Abstract:Neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs) are a promising strategy for easing the growing tension between demands for greater automotive travel and calls for improved environmental quality. By reducing performance and driving range expectations, NEVs overcome the battery problem of larger electric vehicles while still serving the mobility demands of many travelers. The introduction of NEVs is likely to be slowed by a web of road and vehicle rules designed with the standard vehicle of the past in mind and by uniform vehicle size expectations on the part of consumers, government regulators, and highway suppliers. The energy and environmental benefits are potentially so large, however, and the opportunity to create more human-scale communities so promising that it would be irresponsible not to pursue NEVs in a more deliberate fashion.