Abstract :
The Gizmo represents a new class of vehicle; The Neighborhood Electric Vehicle or “N.E.V.”. This type vehicle has been anticipated by planners and architects as a means of reducing congestion and pollution in urban areas, and as a viable option in helping re-establish a sense of neighborhood and human scale in the community. With data indicating that the average person drives alone a few miles per day, the logic for an N.E.V. becomes apparent. Until recently the N.E.V. has been dismissed by the automakers as an unprofitable niche, federal and state mandates for pollution mitigation and efforts toward traffic reduction have begun to generate designs for small city cars or station cars by several automakers. The N.E.V. class is the most basic and fundamental design approach to this transportation dilemma. The Gizmo is one of the first designs representing this vehicular paradigm shift. A lightweight personal electric vehicle, revolutionary not because of technological breakthroughs but because it´s viability required none. It is an original and unique Neighborhood Electric Vehicle designed specifically to be simple, affordable and efficient
