Jerry Asher, who is a board member of the Electric Vehicle Association (EAA), is taking a CalCars open source (Thank you Felix Kramer) Prius
conversion plug-in hybrid all around America. This is an extreme hardship to live hand to mouth depending on EAA chapters and others to help make his journey possible. Jerry is willing to make the sacrifice because he wants to let people to see first hand a plug-in hybrid. Seeing is believing. You can follow Jerry on his adventure by going to www.phev3a.com.

We need help to keep Jerry going. Jerry needs places to land, help with
getting local media attention, places to sleep, food to eat, a little bit of gasoline and lots of electric outlets. See video below and go to the websites to learn more. www.spiritofdc.com and www.phev3a.com.

Joseph Lado PHEV3A co-chair.

Member EVA/DC, EAA, Plug-In America, NEDRA National Electric Drag
Racing Association and more.

PHEV3A is supported by EVA/DC, Amtrak, several EAA chapters, and
enthusiasts across the country.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) meets tomorrow. Their plan is to weaken the laws that govern pollution from automobiles. In particular they plan to reduce the number of Zero Emission Vehicles that were originally required by the law popularly known as the Zero Emissions Mandate or ZEV Mandate. In a show of public will we need anyone available from San Francisco to Reno to come to the rally and let CARB know that Zero Emission Vehicles, with out any dictates to which technology will get us them, should be in large numbers on the road. Plug-in hybrids should be encouraged as well as pure electric vehicles that use batteries and if the automakers want to make fuel cell vehicles sooner rather than later in large numbers they are certainly welcome to do so. The point is, we need those vehicles on the road now, so CARB shouldn’t be working to limit the numbers of vehicles in the near future. Be there to show your support for clean air that comes from having cleaner cars.

Plug in America Press Conference and Rally

Date: Wednesday - March 26, 2008

Time: 10:30 a.m.

Where: California EPA Building

..........1001 I Street

..........Sacramento, Ca

About three years ago when traveling though the Midwest I happened upon a conversation that struck me very odd. The discussion going on was about the mortgage crisis. The point of the conversation was clear, Midwesterners, the salt of the earth, the no need for government help kinds of people, or as I like to put it, the responsible Americans, were talking about walking away from their home loans and being in essence irresponsible. That conversation didn’t compute well in my head so I probed a little. I asked why? Why would these people known for their practicality born out of surviving extreme harsh winters walk away from loans and houses that they had called home? The answer was simple and direct. They were walking away from their homes because they simply couldn’t afford the loans that they had taken out. It was either eat or pay everything to the mortgage and eating is kind of vital to life. The stigma of bankruptcy still runs deep in these parts. The pain they felt added creases to their faces that previously weren’t there. They were walking away because that was their only choice. I came to the conclusion that something had gone terribly wrong. This disturbed me so much that I tried desperately to put it out of my head.

The following interview was published by Venster, a Shell Oil Co. Dutch-language magazine produced for circulation internally with in the company. The interview is with Shell Oil Company’s CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, and was translated into English by Rembrandt Koppelaar, president of ASPO-NL and contributing Editor to the Oil Drum: Europe. I acquired the interview from a Blog post to the European Tribune that had added commentary by Jerome a Paris. For this Blog I am not using Paris’ commentary but have removed his and added my own. I have rewritten some of the translation to correct some of the improperly written English. I made sure that none of my changes had any affect on the meaning of the translation.

The purpose of this post is to point out a very disturbing trend in oil pricing. There has been much speculation in the media and in the blog sphere that the price of oil today reflects a shortening of supply directly attributed to peak-oil having been reached. The interview with Jeroen van der Veer indicates something radically different is going on. My speculation is that he is right and that the consequences could be dire if unheeded.

