If you made it by the last meeting, you heard the saga of Eric’s ZAP Xebra impossible titling process. The long story short, the vehicle was purchased years ago by another party, and was never titled. This resulted in Eric holding the Manufacturer’s Certificate of Origin (issued to a dealer), rather than a real title:
Anyway, over the past 1/2 year I have been asked to do an amazing number of things. Most requests came sequentially rather than all at once, and originally the requests would come by mail which drew the process out even longer. By the end, the DOT representative and I would communicate by email and I would physically drop things off at the DOT main office which streamlined things a bit.
The process involved:
- Filling out the DMV MV-1 form
- Payment of registration fees and taxes
- Verbal confirmation that the vehicle had a Federal Safety Certification Label
- Turning in the Manufacturers Certificate of Origin
- Taking a picture of the Federal Safety Certification Label
- Taking a picture of the vehicle
- Weighing the vehicle at the DOT Scale on the interstate 80 miles away and witnessed by a State Trooper (This request was rescinded after I offered and alternative.)
- Weighing of vehicle at the local certified scale witnessed by a police officer
- Taking a picture of the above weigh-in
- Having the above pictire signed by the observing officer attesting to the fact that he witnessed the weigh in. (This request was later rescinded and alternative made.)
- Sending an email from the official work email address from the officer who witnessed the weigh in attesting to the fact that the weigh in phot is correct.
- Returning of the refund that DMV inadvertently automatically generated because the process had taken so long.
- Providing a bill of sale.
- Sending in a handwritten statement from me of the odometer reading
- Sacrifice of my firstborn son (Just kidding about this one.)
- Whew!!!!
While the paperwork was being processed, I was pulled over by the local police several times. The first time was within 24 hours of driving it on my city’s street. The final time was about two weeks before I got the plate in the mail. I got very used to carrying around up-to-date paperwork so I was ready for these instances.
While at Sector67, slightly modified ZAP vehicles have starred in a few videos:
Read on over at EVPowers