Plug em in – traction?

Come on let’s face it if we leave it to the government we won’t get high mileage cars until the next millennium. It is up to the consumer and the market to drive this friggin train. It looks like we are getting somewhere but more needs to be done to make it so there is incentive and desire to have an electric plugin car market that we consumers can get viable solutions to our gas guzzler vehicles.

Plug In Hybrid Conference

“Change is absolutely afoot,” said Linda Nicholes, president of the Plug In America activist group. “I don’t think there’s any way to put the electric genie back in the bottle.”

Video of plug in conference.

With Gas at $4/Gallon National Average, Plug In America Calls on

Electric Car Group Urges Americans to Call Auto Companies and Demand Electrics
With gas hitting the $4-per-gallon nationwide average, Plug In America (PIA) calls on
citizens from coast to coast to demand that automakers manufacture Electric Vehicles (EV) so that they can dump the pump.

“Call Toyota, call GM, call Ford, call them all and tell them that you won’t buy another car until it can be plugged in and charged with electricity,” said Linda Nicholes, president of PIA, the organization leading the nation’s electric car movement. “Americans must demand the choice to drive cars that run on cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity.”

In fact, Nicholes pays the equivalent of 83-cents per gallon of gas to drive her zero-emission EV, in a
comparison made with U.S. Dept. of Energy data. Furthermore, because EVs have motors with scant
moving parts instead of engines, the Anaheim, CA resident has not once paid for parts, maintenance, a
tune up or an oil change in 66,000 miles of driving. She has never had to hook her car up to the gas
pump.

Some 20 auto companies are developing all-electric or plug-in hybrid electric cars. Even where such cars are charged with electricity produced by older, dirtier coal plants, they emit fewer greenhouse gasses than gasoline vehicles, according to a 2007 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Electric Power Research Institute.

Americans, however, must make it abundantly clear that we want a more environmentally responsible
form of transportation and that that there will be a vast market for electric cars. Thousands of EVs were crushed by Toyota, GM and other automakers in the early to mid-2000s as portrayed in the documentary,“Who Killed the Electric Car?” And consumers, the award-winning film concluded, were among those guilty of the crime.

Plug In America has published a list of major auto companies and appropriate phone numbers on its
website at http://www.pluginamerica.org/action.shtm and encourages Americans to take action now.
“We must not let promises to produce EVs vaporize like the distant memory of $2-per-gallon gas,”
Nicholes said. “Taking this stand is also boldly patriotic because the money we spend on electricity stays here at home. It strengthens our own economy, not the cold blooded regimes of rogue terrorists abroad.”

Gasoline rose to a national average of $4 for the first time, motorist group AAA reported today. For weeks the price has been much higher in cities across the country.

Plug In America is a California-based nonprofit organization that advocates the use plug-in cars, trucks
and SUVs powered by cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity to reduce our nation’s dependence on
petroleum and improve the global environment. For more information: http://www.pluginamerica.org.

Plug In America Announces 2009 Formula Hybrid Grant Program

PLUG IN AMERICA ANNOUNCES GRANT PROGRAM TO SUPPORT 2009 FORMULA HYBRID COMPETITION

Plug In America, the nation’s leading plug-in car advocacy organization, announces availability of grants for California student teams to design, build and race plug-in hybrid electric cars at the 2009 Formula Hybrid International Competition. The grant funding, up to $15,000 per school, is intended to encourage plug-in vehicle engineering innovation among California college and university students. The grants were made possible by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) alternative fuels incentive program.

“Formula Hybrid encourages the next generation of engineers to explore and experience the benefits of electricity use for transportation,” said Jay Friedland, Plug In America’s Legislative Director. “Hybrids have already demonstrated its advantages–imagine what it can do with plug-in hybrids and beyond.”

Last year, Plug In America awarded grants of $12,500 each to student teams at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and UC Irvine to participate in the recently completed 2008 Formula Hybrid Competition. “We are delighted to have more California schools join the Formula Hybrid event,” said its Director Douglas Fraser, a research engineer at the Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering, which organizes the competition. “Students are incredibly creative in coming up with novel solutions which push the envelope. I am confident the new California teams will add a great additional dimension to the competition.”

Formula Hybrid is an offshoot of the highly successful Formula SAE®, a 27-year-old program sponsored by the Society of Automotive Engineers in which collegiate teams design, build and compete with formula racecars. Formula Hybrid originated in 2003 when Dartmouth engineering students began researching their first hybrid racecar in hopes of entering it in that year’s Formula SAE competition. They developed a hybrid competition upon learning that the Formula SAE rules had been changed, just that year, to disallow hybrids.

