I have a Zap Xebra PK. The engineering is shoddy as hell and the parts are as expected from a Chinese manufactor. The gear box is showing metal shavings and when I called Zap, they just said "What do you expect from a Chinese made vehicle? We haven't had a gearbox fail yet."

Since I bought it, I have had fail, in order- the safety switch on the brake, the plug in socket on the car, the right CV joint, the axle is showing shavings, the range is hideous (I'm fixing that- but they installed the 'battery saver' wrong at the dealer), the blinker relay, and now the entire front panel (lights, blinkers, radio, odometer,etc.) is dead.

Oddly enough, I still love the thing as the concept is a great one. The vehicle body is good, the motor is fine, the charger works, and the controller works. They went for the cheapest parts except for those vital to the car's movement. All those parts seem just fine- which is the bulk of what you need. If they would have just placed a tad more effort and added another measley $1000 to the price- they could have had a great car. But they are only in it for the money, sadly to say. I found a Wired article a year too late after I bought the car.

Basically, expect NOTHING from the Zap company. The owners are shysters. Which is really really sad as their greed and dishonest natures will carry a huge blow to the industry. Banks and investors will refuse to touch startup electric car manufacturers with examples like Zap, the Nevco Gizmo, and Corbin Sparrow. The vehicles might be good, but the business segment is horrid. Which is sad since, is past history is any true, the major innovators in electric vehicles will be from green minded engineering tinkerers that want to make a difference. The original Zap Zippy was good, the original Nevco Gizmo was awesome. But then some greedy shyster with money always comes in, ruins the quality with 'cost cutting', the original engineer leaves in disgust, and the shyster gets to sell pipe dreams to people that recognize the original engineering concept.

www.wired.com/cars/future...04/ff_zapped

That being said, Tesla hopes to start into the mid and lower end markets once they become established and money starts coming in.