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On the road again

After a false start in the 1990s, electric cars are back - and it looks like they're here to stay.

In practice, many NEVs are being altered to go 35 mph (55 km/h)—and should be manufactured to operate at that speed with safety features to match, says Russell Sydney, who heads the Sustainable Transport Club in Santa Monica, California. “Five states have passed laws that allow NEVs to drive 35,” says Sydney, whose group, in conjunction with electric car dealership Environmental Motors, has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to create a middle-speed classification for all-electric cars that reach 35. “They acknowledged receipt several months ago and they’re sitting on it,” Sydney says of the request.

Mike Moore, a mechanic from South Carolina, converts gas-run cars into electric vehicles. Here, he’s showing a converted 1987 Mazda pickup to its owner, Jim Pick.

Photo: Wessel Kok

So what if you just can’t wait for your electric vehicle, one that goes on the highway and is crash-tested? You could do what Jim Pick of Pittsboro, North Carolina, did and convert your gas car to electric.

Pick bought a long-dormant 1987 Mazda pickup to experiment with, and plans to replace his lowest-mileage car with the truck once he gussies it up. The day it was delivered to his rural home, Pick and his wife, Judy, stood like expectant parents as mechanic Mike Moore backed the pick-up off the trailer he’d driven from South Carolina. A former race-car mechanic and driver, Moore owns Ampmobiles Conversions with his wife Paula. Moore does two to four conversions a week, conducts experiments for battery-makers and teaches daily conversion workshops.

Not only did Pick take Moore’s class, his truck was the one converted. “Mike said, ‘Give me a list of your expectations.’ I told him I needed at least 40 miles on a charge, and to drive at least 55 or 60 miles per hour for short distances,” says Pick, a retired veterinarian. “I live out in the country, and there are stretches where you need to do 55. He said all that was possible.”

Pick’s interest in electric cars started a few years ago. “I’ve always been into the idea of saving energy,” he says. “We have geothermal, solar hot water. People are looking at statistics and finding they really don’t drive long distances. An electric car just seems to me to be the logical way to go. I’ll use this to go to the store, take the trash to the dump, do errands.”

Also on hand was Tom Arnette of Graham, North Carolina, who’d arranged to drop off his 1992 Ford Ranger for Moore to take back to his shop and convert. Pointing out specifications to both men, Moore pops open the Mazda’s hood and, later, inspects under the bed behind the cab; both areas hold rows of sparkling clean six-volt batteries, 24 in total. “Let’s assume you have a problem with a battery,“ Moore says with a deep Carolina drawl. “If one battery goes bad you can remove it.” Otherwise, he explains, the vehicle won’t run.

While Moore gives a series of tips—“Always use the parking brake; the vacuum pump is what you hear when you turn the key; never have it towed with a tow dolly”—his wife runs a video recorder for the training film she plans to make for new customers. Everyone stops to admire Pick’s license plate: NOFRNOIL.

Moore, who started the business in 2005, says his days keep getting busier. “This year it has just gone crazy,” he says. “But some people, I talk them out of it instead of into it, mostly because of range. If they want to do 70 miles an hour for 100 miles (115 km/h for 160 km), you just can’t do it. So I don’t want them to get one and then go around badmouthing the electric car.”

The average price for a conversion kit ranges from $5,000 to $10,000, about $12,000 to $18,000 if you hire a mechanic. The EAA estimates there are 10,500 converted vehicles in the U.S., half in California. Bob Batson, owner of Electric Vehicles of America in New Hampshire, which engineers and sells conversion supplies, this year set up a network of mechanics across the country who do conversions. Moore was first on the list, and Batson expects to have one in every state by December.

With all these electrical vehicles out and about, where are drivers charging them away from home? Generally any 110 or 220 volt plug (some cars have both) will do the job, but location is the biggest factor. For now, charging stations are being built in dribs and drabs. Some large employers install them by employee request; others are found here and there, such as the 15-station network from the Florida Keys to New Smyrna Beach in central Florida.

A larger U.S. effort is underfoot, however. In August, the principles at Nissan Americas, based in Franklin, Tennessee, said they’d work with the state and the utility Tennessee Valley Authority to study a charging station infrastructure. (The automaker has said it will sell an electric car by 2010.) Around the same time, General Motors announced a relationship with Electric Power Research Institute, which represents more than 30 electric utilities in North America, to examine how power companies will cope with the charging demands of electric vehicles. Also in August, the city of San Jose, California, signed a deal with Coulomb Technologies to install electric charging stations in garages and on street lights. Furthermore, Coulomb said it hopes to put 450 stations, called Smartlets, into service nationwide. In Britain, a national network of more than 1,000 charging bays is in the works. By the end of 2009, about 200 will be installed in London, with the rest spread throughout the country.

Smith, at the Center for Automotive Research, predicts that despite the clamour for all-electric, the “limp-home” factor—when EVs stop running if they exceed their range—will interfere. “There’s no way without electricity that you can get home,” says Smith, who predicts the electric hybrid may come out on top. “I think the next big thing will be the Prius electric hybrid,” he notes, a car that, like the Volt, can rely on an internal-combustion system when the battery discharges. A plug-in Prius, however, isn’t expected to hit showrooms until at least 2010. Meanwhile, some Prius owners are buying $10,000 conversion kits, which can extend their electrical miles greatly before the gas engine kicks in.

Smith hopes automakers take the time to develop quality products. “We’re in a period now when, because of public relations and environmental issues, technology is being pushed to the market quicker than it would normally,” he says. “You might think that’s good news, but if you bring the technology out and it doesn’t work, then it’s bad technology. Oldsmobile brought out diesel cars [too fast] in the ’80s, and they were a catastrophe. They killed diesel’s future [in the U.S.]. There are stories like that happening frequently in this industry.”

Paine, who made Who Killed the Electric Car?, has grieved one round of deaths in the industry, but is hopeful for this seeming resurrection of electric vehicles and its new legions of fans, many of whom he’s been credited with bringing along. “You have to have a generous spirit with people who just woke up,” he says. “Welcome to the party. We need everyone on board.”

Paine, who has criss-crossed the country several times to speak at special screenings, is busy working on a new, more optimistic film on the electric vehicle’s renaissance. The title? Revenge of the Electric Car.

Diane Daniel wrote about a couple that remodeled an older home into a carbon-free zone in the September 2008 issue.

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