Rare EV1 Electrifies Crowd at Renewable L.A. Eco-Fest
Tied up with holiday commitments, Green Car Advisor couldn't make it to the Renewable L.A. event Saturday. But tipped to the potential of a surprise appearance there by one of the few EV1 battery-electric cars to survive the General Motors Corp. crusher, we asked event organizer Zan Dubin Scott to file a report. And here it is:
By Zan Dubin Scott, Contributor
Saturday’s first annual Renewable L.A. eco-fest gave electric car enthusiasts plenty to smile about, including five Toyota RAV4 EVs, two Vectrix Maxi-Scooters, three ZENNS, two converted plug-in hybrid Prius, several Roth Motorboard scooters and an EV1.
No, that’s not a typo. An EV1, one of the handful not notoriously crushed in 2005 by the all-electric car's maker, GM, made a surprise appearance at the Van Nuys event, causing clean-car enthusiasts present to react with cameras as if Henry Ford had risen from the dead.
“This is historic!” gasped one fan, as the sleek, silvery sports car silently pulled onto into the festival lot. GM donated the 1997 model, built with Panasonic lead-acid batteries, to Western Washington University, whose engineers have been working to restore it for the past five years.
It materialized at the eco-fest with a little help from Chelsea Sexton, an advocate of electric vehicles and a key figure in “Who Killed the Electric Car?” the 2006 film that documented the EV1's rise and demise.
Other than those owned by museums, no EV1s have been seen publicly since 2005, said Sexton, who marketed the car for GM. “This shows how much enthusiasm there is for the technology,” Sexton said. “They drove all night long to get it here.”
They didn't drive the EV1, though. It was brought in on a trailer and driven only for the brief time it took to get it from the street into the Renewable L.A. site.
Mike Seal, professor emeritus and founder of the Bellingham-based university’s Vehicle Research Institute, was among those doing the nocturnal towing. He has been leading the car’s restoration.
“It was by far the most significant electric car of its day and it’s got features that should be emulated by current EV manufacturers,” Seal said. “This was a full service automobile. It could drive at freeway speeds and had enough range to be used as the only car you needed.”
That last statement has been disputed by those who wanted to remove the EV1 and other battery-powered electric cars from the roads on the grounds they didn't have sufficient range on a single charge to match most gasoline-powered vehicles. But like Seal, many former EV owners have testified at panels and in hearings over the years that the zero-emission cars did meet their transportation needs.
Indeed, electric vehicles are in vogue again, with most major automakers developing one type or another -- battery, fuel cell and plug-in gas-electric hybrid -- as gasoline prices soar and the issues of energy independence and global warming gain importance
About 300 people attended the 7-hour Renewable L.A. event, not only to look at and take test rides in the various vehicles that were on hand, but to tour a 100 kilowatt solar power installation and attend a number of environmental panels.
- Posted by
- John O'Dell December 9, 2007, 10:55 AM
- Permalink
- Categories:
- General Motors, Plug-ins and Electric
I attended yesterday's first annual Renewable L.A. with my wife and friends and we had a great time and were very impressed with everything the event had to offer. We took a ride in the eBox from AC Propulsion and absolutely loved the way it drove. The torque and acceleration off the line was more powerful than any car I've ever owned. It was great to see so many road worthy electric cars on site - including the new Zenn cars and the still going strong Toyota RAV 4 EVs - and to also check out the plug-in hybrids from Plug-In Conversions. I want to see Southern California roads filled with these cars right now.
And it was very cool to tour the huge solar installation and realize that every one of those electric cars could easily be charged from clean, renewable sun power without ever burning another lump of coal.
Driving home in the bumper to bumper Saturday afternoon traffic on the San Diego Freeway it made me angry to think about all the people who killed the electric car the last time around. Every one of the cars pumping more greenhouse gasses into the already warming atmosphere could easily have been running on electric engines at the 5mph we were averaging. Too bad so many people put profits and business self interests ahead of the common good and what's best for the health of our planet and our children.
My congratulations and thanks to the event organizer and all the passionate people who made Renewable L.A. so rewarding to attend.
Anyone crazy enough to believe that electrics are a viable alternative
to gasoline engines should be forced to endure the high purchase cost, even higher costs to replace the $25,000 plus battery packs and be forced to buy another car that can get to the next county and back again. Plug-ins are the only viable form of electric transportation as of now, and into the future - until someone can invent a practical battery that can be recharged in a few minutes instead of hours and doesn't weigh 1500 pounds to contain 3 hour worth of driving. It was the stupidity of California's zero emissions law that led automakers to avoid the plug-in for the past 5 years. Only the braindead and supremely arrogant California politicians think they can legislate invention.
It sounds like thebike45 has been riding too long without a helmet and breathing too much car exhaust. How else to explain the hostility and irrational diatribe? thebike45 makes up facts and figures to try and back the attack his/her post launches, but fails to convince. People who throw around juvenile insults like "crazy" "stupidity" and "braindead" can be easily and quickly dismissed as being part of the problem and not part of the solution. No effective agent of change employs that kind of language among adults. Many folks who sound far more intelligent than this nonproductive mudslinger make a lot of sense about electric cars. The truth is that if the California Air Resources Board had not been intimidated and strong-armed into selling out the citizens we'd have the 3rd and 4th generation of batteries in new electric cars today. The fact is, a major advance in battery technology was announced just last week by Exxon/Mobil (of all people). The choice between plug-in and electric isn't an either/or and it adds zero to this important debate to dumb down this discussion and bring it to the playground insult level. The reality is that California's air quality mandates have led the nation and will continue to do so. I wonder why some people are so afraid of doing the right thing?
Hey Bike,
People like need to endure high hospital treatment costs associated with fuel pollution and whatever else you care to continue to use and pump into the environment. It's people like you that can't see beyond your own arm's length. I wonder what would have happened to the car if someone like yourself bitched and moaned about the cost of cars a 100 years ago?
greenius
about made up facts. Kind of like the green crowd likes to? you know like the falsified sea level 'rises'. Where the greenies took a single land based measuring device that was on compacting soil and applied it as a correct factor to all satelite data, when the satelite data showed no inscrease in sea levels?
or the fact that their are more polar bears around now then before?
or the fact that the link between human energy creation and global warming is at best a hypothesis worth testing?
wait, I forget, Al 'God' Gore decleared it case closed, and that no futher debate was needed. I need to pray to him now, so I can use my car.