Plugging Into Spirit of Grand Prix : Ecology: A rally of electric vehicles unites critics and fanatics for a test drive into the automotive future. So what if they race from outlet to outlet?

“All the electric runabouts I ever saw, while they were very nice cars, didn’t seem to go very fast or very far. . . . “ --Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout, 1910

As transportation, sniff the cynics, electric vehicles remain a hobby for people too old for slot cars.

Nonsense, scoff the energy evangelists. Electric vehicles are global salvation from the infernal pollution of internal combustion and a slowing of incineration of God’s brown earth by man’s obsession for fossil fuels.

These opinions, poles apart, were spoken forcefully before colliding comfortably at the fledgling International Electric Grand Prix as it whined, whistled and sometimes whirred to embarrassing stops across a Southern California literally choking on its need for automobiles.

For three days, citizens of this tarnished Golden State--a population largely impervious to a clean-air mandate saying zero-emission vehicles, i.e. electric vehicles, will comprise 2% of California new car sales by 1998--glimpsed their unavoidable driving future.

It wasn’t unbearable viewing, even for automotive purists.

There was a 336-volt Honda CRX capable of smoking tires while accelerating from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in 7.8 seconds. That’s close to performance of the real thing.

An electrified 1957 Porsche Speedster--albeit a replica--ran quickly enough to earn tickets on any city street. Or any interstate.

A Swiss-made Horlacher, a gray gumdrop built for two, seemed capable of running all day. In fact, it has traveled 300 miles on sophisticated, expensive batteries.

And among six dozen vehicles were battery-powered Toyotas and Fords, silently making--even doubling--journeys that gasoline-powered kin do in Los Angeles every day--what race officials say is the typical commute of 21.2 miles.

Not that the event was free of blown fuses.

On the first day, a converted 1975 Alfa-Romeo was T-boned at a Los Angeles intersection. Nothing suggested that this was a deliberate assault by a gasoline guerrilla.

A 1993 Toyota Aesop--an anagram of Paseo and maybe a coy self-tribute to fables wrought by its converter, Solar Electric of Santa Rosa--ran out of juice only 25 miles into the second day.

Owner David Zucker, producer of “Naked Gun” movies, plugged his car into a soft drink machine socket at an Eagle Rock motel. It popped every circuit breaker in the place.

Peter Hackes, rally creator and its executive director, said that with 71 electric vehicles registered, his rally beat a 1978 Silicon Valley run for the title of nation’s largest. But only by five.

With only one entry from Switzerland--although one spectator said he was born in Berlin--the International Electric Grand Prix was barely international.

Even the event’s gilt and plastic marble trophy didn’t seem much of a grand prize for a grand prix.

But status, big prizes and madding crowds simply weren’t the event’s intents.

A major aim, explained Hackes, a television producer with a personal bent for the environment, was to mingle critics and fanatics. Then see that the young, the curious and the uncommitted are plugged into the issue by media coverage of the event and free public demonstration of the cars.

“These vehicles are not perfect,” he acknowledged. “But we’re trying to put them on the roads, to show people they exist, can be driven at 60 m.p.h. and, for the Californian who drives 40 miles per day, there is an alternative to internal combustion.”

Despite intense research and development by the Big Three, BMW, Mitsubishi, Nissan and others, the imperfections of electric commuting are recognized. They are huge and center around the power supply.

Modern batteries remain woefully inadequate and too heavy for efficient energy storage.

Example: The Honda with fierce acceleration--built by Alan Cocconi of AC Propulsion of San Dimas--gets 336-volt muscles from 28 lead-acid batteries.

But they add 1,100 pounds to the 1,600-pound car. Rapid recharging reduces battery life to a measly 3,500 miles. And a new battery pack costs $1,500.

Example: To make its 300-mile run, the Horlacher, built near Basel, used a sodium-sulfur battery.

It delivers triple the energy of lead batteries and is inexpensive. But its operating temperature must be kept close to 600 degrees Fahrenheit so sodium and sulfur inside the battery remain molten.

How crashworthy is any vehicle carrying a fanny pack of acid? Isn’t cadmium, as in nickle-cadmium batteries, a highly toxic chemical element? Just what does happen when you run an electric vehicle through a flooded underpass? Blackened fingernails?

Current answers and popular compromises were the cars that competed last weekend.

Whether one man’s shade-tree conversion of a conventional compact or a factory car built from scratch as an electric vehicle, the autos featured fairly common mechanicals and performance: Ten lead-acid batteries offering around 120 volts, top speeds of 60 m.p.h., and a range of 65 miles on an overnight charge.

And those batteries are good enough for three years of neighborhood travel.

Underline neighborhood.

Now place Bill Muerer, 36, founder and president of Green Motorworks of North Hollywood, among the majority who do not expect to see electric vehicles replace 18-wheelers or the Chevy Caprices of traveling salesman.

