World’s best-selling electric car now available in Britain

The world’s best selling electric car, the four-seater GEM, is now available to buy in Britain. 40,000 of the vehicles have already been sold around the world.

The car has proved popular with those needing a quiet, clean and cost-effective way of travelling up to thirty miles in a day; police forces, the military and NASA are among the company’s biggest customers.

In this country the GEM is exempt from road tax, the London congestion charge and parking fees in many areas. The vehicle is available in a number of configurations and can be driven without doors if the weather allows. It is sold in Britain with car breakdown cover from the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) included in the price.

When a car is a quadricycle

The GEM is classed as an electric quadricycle, which is sometimes referred to as a micro car. A quadricycle is a four-wheeled vehicle with an unladen mass of not more than 400kg (excluding batteries if it is an electric vehicle) and whose maximum continuous rated power does not exceed 15 kW. The best known quadricycle is the G-Wiz.

GEM batteries are recharged via a mains power lead which plugs directly into the vehicle and any standard 240V socket. Each full charge will power the vehicle for 30 miles (tested at maximum speed and with a full payload)

A spokesperson for the Environmental Transport Association (ETA) said: “The GEM does not conform to our ideas of what a car should be, but many people do most of their driving on roads with a speed limit of 30mph or less.”

Greater Manchester has an average traffic speed of 12.1mph, Leicester 13.6mph, London 14.6mph, West Yorkshire 14.6mph, Merseyside 14.9mph, South Yorkshire 15mph and the West Midlands 15.5mph (Road Statistics 2008: Traffic, Speeds and Congestion).

• GEM car website