[Ryland]

The Commuti-car came with one of two rear ends, one with a steel rear end plate that is for flatter areas and gave a higher speed of 40mph or maybe just over, the other rear end has an aluminum alloy rear end cap and is geared lower for larger hills, this is the rear end that I currently have in my car, I have one of the high speed rear ends that has never been installed that also came with my car, the motors are the same, with the low speed rear end I see a real life top speed of around 36-38mph on flat ground 35mph is more common, the steepest hill I can find in town I tend to slow down to 20mph while climing, not sure on the grade but it's closed in the winter because it's to steep to clime, the next steepest hill is half a mile long and is about as steep as I've seen on a back road hill, I can pull a steady 25mph up that hill without a passenger and 23mph with.
I'm currently running 4 year old batteries and getting around 15-20 miles on a charge depending on hills climed and number of stop signs, I should have some brand new T105 Trogens showing up in the next few weeks at a cost of around $900 US from my local solar installer, golf cart shop is another place to check.
The brakes should not pull! try cleaing and adjusting them, to keep the from pulsating jack the wheels up, losten the lug nuts and apply the brakes, turn the wheels 90 degrees and try again, the brake drums don't have any way to self center so the can feel like they are out of round and pulsate.
The battery gauge I have is a PakTrakr made by KJhall it is amazing, it connects to each battery then gives you a total pack voltage, state of charge, low battery warning, over charge warning, bar graph of battery voltage, gas gauge style F----E display option, with that gauge it will help you make your batteries longer by letting you take better care of them.
Being stranded in an EV is harder then getting stranded in a gas car, so unless you are the kind of person who has to call up their friends to have a can of gas brought out to you because your tank is dry then you shuld do fine in an EV, this is because batteries do not just drop dead, and you have a gauge that tells you how full they are! personaly I never go below 50% if I can help it, but some people take it down to 20% state of charge.
advertised range with new batteries was 40 miles, if you have a modern speed controler you might be able to get more out of it, but of course as your batteries age the range drops, a modern controler is going to help you not be as hard on your batteries as the contacts are basicly an on off switch, with that "40 m ile range" I would say never to push it, unless you like buying batteries as deep discharge will shorten their life, if you do a deep discharge that is when you want to plug in as soon as possible, so when you find your self limping home at 20mph after testing your ful range find an outlet!