BELLINGHAM — In a short gravel driveway, beside a small home on Lummi Reservation, a little piece of the future is getting ready to roll.
The Miles ZX40S — a four-wheel, no-emissions electric car — is the first of its kind to be purchased for street use in the nation, and it’s charging from a standard outlet at Aaron and Michele Sanger’s modest home.
For Aaron, an attorney for nonprofit International Rivers, and Michele, a Bellingham herbalist, the choice to buy an alternative-fuel vehicle was clear.
“Following through where oil comes from, where it goes and where the emissions go, we felt most comfortable with electric,” Michele said, adding that the couple also researched low-emissions vehicles powered by biodiesel, ethanol, and compressed and liquefied natural gas.
“We felt that all those internal combustion engines led back to a different kind of environmental damage,” Aaron said, giving as an example pesticides and herbicides used by large corn growers in the ethanol-making process.
The white four-door, which was delivered from Santa Monica maker Miles last week, is powered by AC current rather than DC, like many other electric vehicles. That enables the car to power uphill faster, and without depleting its charge as quickly, Aaron said.
The model is the only street-legal electric car that can reach 35 mph, he said. Though that may sound slow, it’s fine for the family, which uses Lummi Shore Drive, Marine Drive and Eldridge Avenue to get to town. The highest speed limit on the roads is 40 mph.
“We don’t mind that it doesn’t go on the freeway because we prefer back roads anyway,” Michele said. Timing the alternative route via Haxton Way to the Slater Road freeway onramp, she said her route is less than five minutes longer, despite the lower speed limits.
The car runs a little more than $20,000, including tax and licensing, Aaron said. The price is comparable to the well-known Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid.
The Sangers, who moved to Bellingham from Corvallis, Ore., last May, began considering an alternative vehicle when they returned from working in Chile at the end of the year.
“We really had an opportunity to re-evaluate what we wanted and what was important to us because we were starting from nothing,” Michele said. The pair gave the Volvo station wagon they once drove to Aaron’s daughter before they left the country.
In the following weeks, the couple used public transportation and neighbors’ cars to get to work, and to take their 6-year-old daughter Talya to school.
But with bus schedules to Lummi limited, and spontaneity difficult, the family looked for a car.
Michele said her daughter influenced the choice to get a car with larger capacity than many one- or two-person electric vehicles.
“I really wanted four wheels and four seat belts, because I wanted to participate in carpooling with other families,” she said, adding that she viewed the ZX40S’s steel frame as a safer bet than other plastic, fiberglass or aluminum options.
The car can travel 50 to 60 miles before recharging, and the family’s daily round trip is just less than 50 miles. That’s why they’re asking the city of Bellingham to work with them to find locations where they can charge the car during the work day.
Though it’s been only a week since the purchase, the quiet little vehicle is already turning heads.
“People definitely stop us everywhere we go,” Michele said. “They ask us how fast it goes and how often we recharge it.” She quietly admits, “I saw it get up to 41 (mph) the other day.”