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Ron and Renate Chestnut of Mountain View have had two EV-1s. The first was a red 1997 Gen1 and the second a silver-blue 1999 Gen2. Ron replaced a decade-old Acura with the EV, since he was very interested in the new technology and only used the car for commuting to SLAC (Stanford Linear Accelerator Center), where he works as a physicist. The range of the cars increased from an initial 50 miles to 90 miles (better lead-acid batteries) to 130 miles (Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries). Ron has held colloquia on electric vehicles and General Motor's lack of vision after their initial introduction. Renate uses the car gladly, especially to drive alone in the diamond lane during rush hour, on her way to Aikido practice. Ron has driven the EV-1 to Esalen (140 miles) and Arcata (320 miles) to "show the flag" and enjoy the long trips. In order to bridge the gap where so few electric vehicles are available, Ron is taking over the lease of an Chevrolet S10 Electric truck soon. He can be reached by email (ronc@slac.stanford.edu, 650-926-2450).

Keith Golden and Ellen Spertus of San Francisco have leased a silver-blue Gen2 EV1 since Dec. 31, 1999. Golden drives it 40 miles each way to NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, where he does research in artificial intelligence. Although he can make the round-trip without refueling, he sometimes makes use of the public charger at NASA. On days when he telecommutes, his wife Spertus drives the EV1 20 miles to Mills College in Oakland, where she is a computer science professor. It was her idea that the license plate read "V EQ IR", a reference to Ohm's Law of electricity, which she teaches her students. In addition to the environmental benefits of the car, Spertus enjoys its great acceleration, driving in the carpool lane, and never having to take it to a gas station. Golden and Spertus can be reached by email (ev1@spertus.com) or telephone (415-225-3664).

Bob and Lynn Seldon of Santa Monica leased a Gen1 EV in 1998, which they upgraded to a Gen2 in 1999. The Seldons quickly overcame their initial fear and skepticism of electric cars. They found the acceleration unbelievable, and, with their 100+ mile range, they never came close to running out of electricity. Fuel costs were roughly half that of gasoline on a per mile basis, even at California's increased prices for electricity. They enjoyed the convenience of beginning each day with a "full tank" thanks to home charging and never needing to take the cars for oil changes, smog checks or tune-ups. The Seldons obtained a electric vehicle decal from the California DMV, permitting them to use the car-pool lanes with a single driver and to park for free at meters in Los Angeles and Santa Monica. The EV1 was Bob's only daily vehicle, routinely taking him from Santa Monica to Irvine and Santa Barbara with occasional pleasure trips to Palm Springs and one roadtrip to the Arizona border. After GM announced that the EV1 program would be ended, the Seldons returned their EV1 and leased the Toyota RAV4-EV, about which they are also enthusiastic. Their license plate is "4GET GAS". Bob Seldon can be reached by email (seldon@gte.net) or telephone (310-209-4455).

Kathy and Ed Miller of Goleta (near Santa Barbara) have leased a Gen2 EV1 since December 1999. "It's a great car, and as of today we've driven it over 38,000 miles," says Ed, who is a retired electrical engineer. They can be seen here showing their car to their Congresswoman, Lois Capps, at the Santa Ynez Earth Day Celebration. Ed and Kathy, who is a retired school teacher, would be happy to talk or meet with the media (edmiller@rain.org, 805-968-5293).

Hugh E. Webber has gotten himself around Orlando, Florida, on a bicycle for 25 years. He has been a student of all types of electric vehicles for almost 20 years, with experience operating, servicing, and repairing pedicabs and electric golf carts. In January 2000, he visited Los Angeles for a family reunion and rented a red Gen2 EV1 from EV Rentals in the Budget lot at LAX. Hugh zipped around LA for four days, giving over a dozen relatives rides in what he called his "cherry bomb". The EV1's amazing acceleration especially delighted him, and he enjoyed beating muscle cars away from stoplights in Marina Del Rey. Hugh tried to buy an EV1 from GM soon after and was rebuffed; he has been agitating for availability of EVs ever since. Hugh author several EV1 petitions and an article published by PlanetSave.com. He says that he's just getting warmed up. He can be reached by email (hewman1@hotmail.com).

