Electric Car Research Center Powers Up : Transportation: Mario Andretti is on hand as Atlanta facility is unveiled to seek answers to technological limitations and public indifference.
In a ceremony that included flashing lights, a sporty red convertible and race car driver Mario Andretti, the Georgia Power Co. Thursday unveiled a new center dedicated to research in electric vehicles.
The center, which sponsors say is the first in the nation, would be housed in Atlanta’s museum of science and technology, SciTrek. It would combine high-tech research with showmanship in an effort to combat the twin pitfalls of electric transportation--technological limitations and public indifference.
Batteries that power electric vehicles now have to be recharged about every 70 miles. That, and the public perception of electric cars as novelties--what Georgia Gov. Zell Miller Thursday called the “golf-cart mentality”--currently limit their commercial viability.
But Bill Dahlberg, president of Georgia Power, said the industry must move forward in developing the technology because of growing national concern over air quality and the United States’ dependence on imported oil.
Georgia Power is one of 11 utilities supporting the center. The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power is a member of the nationwide consortium of utilities sponsoring the center, the Electric Power Research Institute, but a spokeswoman said it has not made a decision to back the research center financially.
“We feel that everything that moves forward in this area has value,” said Mindy Berman of Los Angeles’ Department of Water & Power.
But she said that the DWP already is heavily involved with other research alliances, including CALSTART, a consortium of 90 organizations that she said is exploring the full-scope of advanced transportation technology.
The 250,000 yearly visitors to SciTrek will see, along with prototype vehicles and interactive exhibits, technicians working behind glass walls to develop and test batteries, recharging stations and electric vehicle parts.
The center will have a massive dynamometer, with which technicians will be able to simulate road conditions, testing how electric vehicles perform on expressways, in stop-and-go traffic and on flat or hilly roads.
Dahlberg noted that when Henry Ford began to mass produce automobiles at the turn of the century he ignored advice from his wife, Clara, that he concentrate on electric vehicles.
“It’s almost 100 years later and Clara Ford is on the verge of getting the last word,” Dahlberg said.
In 1990, California passed legislation requiring that 2% of all vehicles sold in the state be “zero polluting” by 1998. By the year 2003, the number must be 10%.
According to the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute, at least eight other states, representing about 40% of the U.S. car market, either have endorsed California’s plan or are expected to adopt similar requirements.
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“The debut of electric vehicles in daily life is closer at hand that many people realize,” Miller said at the opening ceremony.
The governor added that building the center in Atlanta makes sense because of the southward shift in automobile manufacturing in recent years and the city’s prominence as a high technology center.
Dahlberg said the center is important not only to fight air pollution, but also because the United States currently depends on foreign countries for half of its oil supply, spending $50 billion yearly on imported oil.
