivered. As we had not heard anything we were happy to hear from them. However they informed us that the Cars are now not scheduled to be delivered until March!. While the time frame is not important what is important is the communication. Up until this week Green Vehicles has been Silent. After we requested our Money back they did indeed send us the Deposit funds back. I do believe that Green Vehicles has a great product, but they need lots of help in the customer service area.. When they actually have Electric Cars ready for Sale. We will be happy to buy and promote them .. Until then we wish Green Vehicles the best of luck.
