A Rugged UTV / Golf Cart Crossover Should Be The Future Of Local Transportation

If you were born in this century (as my kids say to me with annoying smugness), you’d be shocked at the lack of product options available at car dealerships of fifty years ago. Many people in their twenties automatically assume that around half of the cars in any brand’s lineup will be some kind of tall crossover with all-wheel-drive as an option, if not standard.

That wasn’t always the case. In 1975, the Big Three could offer you only rear-wheel-drive sedans and wagons, or big pickup-truck-based four-wheelers; only Subaru could have given you a tiny station wagon that spun both axles, but it was full-time four-wheel drive.

In their desperation for more market share, struggling American Motors created the first vehicle that might be considered an all-wheel-drive crossover with the 1980 Eagle. Poor AMC wouldn’t live to see the segment explode two decades later, but it’s proof that companies in peril often develop some of the most innovative solutions.

I’ve read that much of the powersports industry is currently struggling. Whether it’s due to higher interest rates or the fact that the market got saturated with post-COVID “revenge” spending over the last five years, larger manufacturers of UTVs are reporting sales drops of anywhere from five to as much as twenty-five percent. Naturally, sales are a cyclical thing and can rebound as quickly as they fall, but it seems clear to me that some AMC-style innovation might need to come into play to create a new kind of “crossover” vehicle to meet the changing market.

Or Drive A Ride-On Mower, George Jones-Style

You might think that Jason is a strange person for several reasons, including his choice of a tiny enclosed Chinese electric cart as a preferred means of daily transportation in a small American town instead of a “normal” car. Well, don’t look now but Torch might be on the cutting edge of a trend.

There are more and more cities, neighborhoods, retirement centers, and resorts opening each year that allow golf carts or slightly more substantial compact (typically electric) vehicles to legally be used on the streets, either coexisting with cars or driving on roads where full-sized automobiles are not allowed.

Places for older, retired residents were once only to be found in Florida or Arizona but now they’re appearing even in climates that get real weather – Dale Webb’s Sun City Huntley is a community in a Chicago suburb complete with snow and ice and all that the Windy City has to offer. You’ll see more of these since the population is growing older every day; a number of the Autopian staff members could now or very soon qualify to move into one of these “age 55+” communities, but we’re absolutely not going to fucking talk about that. Congested cities, as well as ski and mountain towns, will soon likely follow suit with going green and small electric.

In the segment of vehicles between golf carts and small street-legal cars, the options for buyers are surprisingly close to what buyers of 1975 automobiles faced.  On one end are UTVs: Utility Task Vehicles or Utility Terrain Vehicles (not Urinary Tract Vehicles). At the other side of the spectrum are LSEVs, or Low Speed Electric Vehicles (the kind you might see in retirement communities or resorts, or in Jason’s town when the Changli is rolling around.

In the middle of these extremes is, well, nothing. Let’s consider why that lack of in-between could be a problem.

UTVs or Side-by-Sides

Polaris is one of the biggest makers of UTVs such as the Polaris Ranger, which is sometimes known as a “side by side” (since it carries at least two passengers next to each other, unlike typical single-seat ATVs). Even though sales might not be spectacular now, there’s still research that claims that he global power sports market size will rebound to grow at a compounded rate of 6.0% from 2024 to 2030.

The Good: These are tough, versatile things that can carry up to six passengers. There’s a wide range of them with the top of the line “full size” versions offering up to 110 horsepower, or more than a few cars on Jason’s fleet combined. It’s obvious that this thing means business, and it’s capable of towing up to 3500 pounds if the specs are correct.

Polaris’s smallest offering is the “mid-sized” Ranger 570, which still provides a respectable 44 horsepower from its single-cylinder engine, the ability tow up to 1500 pounds, and 11 inches of ground clearance with all-wheel-drive. These start at around $24,000 but can escalate with options.

The Bad: If you aren’t going to pull out tree stumps at your farm, tow a trailer of logs, or ford deep waters, these Rangers might be far too much vehicle than you’ll need for getting about in your neighborhood. It’s not like Shady Acres Retirement Village would allow them anyway. They’re also rather agricultural in the appointments they offer and the way they drive.