Muerer does anticipate electric vehicles in lieu of that second or third car in any family, the one used for short daily errands. He focuses on that market and on fleet sales to municipalities, hotels and delivery services.

“EVs (electric vehicles) operate for less than one-third the cost of a gasoline-fueled automobile, or about 50 cents per 100 miles,” he says. “Once we achieve our target range of 100 miles, we think this market is really going to open up.”

The Grand Prix also demonstrated precisely what that market will have to tolerate.

Electric vehicles never remain unattached or unattended. Where there is electricity, there is mobility. So at every rally stop, whether overnight or a mid-route break, a dozen vehicles were plugged in to suckle at a recharging station, the mother pig.

Power steering, power windows and air conditioning have no place in electric cars. They will drain an EV’s range by more than 30%.

On the road, adapting from gasoline to electric motoring requires a new mind-set and the death of old habits.

Shell stations mean nothing. An Allstate Battery sign, however, could be a trip saver. The knack is to drive an electric car as gingerly as you would a conventional car with the gas light winking.

Rally organizers provided three cars for testing for the trio of rally legs--35 miles from Long Beach to Santa Monica College; 29 miles from Santa Monica to the Rose Bowl; and 56 miles from Pasadena to the National Orange Show Fairgrounds at San Bernardino.

The experience is best compared to flag football against the NFL. Equipment, rules and techniques are similar. But the pace and visceral thrill are far from the real thing.

The first mount was the Green Motorworks Electric Speedster with six batteries, a maximum range of 50 miles, a price tag of $32,500 and design graduate Aaron Shay, 21, riding as naviguesser.

A four-speed manual transmission keeps with the car’s tradition but becomes a hindrance when mated to a placid General Electric motor with absolutely no interest in changing its performance characteristics to accommodate your downshifting.

It is a car that appreciates gentle, anticipatory instructions because it is overweight and doesn’t handle well. Blame that on an original design that called for a small Volkswagen engine, not a hefty scattering of lead-acid batteries.

Yet the Speedster is an ideal primer for tempering a driver’s touch that always must focus on squeezing the last trickle from a power supply.

City intersections should be anticipated to catch as many green lights as possible because braking bleeds energy. Hills are to be approached at speed and climbed by momentum. Forget darting through traffic; remember to make deliberate maneuvers several blocks in advance.

And so the Speedster completed a 35.8-mile leg through Saturday traffic with enough juice for a victory lap around Santa Monica College.

Next was the 120-volt Aesop, which seemed to retain all the balance and tightness of the 1.5-liter Toyota Paseo sport coupe before Solar Electric disemboweled it.

Even the five-speed manual holds its smoothness, although the car is happiest in third gear because electric motors are more efficient at higher revolutions.

Unfortunately, this day, the Aesop was performing more like an ogre by the Brothers Grimm. Its recharging cable had (a) worked loose, or (b) been pulled loose by a saboteur during the night.

The car weakened visibly 16 miles into the leg and 9 miles later--despite the emergency transfusion that blew the motel breakers--had conked out.

No cigar. The Aesop dropped from 14th place in the rally standings to dead last.

The third and final day was spent at the helm of the Swiss Horlacher with Boris, 24-year-old son of designer Max Horlacher, assuming duties with maps and stopwatch.

“We think this is the future, a car built as an electric vehicle, not as a conversion of an existing vehicle,” said the young engineer. “Building for purpose allows us to design a lightweight car with a composite unibody, aerodynamic shape and tires and wheels with low rolling resistance.”

The result is the two-seater prototype of the Horlacher Sports Car weighing in at 1,100 pounds--including 12 batteries.

It has one gear, a top speed of 80 m.p.h. and, if demand begets production, a target price of $10,000.

Acceleration is quick and easy with power responses consistent, start to finish. No winding down. No sapping of the car’s ability to maneuver with dash.

Despite its dimensions, there was no feeling of driving a bubble. Or even an electric car of dwindling energies.

The suspension was a little tense for the crumbling roads of Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. But even that hard ride gave the Horlacher the businesslike sit and handling of the British-built Mini of yesteryear.

It seemed quite appropriate for the Horlacher to end its 56.7-mile final leg with a shared first-place finish and fourth overall.

But as the rally recognized the bright future of the Horlacher, it also carried an ironic message from the past and a vehicle called the Detroit.

This tall, time-blackened electric coupe was built in 1932. It was driven by Zasu Pitts. It is 17 years younger than its current owner, Jamison Handy of Santa Monica.

Both old-timers entered the rally with something to say.

Now, as then, the Detroit boasts a range of 75 miles and silent running up to 40 m.p.h.

Smiles Handy: “We really haven’t come that far in 60 years.”