The belief that uniform benefit could be had by pure unregulated capitalistic economies died more than a century ago when people realized that pure market economies failed to produce a benefit to society as a whole. This wasn’t a change in thinking from capitalism to socialism as it is often debated now days, but rather a realization that unbridled capitalism exacerbated the conditions that brought about Communism. The great majority of the nation, liberal and conservative, business man and laborer, came to the same conclusion, that being in a fully capitalist society government plays an important roll. That roll is primarily to keep the playing field fair and even so that basic economic principles that benefit man kind can take hold. What had occurred during this time period was that forces gaming the system, chiefly monopolists, took over the open capitalist markets and closed them to the detriment of a great majority of the citizenry.

Click on the image above to go to the auction. Pictured is Chris Daughtry, one of the many celebrities that lent their signatures to help out this Kos.

There are only a few hours left before the auction ends. Now is your chance to do something to raise awareness and offer help to families and children deal with the awful scourge of autism. The team at Harvey Coachworks and EV has donated their time, energy and money to making this auction come to fruition. They took the time and the expense of building then transporting this special vehicle from its factory floor in Knoxville, Maryland across the US to Hollywood to be present at the celebrity event. There the celebrities did their part by signing the vehicle. Others have volunteered their homes, towing services, personal vehicles and more. All you need to do is look into your pocket and say, "I can do my part," and bid.

Thank you.

Earlier in the year I made friends with Mike Harvey who had joined our local electric vehicle club and immediately became busy converting cars to EVs and making BugE Blue Sky Design kits into drivable electric vehicles. After successfully building an award winning EV, as well as a comfortable, drivable BugE kit (pictured above) and learning how to do the CalCars Prius Plug-in Hybrid conversion, Mike got the idea that he could make a business out of his newly acquired skills. I decided that I would help.

Last week I was at the 23rd International Electric Vehicle Symposium, otherwise known as EVS23. Last year I helped organize volunteers for the Electric Drive Transportation Association Conference (EDTA) coming from EVA/DC and found the experience so enlightening that this year I told myself that I would be at EVS23, which, by chance, was going to be run by my friends at EDTA. What I hoped and planned was to just be an attendant at EVS23 so I could see more of the panel discussions and spend more time talking to people and learning about what people are doing and where the industry was going. The best laid plans of mice and men.

When people ask me when did I start becoming interested in electric vehicles I honestly tell them I can't remember. Electric vehicles weren't an "aha!" moment in my life where I suddenly realized that I was seeing something revealed for the first time. Electric vehicles and many other forms of capturing and using alternative energy have always been in my psyche. I think it goes back the OPEC oil embargo of the 1970's.

I was a preteen and a teenager during that time, very much interested in cars and driving, as well as being interested in science's ability to solve our everyday problems. One of our neighbors purchased one of Bob Beaumont's tiny Sebring-Vanguard CitiCars and I was enthralled. I never got a chance to look at it up close. I just would see it driving on the street here and there every once and a while. The Apollo space missions were well on their way and on the moon was an electric car. I remember going to GM's Tomorrow Land in Disney World and becoming fascinated by what I saw.

In 1980 Stanford Ovshinsky patented a battery that was supposed to revolutionize the world. A battery that he knew could take almost unlimited charges and discharges, a battery that held far more energy at half the weight of lead acid batteries, a battery whose thermal properties were balanced with metals that combine endothermic and exothermic reactions to prevent thermal runaway, which is an explosive reaction common to the first iterations of lithium-ion batteries. Twenty seven years later those batteries are just beginning to have the impact they promised a quarter of a century ago.

One of the most pervasive views that I have worked hard against is that electric vehicles are small, slow, derivatives of golf carts. Golf carts may be slow, but electric vehicles never have been.

The Count Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat of Paris, France on his electric vehicle the Jeantaudlandspeed.com

I just want to set the record straight. The first speed record ever recorded for an automobile was done on December 18, 1898 in an electric vehicle.