Last spring break, we stayed at a place in Mexico that had two-seater 1000cc Rangers for guests to use on the rutted local cobblestoned streets that were unsuited for golf carts. This thing was obviously quite capable and might have been a blast to run in the right situation, but for around-town use it was way too loud and harsh, to the point that my wife preferred to just walk. Despite the alleged power steering, the thing was not particularly pleasant to drive for the tasks at hand. The decent-sized pickup-style bed would be great for making your gravel driveway but was far bigger than what local trips required.

The verdict: Ultimately, UTVs are great for the cattle ranch but not necessarily the retirement ranch. (By the way, Polaris offers an electric Ranger now with a surprising 110 horsepower on tap, but it’s only available as a full-sized two-door model with a price approaching $40,000).

LSEVs

At the other end of the market from UTVs are funky-looking things called Neighborhood Electric Vehicles; they’re also referred to as LSEV, or Low Speed Electric Vehicles. In America, there are plenty of locales that allow for things that have a maximum speed of 25 to 35 miles per hour. The number of places where you can use such vehicles is also growing, and the market is expected to grow from $7.4 billion in 2023 to $10.9 billion in 2028 at a rate of 7.89 %; a bigger growth rate than the side-by-side market. GEM Vehicles is one of the largest American players.

LSEVs are not golf carts, something that the GEM website and those of their LSEV competitors mention many times over. That’s because LSEVs have things like seat belts, lights, horns, and other safety equipment, as well as optional weather protection windshields and doors. Also, my guess is GEM needs to get “golf cart” out of your head before you look at the price, since the four-seat e4 starts at $17,500 and quickly passes $30,000 when you add options like the enclosed cabin.

The Good: They’re obviously quiet and seemingly comfortable machines that make the most of the electric motor driving the rear wheels with a mere seven horsepower. Light and easy to drive, if you’re in a place where it’s sunny and warm ninety-eight percent of the time, you’d probably be quite content with a GEM e4 as long as you stay on the pavement and don’t carry much.

The Bad: First of all, the styling on these things is certainly “cute”, but it might be a bit too much of a goofy-looking little thing for some buyers. Worse than that, it really does have an appearance that welcomes the golf cart comparisons that GEM so obviously doesn’t want you to make.

Behind the seats, the GEM has a short platform that’s rather useless for cargo unless you add one of their rather half-assed looking solutions including a skinny pickup-bed thing (“S-Bed with sides”), a rather Costco Rubbermaid-looking bin (“Trunkback”) or thing the call a “S box” that looks like a pathetic home-built food vendor add-on. Even then, space for large items just isn’t there.

Worst of all, in places like Sun City Huntley with real weather, your GEM will realistically need to be covered and stored for at least four to five months a year. Snow? Even with the optional enclosed cabin you’ll likely need to keep your $30,000 GEM parked. A sandy or rocky beach? Trails that are covered in rocks and ruts? I wouldn’t want to try that with the GEM. Even if the low ground clearance isn’t a problem there likely isn’t enough power to get you out of a slippery situation.

The verdict: If something walks like a golf cart, talks like a golf cart, and you have to keep telling people that your product is not a golf cart, then you might have a problem.

Based on my unmatched skills gained from one semester thirty years ago in a college marketing class, let’s do a quick summary of these two kinds of vehicles:

Now we know what our Crossover Cart has to bridge between, it’s time to get to work on the solution.

When A UTV And An LSEV Love Each Other Very Much..

Maybe Polaris could be the one to champion a new in-between type of product. Oddly enough, Polaris owned GEM vehicles up until 2021; why they sold the business is not clear to me, but it would seem that they’re uniquely qualified to make this new kind of low-speed electric vehicle crossover, and their name would carry Jeep-like swagger to it.

Styling of what we’ll call the Polaris Sherpa series will follow the same pattern as automobile crossovers: a combination of rugged off-road machines with the cleaner forms of street cars. The body will sit higher than a GEM without being as far off the ground as a Ranger; grey plastic rocker trims and sharp breakover angles front and rear create the look of something off-road capable. A grey hood and “roll bar” contrast the color-painted sheet metal.

The cargo area is longer than the GEM but still shorter than the Ranger; optionally you could fold or remove the rear seats and even remove the rear window to carry larger objects in a way neither the UTV or LSEVs currently do.