Greg Hanssen (greg@pevdc.org), EV1 driver and co-founder of PEVDC, Irvine, CA (714-350-2228). Ellen Spertus (ev1@spertus.com), EV1 driver, San Francisco, CA (415-225-3664).

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/31/business/31AUTO.html

August 31, 2002

Ford Abandons Venture in Making Electric Cars

By MICHELINE MAYNARD

DEARBORN, Mich., Aug. 30 — In another sign of the auto industry's struggle to make money selling electric vehicles, the Ford Motor Company said today that it was giving up on Think, an electric-car venture in which it sank $123 million. Instead, Ford said it would invest in other forms of alternative fuel technology like hybrid-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells.

Ford's move comes despite a regulatory mandate in California requiring manufacturers to offer up to 100,000 electric and other low-emissions vehicles a year, beginning with the 2003 model year, which officially starts Oct. 1. Similar requirements are pending in New York and Massachusetts, extending the mandate to one-fifth of the American auto market.

For now, the California law is blocked by a court injunction obtained by General Motors. Even so, G.M. announced earlier this month that it planned to give away thousands of its golf-cart-like electric vehicles to government agencies and other fleet operators in California and elsewhere, to meet the mandate should California ultimately prevail in court.

Sarah Tatchio, a Ford spokeswoman, said that the company had concluded that there were simply not enough customers interested in the Think vehicles, which are limited in their size and in the distance they can travel without needing a recharge.

Officials in California played down the significance of Ford's decision. "This is not a major dent in our efforts to clean the air," said David K. Chai, a spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis.

Although auto industry officials have lobbied hard for California regulators to rewrite the requirement, Ms. Tatchio said any expectation of that happening did not play into Ford's decision to back away from Think. "We do have to meet the mandates," she said.

Ford created Think in 1999, when it bought Pivo Industries of Norway for $23 million. It renamed the company and has since invested another $100 million in an attempt to develop a line of electric cars for sale to the public and government agencies.

The venture has two models: the Think City, a two-seat, plastic-bodied hatchback built at two plants outside Oslo, and the Think Neighbor, a golf-cart like vehicle with some car features, including a windshield and headlights. It is built outside Detroit.

Both models have fallen far short of Ford's sales expectations. Ford hoped to sell 5,000 City cars a year, but has sold a total of just over 1,000 in three years. It has sold slightly more Neighbors, but its plant is able to build up to 10,000 a year.

One of Ford's biggest customers for the Think City is the New York Power Authority, which purchased 100 for use in a program that leases the vehicles to commuters at eight suburban train stations and provides recharging facilities. Just this week, it said it was shifting 10 City cars to Huntington, N.Y., bringing the total available to Long Island commuters to 40.

Brian Warner, a spokesman for the agency, said officials were "disappointed" at the Ford decision, but that the program would continue.

Ms. Tatchio said that Ford had not decided whether to sell or shut down Think. Ford stopped importing Think City cars in July, she said, and no further production is scheduled. Ford also plans to stop building the Neighbor at the end of the year.

Ford's action comes in the midst of a broad cost-cutting drive, part of a turnaround plan by the company's chief executive, William C. Ford Jr., that began in January. At the time, Mr. Ford, a self-described environmentalist, said that no part of the company was immune from review.

"It was a business decision, based on the market," Ms. Tatchio said.

Ford will now shift resources into other programs on alternative fuel vehicles so that it can comply with California's requirements. Under the regulation that has been blocked in court, 10 percent of an automaker's sales in the state must be low-emission vehicles, including 2 percent that do not pollute at all.

Next year, Ford plans to introduce a hybrid-electric version of its Escape sport utility vehicle, which would fall into the first category, followed by a hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered vehicle in 2004 that meets the zero-emission standard.

"We were never counting on any one vehicle" to meet the California regulations, Ms. Tatchio said. "It was always a multipronged approach."

Zachary Roth, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, the environmental group, said that Ford's new approach made more sense for consumers.

"We've always been less sanguine about the prospects for electric cars," Mr. Roth said. "There doesn't seem to be a market for them. We've always urged Ford and the other automakers to develop technology that there's a market for."

