Driven Delegate

E-Vehicles On Display at DNC

By Richard Martin, 8-26-08

	The waterfall runs on hydro

“I almost fit into this car,” says Nate Vanderschaff, folding his 6’5” frame into his Rav4 EV, from Toyota. Pulling away from the curb, the small SUV purrs almost noiselessly, its electric engine emitting nothing into the atmosphere.

A Colorado delegate pledged to Obama, Vanderschaff is here at the DNC not just to cast his vote for the Democratic nominee but to evangelize for electric vehicles. He’s putting on the EV Rolling Showcase, a promotional event designed to convince convention-goers that the future of cars is not just hybrid but plug-in. (Vanderschaff’s Rav4 is full-sized; he’d have to squeeze into a conventional-engine model, too.)

“The response has been enthusiastic,” exclaims Vanderschaff, a jovial bear of a man who works as a set-top box engineer at Motorola in his day job. “It’s incredible to know that gas is unnecessary to live and to own an automobile that’s powerful, substantial – and has good air conditioning.”

Indeed, if you didn’t know the Rav4 was an EV – and you didn’t notice the soft hum of the engine – you wouldn’t notice from riding in it. Held on the renewable-energy green next to the Denver Convention Center, the EV Showcase features a half-dozen vehicles available for test drives.

“ I figured the best way to convince people was to have them drive the cars and let them ride around in them,” Vanderschaff told me as we cruised downtown Denver’s jampacked streets.

Still, it’s an uphill struggle. There are fewer than 2000 electric vehicles on U.S. streets today, less than 700 of them factory built like Vanderschaff’s Rav4. Toyota introduced the all-electric Rav4 in 1998 and canceled production in 2003, having sold under 1500. Now they’re going for a premium: Vanderschaff got his for $40,000 a year ago.

The history of the U.S. electric vehicle industry is summed up in the title of Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary, “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (The answer, unsurprisingly: Big Oil and GM.)

If $3-a-gallon gasoline doesn’t make you hate the big oil companies, the shocking revelations in Chris Paine’s thought-provoking documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? Will,” wrote V.A. Musetto, reviewing the movie for The New York Post.

A happy buyer, Vanderschaff plugs his car into an electrical outlet at his Longmont home every night. Noting that big spikes in electricity use are a telltale for indoor marijuana growing operations, he says, “I keep wondering when drug enforcement is going to show up.” He gets about 100 miles per charge, and pays $30-$35 in auto-electricity to drive around 1200 miles every month. (At 20 mpg, and $3 a gallon of gas, that would be about $180 a month.)

“I’ve been bugging the Governor [Ritter, of Colorado] to come take a ride,” Vanderschaff confided as we dodged pedestrians on 17th St. “‘Hey Governor! When you gonna come take a ride?’”

The e-vehicle movement now has its Ferrari, the Tesla Roadster, a sleek and powerful electric sportscar that sells for around $100,000. Tesla, headed by PayPal founder Elon Musk, has endured production snafus but is now on track to sell several hundred vehicles this year. The cars are favored by Silicon Valley’s high-tech zillionaires. Boulder resident Kimball Musk, Elon’s brother, had lent his Tesla for the EV Showcase in Denver. Unfortunately it wasn’t available when I took my ride with Vanderschaff.

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