Meet the Club Car UTV. A small, neighborhood-legal EV that its makers says combines the practicality of a pickup truck and the efficiency of a golf cart to shuttle workers and supplies around the job site. Itโs so good, in fact, that itโs making me ask: is this the most practical electric pickup you can buy?
Now that the Tesla Cybertruck has become the best-selling electric pickup in the US, I think itโs high time that we begin to ask ourselves what makes a truck a truck โฆ because the slab-sided, low-poly, post-apocalyptic wedge thing ainโt it for me.
The Club Car Urban UTV, on the other hand? Itโs available with a 6.9 ft. pickup bed and offers a standard 2,204 lb. payload capacity. Thatโs nearly 400 lbs. more than the Ford Ranger mid-size and about the same as Chevyโs full-size Silverado 1500. Itโs plenty of truck, in other words โ more than enough to get tools, parts, plants, sod, or whatever else you need across a campus or industrial park.
And the Club Car Urban UTV move those 2,204 lbs. job much more efficiently than a conventional full-size truck.
โToday, most campus operations teams use pickup trucks to address their facility management needs,โ said Jeff Tyminski, Vice President of Product Management at Club Car.ย โ(The pickup) is the wrong tool for many jobs.ย A blended fleet of traditional pickup trucks and electric utility vehicles would improve operational productivity while lowering ownership costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.โ
Club Car says the many benefits of its Urban UTV include lower purchase and operating costs. Like the truck body, the box van version of the Club Car Urban UTV offers levels of payload and carrying capacity comparable to โconventionalโ fleet options.
The Club Car Urban packs a 12.2 kWh lithium-ion battery and offers up to 62 miles (100 km) of range. In XR trim, the Club Car can hit speeds up to 19 mph (30 km/h), while the LSV tops out at 25 mph (40 km/h).
โOur industrial and commercial customerโs looking for safe, on-road transportation that is street-legal, 100% electric and low-cost,โ says Club Car President Mark Wagner. โsolutionโ(They) will find the Urban to be the ideal fit.โ
Every fleet manager eventually asks whether they need a bed, or payload. When they ask that question, theyโre usually trying to decide between something like a Ford Maverick and an F-150 โย but with a Club Car Urban UTV, you get the bed and the payload capacity โฆ and you get it for $20-30,000 less than a conventional half-ton truck.
Itโs almost as if no one actually needs a big truck at all, isnโt it?
Instead of something practical, though,ย Fordโs gonna give us more low-tech, high-profit three-quarter ton full-size pickup trucks and rake in the cash. Let us know what you think of that fun fact in the comments.
SOURCES | IMAGES: Club Car, Equipment World.
