Kates, who owns Aunt Lali's Treats, cruises the streets in a Daimler-Chrysler GEM truck, which runs on batteries.

"We're charging ahead," she quipped.

Her truck is the same vehicle often seen at UC Santa Cruz. The campus Transportation and Parking Services acquired several of them for errands around campus, cutting down on emissions and reducing dependency on fossil fuels.

Typically, ice cream trucks are the gas-powered type, and that's what Kates bought when she began operating locally two years ago. At the time, gasoline cost about $1 less per gallon.

Kates' new electric truck is actually a 2002 model. She found it after looking online and inquiring at dealers in California and other southwest states. The manufacturer's suggested retail price for the 2006 version is $8,995.

Although the electric truck is quiet, it shares one characteristic with the gas-powered version: It plays Scott Joplin's ragtime tune, "The Entertainer."

Aunt LaLi's Treats

WHAT: Ice cream vending business owned by Lauren Kates.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF ICE CREAM TRUCK: Kates recently switched to an electric truck to eliminate gas costs.

DETAILS: 831-247-1236, auntlali@auntlali.com

Published August 24, 2006 on the front page of the Santa Cruz Sentinel