An optional, integrated trunk lid could offer weather protection and security for your cargo. Neither the Ranger or GEM provide a front trunk; the raised nose of the Sherpa would provide a second secure storage space.

Four side doors feature frameless crank-roll-down windows so that the Sherpa can offer another trick not seen before: you can remove roof panels over each seat and the rear window glass to give a convertible feel that current UTV and LSEV choices do not, yet still a rigid-roofed cabin for foul weather (both the Polaris and GEM products have fixed roofs with heavily framed windows so you’ll never get a convertible feel if you want it). Plus, with a frunk there’s a place to put the roof panels.

A GEM gets by on the seven horsepower that it has; it could use a few more but we don’t need anything close to the 44 horse powerplant of the based Rangers (much less the 110HP options). Powering the Sherpa would be two 12-15 horsepower electric motors, one each for the front and rear to give all-wheel-drive. It’s possible that we could allow the front drive motor to uncouple for range-extending two-wheel drive only (just like the Eagle did and current crossovers don’t let you do). A total of 25 to 30 horsepower doesn’t seem like much, but it’s more than ample power to go through snow and grab your chairs and umbrella off of the beach, especially with the taller ground clearance it would offer.

Obviously, we could offer more powerful motor options, but if you really need a serious off-roader then Polaris would likely just want to sell you a gas or electric small Ranger instead, right?

The Inside Job

On the GEM, the dashboard is rather minimalistic, with the upper surface dedicated to much useful storage space (but no glove box-like space below). A speedometer sits rather uselessly low and dead center above the optional radio.

By comparison, the Polaris Ranger is rather basic and even more industrial looking, though admittedly both this and GEM are just a step above a golf cart in regards to the overall presentation (the bigger Rangers have center screens and more controls).

In the Sherpa, the dashboard is equally simple, with the optional entertainment system or screen being just a standard double DIN opening that you can use as a storage bin or install any damn thing you’d like (and be able to upgrade five years from now per Jason’s new rules).

I’d like to move essentially all the controls to the steering wheel area, which could possibly all tilt adjust like on a Porsche 928.

The gauge pod has “transmission” buttons on one side and lights on the other, with accessory spots below. Flippers control wipers and turn signals. Notice also that the controls are BIG; you don’t want to specifically say that a product is designed for older people but if you make it easier for them to operate, they will notice and appreciate it.

The Sherpa’s option list would be expansive, either from Polaris or the aftermarket with things like electric heating and air conditioning (maybe heated seats instead?) as well as plug-n-play boxes that attach to the doors containing motors for the windows and solenoids to active the locks. What else could you ask for?

Could A Polaris “Eagle” Work?

A Crossover Low Speed Electric Vehicle (CLSEV) seems like an odd concoction; it might be too far ahead of the market. Remember, in 1980 International Harvester dropped the Scout because of a limited market, and some people that same year mocked the new AMC Eagle by calling it “the Hornet on stilts”. Today many buyers demand this kind of all-weather useability without needing to add on snow tires (remember when everyone did that?) and wagon-style carrying capability.

As this vehicle-one-notch-below-cars category starts to grow, we’ll see people in Aspen ski resorts and Wisconsin retirement communities who don’t want to allow a Polaris Ranger but a GEM won’t work either. They’ll want a little bit of Ranger-like capability and “tough” UTV look and cred but the comfort, roadability and economy of the GEM. It’s almost like they want a tiny, low-speed G-Wagen; there’s actually a place that makes Mercedes SUV-looking carts now:

Yeah, that looks like an adult Power Wheel. We need something with that sentiment but isn’t a joke. This Polaris Sherpa concept might not be it, but mark my words: whoever makes the viable Low Speed Crossover a reality will have the last laugh.

How Our Daydreaming Designer Would Have Redesigned One Of Britain’s Biggest Automotive Failures – The Autopian

A Misguided Tipster Asks The Autopian For A ‘Different Tractor Machine,’ So The Daydreaming Designer Gives It To Him – The Autopian

What If The Best Selling EV Prior To Tesla Returned With Styling “Stolen” By Cybertruck? – The Autopian

This Is How To Make A $16,000 Electric Car – The Autopian

How The Indian Carmaker Tata Could Hypothetically Revive The Honda Element As A Sub-$20,000 EV – The Autopian