They sell the body elettrica in the U.S. now

Now available to pre-order in Murka (Vespa screenshot)

Well folks, your wait wasn’t nearly as long as first reported.

You can now be the first on your block to put down a deposit for your very own Vespa Elettrica online. Point your browser at the Vespa Elettrica pre-booking site and have your credit card ready.

However, it’s not super-obvious how to begin the booking process. Go to the bottom of the page, fill in the city field, select a dealer and hit the “continue” button. You jump through a few more pages before you are asked for a credit card number, which will be charged $749 U.S. (MSRP is $7,499, which is a bit more wieldy than the Euro price converted directly to greenbacks).

Pre-booking is also now available in most of Western Europe, the U.K., and Canada. And Mauritius.

If you change your mind, you can get your deposit back. And chances are you won’t wait nearly as long to take delivery as you would for, say, a Tesla Model 3.

It’s likely most of these will be sold in Europe, because there are lots of places where the only motorized wheeled vehicles allowed are electron-eaters.

But if you live in the States and want to go electric, $7.5 large will get you a used Nissan LEAF with 10-11 bars of battery capacity. About the same range as the Vespa, but room for four adults and fair amount of stuff. As good for getting groceries and short trips to/from work, but you can have a used LEAF (or any other used electric; they don’t hold their resale value. At. All.) right now, today.

The Vespa dealer in Tucson pops up on the pre-booking form, so once they have one on their forecourt I will have a close look (and, I hope, a test ride). If you, dear reader, decide to take the plunge, drop me a line and let me (and by extension, everyone else) know how it goes.