L.A. Contest Fizzled but Gave Electric Car Idea a Push

Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude helped launch the worldwide race to build a viable electric car.

Braude, an early clean-air advocate, took his first ride in an electric van in 1977. In 1988 he rode in another van--with virtually the same technology.

“Nothing had happened. The (auto makers) hadn’t done a damned thing in the intervening 10 years,” he said. “We were the biggest automobile market in the world. And yet the industry that we supported was not supporting our needs.”

Braude called for an international contest to reward a company willing to build and sell 10,000 electric cars and vans in Southern California. No major U.S. or Japanese auto maker entered. Clean Air Transport A.B. of Sweden won the prize--up to $7 million in start-up costs--offered by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison.

But a Swedish monetary crisis and worldwide recession crippled the little firm. Edison pulled out, after a $500,000 loss. DWP cut off funding in 1992, losing $4.5 million.

Lars Kyrklund, Clean Air president, predicted as recently as July that he would have a new car to sell by the end of 1994. But it will not be the prototype built for the contest. Partially dismantled, that car is stored in Huntington Beach.

Braude’s initiative is often cited as giving credibility to the potential market for electric cars in California. “As time went on, people realized that (the contest) was a visionary thing,” said Alan Lloyd, chief scientist of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.