HeidiAllen.com

When I was 7 or 8 years old, I became obsessed with power generation. Thus began a brief tradition (1971-1977 or so) of attending the energy fair that came to our city each year.

The biggest booth was almost always the Westinghouse nuclear power display. I still have one of their pamphlets featuring a shiny smiling atom. I knew about radioactive waste, so my visits to the booth were a little kid’s version of industrial espionage.

After I was done spying on the enemy, I’d go first to the wind power booths, then to the solar power booths, and finally to the long row of empty 3 or 4 foot wide booths attended by resolute looking men.

This was my favorite part. I’d stop before each man and ask the same question: “Why are you standing in an empty booth?”.

Their answers were all pretty much the same and went something like this:

“I invented a way for cars to run without gas/on very little gas. I thought I’d solved the energy crisis. I took my invention to a major automaker. They said that I was a hero. They bought my invention for a lot of money, but made me sign a non-disclosure agreement. Now I see that they will NEVER tell the world about my invention. I’m prevented by law from telling anyone the details, but I can travel the country with this energy fair and try to warn people about what the automakers are doing.”

Around this same time, I became interested in antique cars. Some of the oldest ones didn’t run on gas. I found this very interesting.

Around 1990, I met a man who told me the story of his family’s Ford purchase (I’m pretty sure it was Ford.). They’d ordered an unusual set of options, so the factory was building it to spec. They arranged a family trip to the factory to pick up the car.

When they arrived, the manager who’d been their contact wasn’t there. There was confusion while employees rushed around trying to find their car. Finally, they were taken to a car in another area of the factory parking lot. In the rush of getting everything finalized, they didn’t take a good look at the car.

Now they had to drive back to Florida. After a while, it seemed like a good time to pull over and get some gas. However, they couldn’t find the gas tank. In fact, they couldn’t even find the gas gauge. Unsure what to do, they just kept driving. They made it all the way home.

Ford employees were waiting for them in their driveway, smiling and clearly nervous. The employees explained that there’d been a mistake, and that the family had been given a prototype. They assured the family that their car was on its way, and that Ford would pay for the delivery. They rebuffed the family’s questions about the prototype and quickly whisked the mystery car away.

When the family went inside their home (the Ford employees had stopped them before they got that far), they found numerous frantic messages on their answering machine begging them to return the prototype as soon as possible. They called back and tried to find out more about the car, but no-one was talking.

Hmmmm…

In 1997, I heard about the EV1, the first production electric car whose performance was competitive with combustion vehicles. Rumour had it that the cars would be available only for lease and in very small quantities. Supposedly, Saturn employees had the best chance of getting one. I got myself hired at Saturn. Seriously. I’m not kidding.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’d already seen a solar carport in action charging electric vehicles. It dovetailed beautifully with my dream of one day living off the grid.

At first, the plan was to lease the EV1 in several states, including Texas, where I was. However, much to my disappointment, the rollout only occurred in California and Arizona.

The reviews from the EV1 leasers were enthusiastic. People loved this car. With nothing but positive press, and a long, long waiting list of hopeful EV1 drivers, I thought that the electric car had finally arrived. Then I found out that GM was winding down the program.

A new film is coming out that chronicles the EV1 saga, Who Killed The Electric Car?. I hope it comes to Texas, but I’m not holding my breath!

Meanwhile, the Tango, Wrightspeed X1, Tesla, Eliica and Venturi Fetish give me hope. Then there’s the HHO car (view video here), although they say they’re in discussions with a major automakers and that terrifies me!

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Automotive, Eco. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.