You must have heard the expression put your money where your mouth is? Do you ever wonder what that means? Put your money where your mouth is? It means instead of preaching to people what they should do, live by example. Some people say it means that we pay for the changes we want. So, for all of us who like to sit around and talk about ecology, pollution and climate change how about we try to do something about it. Put our money where our mouths are.

Last week I put forth that GM had shut down the Volt vote but what actually had happened was the Volt vote link had been taken off the GM website. I am happy to announce that you can still vote for the Volt. Just click on the link here. Volt

What happened to Imus this week was not justice for African Americans. It wasn’t a blow against racism. What it was, was the clear voicing of the racial warfare going on just below the service in our society. It was the absolute hatred of two groups expressing themselves in the worst of ways. What was lost was a very important opportunity to learned from this what exactly was it about what Imus said that brought on so public and so strong a reaction from the African American community. We lost a chance to learn what to do right. What I believe happened is that Don Imus expressed  a point of view, which is unpalatable by the African American community. In the words that he used, I am guessing, that in the ears of African Americans they heard Imus say that young African American people arrive at their circumstances in life because of affirmative action or skills on the basketball court, that they have loose morals and lack the suffistication of other people. I am guessing that the utterance of these few words caused the focus the broad frustration fealt by the African American community for this wrong attitude on himself.

The image above links to Plug-In America

It looks like GM, in all its infinite wisdom, has taken the VOLT Vote down. They did so just as the vote was fast approaching the half million mark. On April 7 I took snap shot of the survey and it stood at just under 450,000 votes tallied of which 446,118 said that GM should build the VOLT and another 445,187 voters said to GM that they would buy the vehicle if it were made. Big, big numbers to say the least, however, I was hoping that the vote would reach the psychological milestone of 500,000. There is just no denying a number like half a million votes. If GM ever says there isn’t enough demand for alternative fuel vehicles remind them that they can use their fingers and their toes to count. Read on for action.

For the last month or so the vote on the Volt, GM's plug-in hybrid concept has stalled at just over 400,000 votes. I would like to see the number closer to 1 million, which I believe is closer to the real demand for a vehicle like this. My hope is that by having very large numbers of people voting for the vehicle, maybe GM will realize that there is real demand behind a product like this one. Demand typically is the driving force behind production. So, please help me once again in sending a message to GM that we want them to produce fuel efficient vehicles that can be fueled from a variety of sources. Go to the Chevy site and vote for the Volt.

Click here to go to the Chevy Volt website When at the site go to the lower part of the page and to the left. Click on Vote for Volt Survey.

The Electric Vehicle Association of Washington, DC and the National Electric Drag Racing Association are putting on an exhibition of electric vehicles and their capabilities called the Power of DC. The event has been held for the last six years at the Mason-Dixon Drag Way in Hagerstown, Maryland. This year, the seventh year of the event, we are adding an autocross event the day before the drag race. This will be an EV autocross event, (dubbed EVautoX). The EVautoX will take place at Hagerstown Community College June 2nd, admission is free. The electric vehicle drag race event will take place at the Mason Dixon Drag Way on June 3rd, spectator admission is $5.  

April 11, 2007 Chelsea Sexton and Chris Payne in Loudoun Virginia

Who Killed the Electric Car? will be shown on Wednesday, April 11, at 7:15 PM at The Waddell Theater on the Loudoun Campus of the Northern Virginia Community College, 1000 Harry Flood Byrd Highway (Route 7) Sterling, Virginia. Admission is free, but donations are welcome. After the show, the star of the film, Chelsea Sexton, and the film's director, Chris Payne, will be on hand to talk about the movie and to answer questions. Right now, the four sponsors are: (1) Loudoun County Committee for a Sustainable Society (LCCSS), www.lccss.org, (2) Northern Virginia Community College, Documentary Film Club, (3) The Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington, DC (EVA/DC), www.evadc.org and (4) The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), www.asecert.org. The Electric Vehicle Association will have fully operational electric cars on hand.