Eco-friendly transport

On Bozeman’s streets, it’s getting cool to be green

(The following was originally published in the January issue of Bozeman's Tributary magazine.)

by Ray Sikorski


“You have to be a little bit brave to own a Smart car,” said Ron Gompertz, owner of Bozeman’s Eco Auto car dealership.

True enough. With no established dealer network, third party warranties, and a price tag disproportionate to its diminutive length, the Mercedes-built microcompact may not be for everybody. Not to mention that other drivers will gawk at you as if the head of Jar Jar Binks has sprouted wheels and is rolling down the interstate.

And beyond owning a Smart car, you have to be more than a little bit brave to open a Smart car dealership, especially in the middle of Montana. And you have to be downright courageous to hand the keys to a reporter, and specifically ask him to seek out snow covered streets to test the car’s handling.

But such is Gompertz’s nature. A self-confessed “serial entrepreneur,” Gompertz’s businesses have included an indie record label, a mosaic art supply store, and he’s written two books about a winter holiday he refers to as “Chrismukkah.” He claims to have good instincts for new trends, and is convinced that small, eco-friendly modes of transportation are the next big thing. Hence his showroom on the corner of Grand and Main, which, along with plenty of Smart cars, features the Canadian-made electric Zenn car, and a sizeable showing of Dually Limited’s scooters.

“Al Gore catalyzed me,” Gompertz said, referring to the former V.P.’s global warming revelation flick “An Inconvenient Truth.”
“My goal is to show Montanans that there are other options.”

Hence the Smart car. More worldly Bozemanites may have seen the eight-foot-long runabouts on the streets of Europe or Canada, where they’ve been a fixture for several years. An intro to the U.S. market was balked at due to notions about Americans’ taste for asphalt-roaming grandiosity, but spiking gas prices and what appears to be an evolving national consciousness has scheduled an official debut on our shores in 2008. Until then, however, Gompertz and a handful of other pioneering souls have taken upon themselves the job of importing the cars, retrofitting them to U.S. specs, and presenting them to the public as the must-have item of the year.

The latter of the list may prove to be the most difficult objective. While the odd-looking vehicles garner no shortage of amused stares — Gompertz’s daughter refers to them as “Daddy’s silly cars” — getting people to take them seriously as a transportation choice is another story. Are they a toy? Made in China? Cheap? Dangerous? Gompertz asserts that they are none of the above, that they are real cars with two seats and room for groceries in the back, that are equipped with efficient 3-cylinder turbocharged gasoline engines that get 40-60 miles per gallon. He notes that they can travel 85 miles per hour, that they cost $25,000 (thanks to a strong Euro and the costs incurred bringing the cars up to U.S. specs), and that they can — in theory, anyway — be parked sideways because they are just that short in length.

Gompertz has sold a few of the rear-engine, rear-wheel-drive cars to out-of-staters through his ecoautoinc.com website, but no locals had yet been emboldened enough to make the move.

“They’re just awesome little cars,” Gompertz said, adding that they’re not only cute, but they’re safe and a joy to drive. He likened them to a cross between a VW Beetle and a Porsche Carrerra. And, Gompertz insisted, they handle well in the snow. This I had to see.

The Smart car I tested was already dressed for the part — the ski rack even had a pair of K2’s seemingly ready for action. After a short test run showing off the car’s acceleration and speed on I-90, Gompertz handed me the keys.
And, true to his word, the car really is fun to drive. It has a unique standard/automatic transmission, and after some turbo-induced hesitation between first and second gears, the car took off. You ride high and fast in its tall cockpit, and it can keep up with any car — although crosswinds can make it seem a bit unwieldy.

Gompertz directed me to the northeast neighborhood, and encouraged me to try to get the car to slide on the snowy sidestreets. This is the sort of thing I occasionally enjoy testing on my own vehicle, so being granted carte blanche to do the same on this brand-new, $25,000 weird-looking ecomobile… What’s that? Oh, just the tingling of my loins. Slide away!
It turns out a brave entrepreneurial spirit may be slightly removed from being brave while having an off-the-street reporter try out your baby. I sensed Gompertz’s hands reaching for the Hail Mary strap.

But despite my efforts to the contrary, the little bugger proved to be defiantly steady. Computer-assisted traction control, Gompertz explained.

Gompertz isn’t the only person in Bozeman determined to rattle the environmental status quo. Bozeman Streets Superintendent John Van Delinder has been quietly waging his own municipal eco-campaign for the past five years. Now, the 30 diesel vehicles of the city’s Forestry, Street and Signal, and Street Maintenance departments are running on a 20 percent biodiesel blend.

The city gets the seed-based fuel from Story Distributing, and Van Delinder says it’s a couple of cents per gallon cheaper than regular diesel. He added that despite the views of skeptics, the change hasn’t caused any damage to the vehicles’ engines.

“No problems,” Van Delinder said, explaining that his department regularly takes oil samples to check for aberrations. “None. Nothing.”

The only problem has been convincing old-timers, particularly in other departments, that the less polluting biodiesel is the way to go. Despite Van Delinder’s prodding, Bozeman’s Sanitation, Water, and Parks departments had yet to make the switch. Van Delinder suspected, however, that things would soon change, now that the city council unanimously adopted the Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. The Agreement mandates that the city consider an eco-friendly attitude in all orders of business, and Van Delinder predicted that the city would be making some forward-thinking changes in the not-too-distant future.

“I love it,” he said. “I can’t imagine working in a city in which nothing was happening.”