Although the City of Malibu installed electric vehicle charging stations only last year, they may be obsolete soon.
By Sylvie Belmond/Special to the Malibu Times
After decades of hit and miss, technologically advanced vehicles that lessen CO2 emissions are slowly gaining ground on local roads.
Some automakers first created purely electric vehicles, while others built hybrids that use both gasoline and electricity (or hydrogen) for power. But the purely electric vehicles appear to be on their way out as the self-sufficient hybrids are taking over the market.
The hybrids seem to better accommodate the needs of today’s drivers and they also meet a new California mandate that will require all carmakers to build vehicles that minimize CO2 emissions by 2009.
State legislator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura) initiated AB 1493 to regulate greenhouse gas emission standards, which Gov. Gray Davis signed into law last month.
Hybrids or all-electric?
All-electric vehicle aficionados are skeptical about the hybrids because they still need gasoline.
Last year, the City of Malibu installed two charging stations on Civic Center Way to accommodate the purely electric vehicles, but the usage remains minimal.
The EV1, an electric car manufactured by General Motors, appears to be on its way out, partly because GM only leased the vehicles, which it no longer renews.
But Constance Chesnut, a Malibu resident who has leased two EV1s in the past five years, does not question their efficacy. The problem is politics, she said.
“The EV car is a dazzling piece of engineering,” Chesnut said. “It is totally available and producible but manufacturers put no effort in to promote them.”
One factor that may have kept consumers away from electric vehicles is size. The first electric vehicles were small, almost squashed looking. Some only traveled as far as 140 miles before they needed recharging, and charging equipment was not uniform among different companies.
With the hybrids, charging is not an issue-the cars automatically recharge as they are driven-and many look like a normal economy-sized car.
One such vehicle is the Toyota Prius, a standard four-cylinder, four-door sedan that can accommodate up to five people.
The Prius, which retails starting at $20,480, gets about 48 to 52 miles per gallon of gasoline and has a super ultra-low emission rating. It offers the practicality of a regular car because it never needs to be plugged in for a recharge. When the batteries are low, the gasoline-powered engine takes over and recharges the batteries while it runs the car at the same time.
Prius owners say that as the power supply alternates from gasoline to electric, the vehicle’s performance remains consistent.
Honda offers a Civic Hybrid and a hybrid called Insight. The Civic, which has a starting MSRP of $19,550, has a 1.3-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine and a 10-kilowatt electric motor. It has an EPA estimated fuel economy of 46/51, city/highway, “squeezing 650 miles from a single tank of gas,” Honda’s Web site states. The Insight gets about 61/68 miles per gallon, city/highway, and prices start at $19,080.
Drive to eliminate dependence on gas
Actor and Malibu resident Dennis Weaver and his wife, Gerry, who are on an environmental crusade that has taken them from conference to conference throughout the Southwest, currently drive a Prius. But their focus is to promote hydrogen technology for vehicles that would be completely independent from gasoline in the future.
“It’s [hybrid use] a transition that allows conserving the oil we have until a conversion to hydrogen is made,” Weaver said.
The actor believes that hydrogen-powered vehicles are the answer for the future of transportation because they will help to clean up the environment and provide a boost to the local economy. However, the technology still needs to be perfected, he said.
“The tragedy of September 11 makes crystal clear our urgent need to move to an energy source to support our economy that is independent of foreign sources, one that will also preserve and protect our life-giving environment,” Weaver states on his Web site page, www.ecolonomics.org/drive/press_set.html.
“It seems obvious to me that we are vulnerable until we do that,” he explained.
Hydrogen power is a clean inexhaustible fuel source and it could boost the economy by creating thousands of new jobs, he said. But converting American car buyers to swap their transportation modes will take some time.
“It’s a process that won’t happen overnight,” Weaver noted as he suggested the first step would be to convert fleets, such as Fed Ex or the Postal Service, to hydrogen or compressed-gas autos. That would create an internal central fueling system because these fleets do not need the infrastructure that consumers need.
“To create the hydrogen auto, the carmakers need the infrastructure and vice versa, so it’s like a chicken and egg syndrome,” said Weaver. “However, these practical difficulties can be alleviated if the government gets involved and creates incentives for the consumer by offering tax breaks and subsidies, like it did when petroleum industries first started because it was beneficial for the economy.”
Hoping to capture the public’s interest for alternative power sources that don’t pollute, Weaver designed a “Drive to Survive” campaign where hydrogen and compressed gas vehicle prototypes will be driven from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in the coming spring.