Monthly Archives: November 2008

First week with a Tesla

Even I was surprised. In my rear view mirror I watched a Los Angeles Sheriff’s car pull out of the Chevron and turn on both its blue and red flashing lights to pursue me down Ventura Boulevard. It had only been hours since I eased out of the Tesla dealership in West Los Angeles and already [...]

Voltageville, USA

Sacramento’s News 10 reports on the electric cars of Vacaville, CA.  In 2003 Vacaville, also known as Voltageville, was miles ahead of other cities with over 100 electric cars on the road in both GM EV1s and Toyota RAV4-EVs.  The California Air Resources Board’s 1990 Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate would have required 10% of all [...]

Recharging the Dream

Electric car and renewable energy enthusiast Gerry Gaydos shares his thoughts during a recent trip to California in the nicely narrated video short below.  Gerry’s pursuit of renewable energy and electric drive began in the summer of 1997 when he spent time with some engineering students preparing a solar electric race car for the World [...]

Chris Paine on the Ron Reagan Show

Air America’s “The Ron Reagan Show” aired an episode on November 24th, 2008 about what to do about “The Big Three” automakers.  Chris Paine joined Ron live with his views on the bailout for “The Big Three”, along with thoughts on future innovations in the industry. You can listen to the entire half hour [...]

CNN namechecks ‘Revenge of the Electric Car’

Check out this CNN segment from Nov 20th 2008.  What next for GM, the Volt, and the director of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’ …

We interrupt this blog for a musical number…

Dr. Electric Car’s Sing-a-long Musical Blog
We received this link and our first singalong musical blog posting from Bo Brown and the gang at Hogmolly

Hi folks,
Heard  you were gearing up for another documentary on the electric car. I saw the first one, it had enough impact on me that I wrote a song on the subject.
The [...]

Here comes the Electric White Zombie!

Oregon Public Broadcasting recently aired a segment on John “Plasma Boy” Wayland’s White Zombie – an electric conversion of a 1972 Datsun 1200.  Watch the embedded video below to see how quick this DC electric home conversion runs against the gasoline muscle car competition.  Enthusiasts like John are showing the performance potential of electric vehicles and proving [...]

Solartaxi visits AeroVironment

This summer Swiss visionary Louis Palmer and his friendly team made several stops in Southern California on their global whirlwind tour with their spectacular Solartaxi Electric Vehicle.  One of the stops was at AeroVironment in Simi Valley.
The Solartaxi is a realization of one of Louis’ childhood dreams : to drive a zero emissions solar powered electric car [...]

Bring Back the EV1 Press Conference

Friday November 14th, 2008 – GM Training Center – Burbank, CA
The Honorable Nate Holden, former California State Senator and L.A. City Council Member, held a press conference demanding General Motors apologize to the American people for destroying the automaker’s EV1 plug-in electric vehicle.  Mr. Holden demanded the EV1’s immediate re-introduction before, or in exchange [...]

My Tesla arrives in Los Angeles!

It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!
My brand new silver all-electric Tesla Roadster sportscar (#23) arrived by truck in Los Angeles yesterday. Shrouded in plastic and tucked into the back of a semi with three other Tesla’s, it waited to be rolled onto the streets of Los Angeles.
My nervousness turned to pure joy as it [...]

Partying with Plug In America

Saturday September 27th, 2008 : Immediately after the Santa Monica 2008 AltCarExpo, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Director Chris Paine graciously hosted Plug In America’s very first fundraiser at his PV+EV residence in Culver City, CA .
The party was totally sold out: 250 guests and two superb electric vehicle rockstars – GM’s newly released preproduction [...]

Kick Gas 2008

“It’s gonna be Earth Day on STEROIDS !” That’s how EV fan Paul Thomas lured us to the sun-scorched Barona Drag Strip to film this year’s Kick Gas Festival. Barona has seen many grudge matches over the years, but this was one we couldn’t miss; the first head to head between electric [...]

GM on the brink…

Suffice to say, all of GM’s development programs including the Volt are threatened.
For all of GM’s industrial successes and environmental failures, many elements of the American economy including the advertising-dependent entertainment industry — rise and fall with its fortunes.
G.M. Says U.S. Cash Is Its Best Hope
By Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley for the NY Times.
The [...]

We Love Electric Bikes

Three weeks ago we spent the day shooting at the Kick Gas Festival in San Diego. One of our favorite diversions was testing the electric bikes. I’ve always been skeptical about e-bikes. Why waste electricity when you can just pedal? Well, that day changed our minds. Electric bikes could well be the secret weapon of [...]

Postcard from Iceland (2 of 2)

It’s really hard to beat a week in Iceland.  With the conference over, we went on a tour tracking down electric cars and the clean electricity to power them.
Highlights the second half included an unlikely interview in the spectacular black lava “Blue Lagoon” hot springs. This is the place where tourists sometimes ask “…why did [...]

The Future @ Smart Garage

A couple weeks ago, I read about the Rocky Mountain Institute’s gathering of EV interests in Portland for “Smart Garage.” The list of invitees was pretty impressive with representation from, “auto manufacturers like Nissan and GM, utilities such as PG&E and Duke Energy, IBM, P&G, Wal-Mart and Google, among many others”.
When Amory Lovins gets involved, [...]