Sixty-six Miles Per Day

I have been meaning to clock the daily miles we've been putting on our ICE vehicle, and had the chance over a 25-day period from December into January. Pretty significant numbers for a family where both parents work from home!

It is downright infuriating to think that there were production EV's available ten years ago -- with heat and other such amenities -- that would easily be able to achieve this range, then come home to plug in overnight. And yet, thanks to inertia and ill-will, that initiative stalled out and today we are largely limited to home-brewed EV's like the e-Vanagon -- and lead-acid battery technology, instead of the perfectly adequate, should've-been-widely-available-and-affordable-by-now NiMH battery packs that powered vehicles like the Toyota RAV-4 EV, the Ford Ranger EV, and the EV-1.

But before I get grumpy thinking about the past, let's turn our eyes towards the future. Hope everyone got to see EcoWorld's Electric Vehicle Gallery 2007 -- the most promising EV's available and under development at the moment in the US. But check out what's happening overseas!

Just this month, British blog Autocar reports that Renault-Nissan will bring a mass-production EV to market as soon as 2011. And a new lithium-ion battery factory opened last week in Europe, backed by a French billionaire who is working to get EV's on the streets of Italy even sooner -- by the summer of 2009!

Meanwhile, over the weekend EV clubs in San Diego and Miami held drag race events to show off the capabilities of a large collection of present-day EV's and promote the cause. Congratulations to the hardworking sponsors of "Battery Beach Burnout" and "Electric Dragin'"!

EVAmerica 2007 Newsletter Available

Just a quick note to let you know that EVAmerica has put out its 2007 e-newsletter and it's chockfull of customer conversions you might want to cast your eyes over, including a gorgeous 108-volt MR2 conversion, and a 1984 Corvette that seems to be powered by Optima Yellow-tops. !!! When we bought that for the auxiliary battery, I wondered whether it might be suitable for an EV conversion: it requires no watering, which is awfully nice. (I know, I know, an EV requires almost no maintenance besides monthly battery-watering, so I shouldn't complain. I'm just very, very lazy.) Also interesting -- a 1981 Honda EV into which the owner has installed a 5 kw Honda generator, making it a homemade hybrid and extending its range to 88 miles!

Bob Batson has included some nice pix of unusual conversions from old issues of the newsletter, plus links to some customer web pages and conversion shops. Drop him a line at EVAmerica@aol.com if you'd like to request a copy. Be sure to tell him that I sent you, I want him to feel bad that he didn't include any pictures of the e-van!