The competition, which will be held for the third time during May 2009 at the New Hampshire International Speedway, is a sort of educational hybrid itself, bringing together mechanical and electrical engineering applications. Both the SAE and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers are sponsors of the program, along with Plug In America and major automakers including Toyota, DaimlerChrysler and General Motors.

Under the program, students design and build an open-wheel, single-seat car that must conform to a strict set of rules, or formulas, that emphasize, encourage, and promote drivetrain innovation and fuel efficiency. A Formula Hybrid vehicle must use at least 15 percent less gasoline than a comparable standard Formula SAE racecar operated under the same conditions, a goal surpassed by many entries. Another guideline involves recycling: unlike Formula SAE, Formula Hybrid teams are encouraged to incorporate used racecar parts rather than build everything from scratch. Many teams see the Formula Hybrid competition as a perfect second-year project for their students, especially after they compete in the events planned at Formula SAE West here in Fontana this week.

The deadline for grant applications is October 21, 2008. Plug In America will announce the winners in November 2008. Student teams from California universities and colleges may find out more about the grant program and apply for the grants at: http://www.pluginamerica.org/formula or contact Plug In America via email: formulahybrid@pluginamerica.org

About Plug In America:

Plug In America is a California-based nonprofit organization advocating the use of plug-in cars, trucks, and SUVs powered by cleaner, cheaper, domestic electricity to reduce our nation’s dependence on petroleum and improve the global environment. www.PlugInAmerica.org http://www.pluginamerica.org/

About Formula Hybrid:

The Formula Hybrid International Competition, created in 2006, invites teams of undergraduate and graduate students to design, build, and race hybrid formula racecars. The event is organized by the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College. Founded in 1867, Thayer School unites engineering into a single, flexible department to facilitate innovative research and instruction. http://www.formula-hybrid.org

Images for this press release may be found at the links below: http://pluginamerica.com/images/formulahybrid1.jpg
Image caption: High Voltage Ultracapacitors used in a Formula Hybrid racecar
Copyright 2008 Jay Friedland

http://pluginamerica.com/images/formulahybrid4.jpg
Image caption: UC Irvine Formula Hybrid team ready for their initial trials
Copyright 2008 Jay Friedland

http://pluginamerica.com/images/formulahybrid5.jpg
Image caption: First place McGill University during the endurance event.
Copyright 2008 Jay Friedland

Drivers Living the Clean-Car Dream

While clean-car advocates have their eyes on a March 27 vote by California regulators that could revive electric cars, some drivers already are living the dream of a car that runs on sunshine.

They’re the lucky ones who still have some of the electric cars that were produced by automakers between 1996 and 2003, as required under California’s Zero Emission Vehicles Program. When the California Air Resources Board eased the regulations in 2003, the automakers stopped producing electric cars. The board is set to revise the program again on March 27, which could put gasoline-free vehicles back into dealers’ showrooms.

Many of the electric vehicle (EV) owners have installed solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on their homes or property to get what they call the EV-PV synergy — driving on electricity, and producing electricity from sunshine. And never buying gasoline.

Norma and Alan Williamson of Cerritos estimate that their EV-PV arrangement avoids approximately 40,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions each year. They recently sent a letter to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as part of a campaign organized by Plug In America asking him to speed up the drive toward zero-emission vehicles. “We are helping to meet your goals in the fight against global warming by driving an electric car,” Ms. Williamson wrote.

Marc Geller, a resident of San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury district, wanted off of oil for political and environmental reasons. “After I got an electric car, I realized that I could make my own fuel. Solar PV could power not only my house, but my car. Solar was always attractive, but having an electric car pushed me over the hump” and motivated him to install solar PV, he says.

Tim and Vibeke Hastrup of Granite Bay in Northern California say that living the EV-PV lifes does not involve sacrifice. “We’re not unique,” says Tim. “Most folks we’ve talked to would love to join us plugging in,” if only the automakers would offer electric cars again.

Multiple studies show that driving on electricity is cleaner even if owners don’t have solar panels. As solar power grows, many more Americans could be living the EV-PV dream — if only automakers offer them the choice to buy plug-in cars.

Read more profiles of EV-PV Americans at http://www.pluginamerica.org/real-ev.shtm. Interviews can be arranged upon request.