GM's Impact to be tested in Fort Lauderdale

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GM's Electric Two-Seater Makes Impact on Drivers By Neil Santaniello, Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The test drive lasted less than a minute. Still it took just one loop around Fort Lauderdale's Arts and Sciences District parking garage, and Broward County Commissioner Lori Parrish looked sold.

``It's amazing,'' she gushed after stepping out of General Motors' prototype electric car, Impact, at the Museum of Science and Discovery.

GM rolled out five of the sleek battery-powered vehicles during breakfast at the museum on Thursday to launch the South Florida leg of its nationwide Impact test drive program.

Parrish and dozens of other breakfast attendees, mainly government officials and assorted VIPs, were briefly given the wheel of one of the cars, though they were able to cruise only two-tenths of a mile on a course marked out with traffic cones.

A sixth Impact, trunks and doors open, sat in front of the museum for display purposes during the event co-hosted by Florida Power & Light Co.

Parrish said she thought GM's state-of-the-art electric car, a two- seater still under development, drove so elegantly that she likened it to ``riding on a cloud.''

The 2,900-pound vehicle's zip impressed Fort Lauderdale Mayor Jim Naugle, another test driver. Twenty-seven 12-volt batteries propel the car, which can cruise as fast as 80 mph. ``It had a lot of power. I didn't expect that,'' Naugle said. ``I thought it would feel like a golf cart.''

But GM's advanced electric car, a ``fully-loaded'' vehicle able to travel 70 to 90 mile miles on one charge, a leap from golf car technology. The aluminum-framed, plastic-bodied cars have air- conditioners, power windows, locks and mirrors, a CD player and dual airbags.

People are surprised to find those features on an electric car, said Joe Ricciardi, head of GM's Impact publicity program. ``They expect to see a gutted out vehicle.''

Thursday's trial runs were joy rides only. Over the next sixth months, GM plans to deliver Impacts to 60 South Florida drivers for a series of official trial runs. The drivers will join more than 400 others who have participated in the automaker's 11-city Impact test-drive tour, which commenced last summer in Los Angeles.

Those participants, found after FPL invited 25,000 of its customers from north Dade to south Palm Beach County to apply for drive time, will receive a car to keep for two weeks.

In return, they have promised to provide GM with a written daily log of their driving experiences. ``They do a lot of work. It's not just a drive in the park,'' Ricciardi said.

FPL is staffing an electric vehicle service center on McNab Road for the local program's duration and will install 220-volt chargers in the homes or workplaces of test drivers who need them.

Florida could be a ``natural'' market for electric cars because its flat terrain and warm climate would extend their driving range and battery life, said John Hepke, director of GM's electric vehicle program.

GM officials decline to say when the automaker plans to begin selling the vehicle or how much it could cost.

The Impact's handling is similar to compact conventional gas-powered vehicles. But drivers punch a five-digit code into a keypad and push a button labeled ``run'' to start the car instead of inserting a key into an ignition switch.

Impact's batteries are housed out of sight in a T-shaped transmission tunnel dividing driver and passenger side and extending behind both seats. The rear trunk is large enough to hold two golf bags. END!K10?FL-GM
AP-NY-10-13-95 1856EDT
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Note: The Impact's test drive program has been to many areas already including the Bay Area and the Sacramento area.

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