page_title: Neighborhood Electric Vehicle
section_title: Community design
hierarchical_section_title: Neighborhood Electric Vehicle / Community design
caption_attribution_description: English: GEM-e2 neighbourhood electric vehicle being recharged in Mexico
context_page_description: A Neighborhood Electric Vehicle is a U.S. designation for battery electric vehicles that are usually built to have a top speed of 25 miles per hour, and have a maximum loaded weight of 3,000 lb. Depending on the particular laws of the state, they are legally limited to roads with posted speed limits of 45 miles per hour or less. NEVs fall under the United States Department of Transportation classification for low-speed vehicles. The non-electric version of the neighborhood electric vehicle is the motorised quadricycle.
  A NEV battery pack recharges by plugging into a standard outlet and because it is an all-electric vehicle it does not produce tailpipe emissions. If recharged from clean energy sources such as solar or wind power, NEVs do not produce greenhouse gas emissions. In the state of California NEVs are classified by the California Air Resources Board as zero-emissions vehicles and are eligible for a purchase rebate of up to $1,500 if purchased or leased on or after March 15, 2010.
  As of June 2014, the GEM neighborhood electric vehicle was the market leader in North America, with global sales of more than 50,000 units since 1998.
context_section_description: Some communities are designed to separate neighborhoods from commercial and other areas, connecting them with relatively high speed thoroughfares on which NEVs cannot go, legally or safely. As a result, these vehicles are most common in communities that provide separate routes for them or generally accommodate slow speed traffic.
  Communities designed specifically with NEVs and similarly sized vehicles in mind include:
  Celebration, Florida
  The Villages, Florida and Lady Lake, Florida
  Peachtree City, Georgia
  Avalon, California
  Other cities and communities that have adopted NEV-friendly ordinances or have experienced a significant increase of them and street-legal golf cars since 1990 include:
  Alameda, California
  Put-in-Bay, Ohio
  Venice Beach, Los Angeles, California
  Lincoln, California
  Palm Desert, California
  Sun City, Arizona
  Charleston, South Carolina
  Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
  Coronado, California
  Dunedin, Florida
caption: A GEM e2 used by the Tourist Police in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, being recharged
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