Of course we are not talking about your child.

Studies have shown teenagers to be notoriously poor users of judgment and easily susceptible to peer pressure. Banishing of-age teen drivers to the social black hole known as the school bus isn’t always an option--some teens really do need that license to shuttle between, school, soccer practice, and their part-time job. So what’s a parent to do?

A tough lesson

No one knows the perils of teen driving more than Stu McPhail, owner of SmartWheels in Denver, Colorado.

McPhail lost his grandson, Justin Dorrance, two weeks after Dorrance passed his driving test. A good kid who typically obeyed his parents, Dorrance decided to skip his last class one Friday afternoon in May 2007, filled his Jeep Grand Cherokee with six friends—breaking Colorado’s driving laws and his parents—and headed up to the mountains. Colorado law dictates that for six months after obtaining their license, teens cannot drive with more than one passenger in their car.

More than 40 miles from home on a narrow, windy, unpaved mountain road, Dorrance drove too close to the shoulder. One of the wheels lost contact with the road and the Jeep tumbled into a ravine, landing in a fast moving steam. Dorrance drowned and another teen was died in the accident.

McPhail believes that his grandson would still be alive today if he had been driving one of the Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV) he began selling at his dealership one week before Dorrance died.

Electric training wheels

NEVs are low to medium speed vehicles that can travel between 25-35 mph depending on state laws and are not permitted on roads with speed limits greater than 35 mph. Most NEVs can travel around 30 miles per charge. Their limited range and speed make is what makes them good first cars for teens, according to McPhail. “Teens are expected to transition from a bicycle to a Hummer or an eight cylinder SUV. It doesn’t make any sense when we have an alternative,” says McPhail. Alex Campbell, spokesperson for electric car manufacturer ZAP, considers the Zebra NEV the perfect starter car.

Campbell will talk your ear off about how ZAP cars are ideal as the second vehicle for commuting to the train or picking up the errant quart of milk at the grocery store. As a builder of electric cars for 13 years, Campbell is a firm believer that electric vehicle are environmentally friendly. But until recently, it never occurred to him that they were also teen-friendly.

A motorcycle-class vehicle that is fully enclosed and deftly maneuvers around on three wheels, the Zebra can travel up to a maximum speed of 25-40 miles per hour, depending on state limitations, and has a range of up to 30 miles.

“You don’t feel like you’re in a 3-wheeled vehicle at all,” he says in response to concerns that three wheels make the car unstable.

“I heard about a family in Oregon that purchased a Zebra for their eldest daughter as a 16th birthday present. They wanted a safe alternative to a gasoline vehicle,” says Campbell.

The family wishes to remain anonymous, but Campell reads a letter from the parents describing how their daughter passed her driving test with Kermit--her electric 3-wheeler that gets 126 mpg and is green in multiple senses of the word.

“They were happy that she can go to all her activities – school, music lessons, movies, work –and they don’t have to worry about her speeding up and down the freeway.”

A short leash

Their’s is a very real fear. Of the approximately 42,600 people that died in auto-related accidents in 2005, 7,460 were young drivers or passenger aged 15-20.

Although the primary market has been environmentally conscious urban and suburban drivers who can afford a second or third vehicle for around-town driving, a slow market of concerned parents is emerging.

“Kids can’t just jump on the freeway or state highway because that’s illegal. And they don’t go very far,” says Jim Johnson owner and manager of MC Electric Vehicles in Seattle, Washington of his fleet of NEVs.

Given that the NEVs are programmed to top out at 25 or 35 mph, speeding tickets won’t often be a concern. But questions about safety are common with parents.

“Even though these cars don’t have airbags, they have a type of roll cage,” says Johnson. “They’re safe because they are out of harms way. They’re driving in 35 mph areas and are driving more defensively. Speed and impact is what kills.”

The $10,000 starting point may another road block for parents. But on top of the cheap operation costs—approximately one cent per mile--the savings on insurance also helps offset the cost of the vehicle.

Another benefit of NEVs is that there’s also almost no maintenance involved, according to Larry Dye, CEO of Electric Wheels in Salem Oregon. Electric motors have only one moving part. The downside is that teenagers will never learn the joys of changing one’s oil and finding a way to pay for broken transmissions, leaking radiators, and expensive tune ups.

“There’s not much to break on these cars,” says Dye.

So far Dye has sold ZAP Xebras to four local families as teen cars: three bought them for their teenagers to go to high school and one bought it for their son to go to community college.

Huge market

Current sales of NEVs for teens are small, but it’s a huge market. McPhail is hoping to increase their desirability as a starter car by lobbying Colorado’s legislature to increase the maximum speed for NEV from 25 to 35 miles per hour. Similar laws have passed in Washington and Montana. Ideally, he’d like to pass a law restricting 16 year olds to NEVs, which can be regulated by speed, but that idea has been met with tough resistance.Salem High School will also make it easier for teens to go green. Next year, electric charging stations will be available on campus, according to Dye.“Some kids think they’re really cool because they see stars driving electric cars to the Oscars,” says Johnson. In his experience, many teens want to help the environment, and the majority of kids are pushing parents—not the other way around.“There’s always going to be the kids who laugh at the cars and want cars that make a lot of noise,” says Johnson. He recalls one kid saying that his idea of a hybrid is “gas and rubber burning together.”Will NEVs be the populating High School parking lots in the next few years? The idea has already been floated by in the student newspaper at a local high school, according to Taylor Smith, General Manager of Electric Green Showroom in San Carlos, California. To capitalize on that idea, he began marketing the cars to parents and students at local schools.Their best selling point? “Kids won’t have to ask their parents for gas money,” says Smith.