Ford's action comes several years after G.M. abandoned its EV1 electric car, which cost $1 billion to develop in the 1990's. Sold through Saturn dealers in California and Arizona, the EV1 could travel fewer than 100 miles before it required hours of recharging. G.M.'s sole electric offering is now the golf-cart-type vehicle built for it by Club Car, a company in Augusta, Ga.

Toyota sells an electric-powered version of its RAV4 sport utility, but it costs $42,510, versus $17,000 for the gasoline version. In California, the RAV4 is eligible for $13,000 in state and federal tax credits, however, which helps narrow the cost gap.

Nissan makes an electric station wagon called the Altra, an ultra-clean version of its Sentra sedan equipped with two catalytic converters, and a golf-cart-type vehicle called the Hypermini that is used in parking enforcement.

Ms. Tatchio said that Ford did not feel that it was failing to keep pace with foreign competitors in developing fuel-cell-powered cars. "We're all within months," she said. "It's such a blip of time on the calendar when you're talking about this kind of advanced technology. We're glad that we're all coming to the table."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-autos-toyota-nissan.html

September 2, 2002

Toyota, Nissan to Cooperate on Hybrids

By REUTERS

Filed at 6:47 a.m. ET

Hybrid vehicles combine an internal combustion engine with an electric motor to make them twice as fuel-efficient as ordinary cars of the same size.

The tie-up -- the first such agreement between the two companies -- would last for at least 10 years and calls for Toyota to supply state-of-the-art hybrid system components to Nissan for an undisclosed fee.

The automakers also agreed to exchange information and discuss joint development of hybrid system components in the longer term to boost efficiency and cut costs.

The two companies expect that this collaboration will contribute to further decreasing the cost of hybrid-vehicle components, which should boost the sales of hybrid vehicles around the world,'' they said in a joint statement.

The agreement is in line with Toyota's aim to make

green'' technology available to any takers, but marks a slight change of heart for Japan's third-biggest automaker, which had so far put less effort into hybrid technology and had therefore lagged far behind Toyota and Honda Motor Co in the field.

Toyota and Honda, Japan's No.2 carmaker, are the world's only automakers to sell hybrid vehicles.

By sharing this technology with Toyota, we believe it will merit our customers by lowering costs,'' Nissan Executive Vice President Nobuo Okubo told a joint news conference.

One of the first projects would be for Nissan to install a hybrid system currently being developed by Toyota in its vehicles to be sold in the United States in 2006. The volume is expected to reach some 100,000 units within a five-year period from 2006.

U.S. THE KEY

Okubo declined to say whether the system would be installed in cars sold in domestically.

But analysts said cooperation was probably limited to the United States for now because demand for hybrid cars is higher there than in Japan.

Monthly U.S. sales of Toyota's Prius, the world's first hybrid car, are about four times sales in Japan.

While cooperation on hybrids would save costs and eventually lower final product prices, analysts said the near-term and even long-term impact on earnings was unclear.

The tie-up is no doubt positive for both Nissan and Toyota, but whether this will show up in profits is another issue,'' said Shigeharu Kimishima, auto analyst at Mitsubishi Securities.

Toyota has so far sold 120,000 hybrid vehicles, starting with the Prius in 1997, but it is far from reaching its target of building 300,000 hybrids annually in 2005 or 2006 -- even if that target may include sales to other automakers.

Nissan's Okubo said the technology sharing could also extend to its majority-owner Renault SA if the French automaker expressed interest.

Currently, Nissan and Renault cooperate in fuel-cell technology, while Toyota has a similar agreement with U.S. auto giant General Motors Corp. The announcement came before the Tokyo stock market closed. Shares in Nissan ended the session down 2.08 percent at 848 yen, while Toyota fell 2.21 percent to 2,870. The Nikkei average dropped 1.02 percent.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/usatoday/20020905/ts_usatoday/4420145&e=2

Thu Sep 5, 8:56 AM ET

James R. Healey USA TODAY

Gasoline engines now in production can be nearly pollution-free, a California university engineering laboratory reports after three years of study.

