Emory hopes electric cars will drive employees to use alternative transportation

ATLANTA - Emory University thinks one way to deal with all the traffic coming onto campus every day is, well, to buy more cars. <br> <br> Emory and Georgia Power officials Wednesday showed off one of their new Ford Th!nk city cars, electric vehicles the school plans to provide employees who commute to campus via mass transit, car pool, van pool, bicycle or foot. <br> <br> Emory spokeswoman Deb Hammacher says the cars will allow people to go to doctor&#39;s appointments and things like that within a certain proximity. <br> <br> A proximity of 50 miles round-trip, that is. That&#39;s how far the Th!nk city car can go on one charge, which takes four to six hours. <br> <br> Emory employees will be able to reserve the vehicles online and then access them with smart cards and personal identification numbers. The cars will arrive on campus within six weeks. <br> <br> The school will lease the EVs from Georgia Power for about $500 a month. <br> <br> The Th!nk city car is designed to be a second or third vehicle, for quick drives to the store or the daily commute to work but not to go on a vacation. <br> <br> If the egg-shaped vehicle looks as if it&#39;d be more at home in Europe, that&#39;s because it is. The first eight EVs at Emory will be European models, which tend to be smaller than American ones. <br> <br> The European Th!nk takes seven seconds to get from zero to 30 mph, and tops out at 56 mph. The American model, due in September, will have mostly cosmetic changes and will reach about 62 mph.

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