HEARTS OF THE CITY / Exploring attitudes and issues behind the news : Humming an Old Tune

Remember, back in the ‘70s, how solar energy was going to change our lives? We were sold this bill of goods during the various oil squeezes. The visionaries predicted a time when most of us would heat our homes and maybe even power our TVs with the sun’s rays. All we needed were some government subsidies to get the thing started.

Various governments, including California and the Feds, happily obliged, and we threw billions of dollars down a technological well. Most were never seen again.

Californians, dreamers that we are, have always loved this sort of thing. We are addicted to our invented futures. Now we are being sold a new one: the electric car future. In this dream, we trundle out the front door in the morning, unplug our vehicle from the overnight charger and hum off to work. The skies sparkle. The freeways have ceased their roar.

What’s wrong with this picture? Everything, probably. But this expensive fantasy, or at least its rudiments, will soon arrive at our doorstep. Next year the first electric cars will appear in showrooms here, courtesy of the state bureaucracy, and Los Angeles will embark on its role as the pioneer city of ZEVs.

“ZEVs” are zero emission vehicles, a concept created by the state Air Resources Board to bring us into conformance with clean air standards. Who could argue with such a goal? We have the filthiest air in the nation, air so toxic it eats the chrome off trailer hitches, so dirty it kills--according to one recent study--about 275 people prematurely each year in San Bernardino and Riverside counties alone.

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The ZEV concept includes any vehicle with zero emissions, but right now the only practical way to power a ZEV is with electric motors and batteries. Other approaches, most notably the spinning-flywheel technique, have yet to overcome their various bugs.

So the Air Resources Board strong-armed the car manufacturers into producing ZEVs and, after much haggling, they have now promised to unveil the first models in fall, 1996.

But wait! Now we get to the best part. How will the ZEVs stack up against all those Corsicas and Geos? An entry-level ZEV will cost roughly $25,000, or $10,000 more than its gas-powered counterpart. Top speed for the ZEV: 60 m.p.h. Range: 80 miles before needing a recharge, meaning it won’t quite get you to Santa Barbara. Upkeep: new batteries after two years, costing $2,000 to $6,000.

Is that why, perhaps, we hear the distant sound of laughter coming from Detroit? Or, put it another way: Do you intend to run out and buy a ZEV so you can hum down the Santa Monica Freeway at 60 m.p.h.? Or do you simply hope your neighbor will be so stupid?

The true believers among the electric car set claim that buyers eventually will embrace the ZEVs once they get accustomed to their eccentricities and come to appreciate their fumeless operation. All they need is a few government subsidies to help them get started.

And, sure enough, California has obliged. If you buy a new ZEV in 1996, the state will pick up $5,000 of the tab. That means your Geo-equivalent will cost you only $20,000. In addition, cities such as Santa Monica and West Hollywood already are building recharging stations at government expense. And a grander scheme has been floated to construct a series of charging stations along the 10 Freeway from the coast to Redlands.

Our faith in these invented futures would be touching if they were not so expensive. And not only in dollars. While the Air Resources Board and the electric car junkies are dreaming away our future, other ways to reduce air pollution go begging.

My favorite: diesels. It takes no genius to observe that diesel trucks and buses now constitute a huge and largely unchecked source of filth spewed into the air. Just sit on any given freeway on any given morning or afternoon. Huge rigs waddle through the stop-and-go, belching great clouds of oily soot.

While the regulatory agencies have steadily squeezed the emissions out of passenger cars over the past 20 years, diesels have largely escaped. To this day, diesels operate without emission control devices. A recent agreement between diesel manufacturers and the Environmental Protection Agency--hailed as a breakthrough--would require an improvement in diesel emissions in the year 2004 .

Just to offer some numbers, diesels now constitute 4% of all the vehicles in California but contribute 40% of the nitrogen oxides. The black soot from diesels, composed mostly of particulates, is now understood to pose one of the greatest health dangers of any air pollutant. Passenger cars produce very few particulates.

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Why does our government smile benignly at the diesels while trying to foist an electric car future on the rest of us? It might have something to do with the fact that the trucking associations now stand as one of Gov. Pete Wilson’s most loyal and generous supporters, with one trucking executive alone contributing $106,000 to his reelection campaign. Gov. Wilson, of course, oversees the Air Resources Board and appoints its members.

But that’s the cynical view. It may also have to do with the power of the invented futures. We love them too much to abandon them. Like solar power and, many years before, atomic power, the electric car promises a simple bliss that we find irresistible.

And who knows, the electric car might prove the exception and turn into something useful. Maybe, eventually, the future will hum after all. For some of us, at least. Not me. I prefer to vroom.