LOS ANGELES — Big things often have small beginnings.

Vivian Escalante is the founder of Piccolo Pendolare, Inc. She is hoping her company’s small low-speed electric vehicles will soon make a big splash in Los Angeles.

Escalante drives her early model prototype everyday and said the site of the diminutive vehicle never fails to turn heads.

“I had a woman actually wait for me, while I was coming out of the grocery store,” recalled Escalante. “She wanted to see who owned this little car, and what is this car all about? And she had her big SUV.”

Escalante founded Piccolo Pendolare, which means “little commuter” in Italian, almost entirely on her own in response to many real-life issues she experienced with her regular gas vehicle, which is a vintage model Volvo.

With a top speed of around 20 mph and a range of about 22 miles per charge, the Piccolo Pendolare is meant as an affordable and eco-friendly neighborhood commuter.

“Go to the market, drop the kids off, run a few errands, pay your bills go to the bank, this fits perfectly without having to worry about an hour and a half waiting for two buses to your destination and then vice versa,” said Escalante.

Twenty mph will not get you on an LA freeway, but Escalante pointed out that is the whole point.

“We want to have it go slower because it’s safer,” said Escalante. “As everybody knows, safer speeds are basically slower speeds.” 

In a city where finding parking can be an enormous challenge, the Piccolo Pendolare vehicle fits into small spaces easily and infrastructure is minimal as they plug right into regular household outlets.

Although in its infancy, Escalante said it is important for her to stay in control of the direction of the company.

“We want to make sure that we can always maintain our integrity for the community, the communities that we serve, the communities we will serve because they are slightly being ignored,” she said. “You know this low-speed affordable vehicle is not really a big thing out there. But to us it is.”

While awaiting further city approvals, Escalante is currently working on finishing the soon-to-open Piccolo Pendolare showroom in Chinatown and is already fielding order inquiries for her little commuters which could soon turn a lot more heads on the streets of LA.