The finding suggests Americans can enjoy much cleaner air without the high price of electric cars.

''You won't get to zero (emissions), but you will get pretty close,'' says Joseph Norbeck, director of the facility that performed the challenging tests at the University of California-Riverside.

For now, the promising technology is limited to California because to work right, the engines require low-sulfur gasoline that is widely available only there.

It probably will take a federal mandate for the clean fuel to become available across the USA, opening the door to cleaner-burning engines everywhere.

Environmentalists saluted the report, though it paints the gasoline internal-combustion engine as less a villain than they prefer.

''You have to be practical. The internal-combustion engine is going to be around 20 or 30 years, so you need to address air quality problems,'' says David Friedman, engineer and senior analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, which favors hydrogen power. ''It's a significant finding.''

''It's good news and shows that the auto industry, when it uses advanced technology, can do better than the law requires,'' says Dan Becker, spokesman for the Sierra Club ( news - web sites), an environmental group.

UC tested the two cars with four-cylinder engines that meet California's strictest anti-pollution standards for gasoline engines: Nissan Sentra and Honda Accord.

The engines have been sold in small numbers, but starting with 2003 models, the Honda engine is standard in California-market Accord sedans with automatic transmissions, and the Nissan engine is standard in California Sentras.

Honda and ChevronTexaco helped pay for the UC research. Other money came from state and federal agencies.

''If auto companies and oil companies are commissioning a report that shows they can use technology to improve things, I'm not troubled at all,'' Becker says.
http://www.evworld.com/databases/shownews.cfm?pageid=news300802-03

Ballard Receives Fuel Cell Bus Engine Order for California Market

Engines to be integrated into buses for use in Santa Clara Valley in California.

Source: Business Wire [Aug 30, 2002]

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 29, 2002-- Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ:BLDP)(TSX:BLD) announced today the receipt of an order from Gillig Corporation for delivery of three heavy-duty Ballard(R) fuel cell engines and support services.

The 205 kW fuel cell engines will be integrated into transit buses for delivery in 2004 to the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) based in San Jose, California. The fuel cell buses will operate for a two-year period in revenue service under real-world conditions, in response to the California Air Resources Board's zero-emission transit bus requirements. VTA will evaluate fuel cell technology for the public transit industry, including maintenance and operating performance and costs, fueling safety, employee training, and public education and awareness. This is a joint demonstration program with VTA, the San Mateo Transportation District, the California Fuel Cell Partnership and the California Air Resources Board.

In support of this program, the fueling station at VTA's Cerone operating division in San Jose will be enhanced with hydrogen refueling capability.

"With this order we now have 11 different transit agencies around the world committed to demonstrating Ballard's most advanced heavy-duty fuel cell engine technology in the next several years," said Firoz Rasul, Ballard's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "California has shown great leadership in the development of fuel cell technology and we are delighted that VTA has chosen buses powered by Ballard(R) fuel cell engines."

"Ballard is very pleased to be working with Gillig to supply our industry leading technology to VTA," said Dr. Andreas Truckenbrodt, Ballard's Vice President and General Manager, Transportation Division. "Gillig is the second largest transit bus manufacturer in North America, and will be the second bus manufacturer to receive Ballard heavy-duty engines using our Mark 902 fuel cell modules. This relationship will allow Ballard to introduce our latest heavy-duty fuel cell engine to the North American market while providing Gillig with a wealth of fuel cell experience."

"Gillig has a history of customer satisfaction built on choosing the best and most practical technologies and then delivering reliable performance with them," said Brian Macleod, Gillig's Senior Vice President. "Gillig is very pleased to partner with Ballard to produce this leading edge product because Ballard has demonstrated an ability to perform and their experience and obvious technical capabilities will be invaluable in achieving customer satisfaction and a successful demonstration of this new technology."

Gillig Corporation is a privately held California company that is 112 years old and produces heavy duty transit buses for the North American market. Gillig has always been a leader in the transportation industry, from buggies and carriages in the 19th century, to parallel hybrid electric buses in the 21st century, however Gillig's success can be attributed to a reputation of customer satisfaction and solid performance.
http://www.evworld.com/databases/shownews.cfm?pageid=news300802-04