Electric Car’s 1st Trip Home a Total Drain, but Driver Still Charged Up
Alone at last with his new, $35,000 electric car, flight attendant Charles McCollister tooled out onto the freeway Thursday to see what it could do.
About 35 miles from the dealership, he found out, when his high-tech, ice-blue teardrop of a ride almost completely ran out of juice.
But McCollister--one of the first 30 Californians to take delivery of General Motors’ EV1 electric coupe on Thursday--managed to limp home to his garage in Simi Valley.
He plugged his 220-volt battery charger’s thick plastic plug into the nose of the car, and eyed the control panel with a nervous laugh. “CHARGING--0% FULL,” said the readout’s glowing letters.
Within 90 minutes, they read, “50% FULL,” and he relaxed.
While the Saturn guys were coming to tow his gleaming new car straight back to a dealership to figure out what happened, Charles McCollister still kept the faith.
“Of course, I’m a little bit discouraged right now, but it’s the first one. It’s like, these are the first bugs, and we’ll work it out,” said McCollister, 57.
“But I know it’s going to be wonderful,” he said. “I really enjoy it, I like the way it handles. . . . I still am very enthusiastic. I won’t give up.”
He plans to whir around town--no puttering from a car with neither gas tank nor tailpipe--visiting friends and doing errands.
He hopes to commute the 36 miles to work for United Airlines at LAX, where chargers can re-juice his batteries--touted to last for 90 miles between plug-ins--while he works.
And once Southern California Edison installs more chargers around Southern California, he might cruise as far as Palm Springs, hopping from charger to charger with two- to three-hour lunch breaks and shopping trips in between while the EV1 takes on power.
“I’ve been like a child waiting for Santa Claus to come,” McCollister chuckled earlier Thursday as he gleefully showed off the car. He posed for pictures, and took Saturn dealers, General Motors reps and EV1 technicians out for test spins--the short hops that he later admitted might have sent him home on a low battery.
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But once he left behind all the cheers and balloons, the hooplas and handshakes of the dealership send-off, McCollister settled into the cockpit and savored the ride for himself.
He tapped the accelerator, and the car glided out onto the southbound Ventura Freeway in a fine rain. He put his foot into it, and the 137-horsepower motor kicked the car swiftly up to 65 mph with a slick hum.
“I’ve always been interested in the ecology, and saving the air,” McCollister confided, speaking to a reporter across the tall, foot-thick center console that houses 1,200 pounds of lead-acid batteries.
When General Motors three years ago began touting an electric car prototype called the Impact, McCollister jumped at the chance to join a focus group that ultimately helped change the name. “We thought it had a bad connotation, like an accident,” he said.
He absorbed the latest EV1 development news in Popular Mechanics. He kept in touch with GM.
And when the firm in March announced that the car would be available in late summer, he plunked down his $500 deposit. When they pushed back delivery day from August to October to December, he waited in frustration.
But now that McCollister was heading home in the first of a new breed, he was psyched.
“I find it very comfortable,” he said. “I compare it to Italian sports cars, the design and the look of it.”
He touted the special features: brakes that actually recharge the batteries, a special “coast” gear that lets you cruise in neutral while using absolutely no power, flat-proof self-sealing tires. And a “fuel” bill said to be barely two-thirds of a gas-burning car’s cost.
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Ghosting past fog-shrouded fields, McCollister daydreamed: “I’m going to buy my Christmas tree in a few days, and drive home with the tree sticking out of the window.”
Then he hit the Conejo Grade.
The EV1 climbed it gamely, whining a little more loudly and sticking close to 60 mph.
But the battery gauge--a stack of eight neon bars on the sleek dash panel--began to shrink. By the time McCollister crested the hill, the gauge was three bars shorter, and the control panel promised only 12 miles more.
But he chatted on. GM will only lease, not sell the EV1 because the technology is changing so fast, he explained. Engineers say that someday soon, tougher batteries will be available with a range of 270 miles.
“And who knows what will happen?” he said.
What happened was this: The battery gauge got shorter, and the range count dropped: five miles. Then four.
Then he topped the hill that led down Highway 23 toward Olsen Road. As the EV1 coasted downhill, the battery charged, and the count crept back up.
“Now we’re back in the five-mile range,” McCollister said with an anxious chuckle. “What’s going to happen? Will the oil companies have the last laugh, or what?”
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The gauge read six miles as the hill bottomed out, and the car rushed through the curve onto Highway 118. Eyeing the gauge, McCollister narrowly missed hitting an LTD that barged from an onramp across his lane.
He began switching things off to save power.
First the defroster, then the fan, then the wipers. The range gauge dwindled to one, then went blank but for three ominous dots.
“BATTERY LIFE,” warned the dashboard with a ping. “SERVICE NOW. REDUCED PERFORMANCE.”
“Well,” he said mock-breezily, “I’ll just keep going till I conk out.”
Five miles later, he neared the Tapo Canyon Road exit, wiping fog from the inside of the windshield, the outside of which was glazed with rain.
“Oh God,” he said miserably. “This is exactly what I feared, conking out in the middle of the freeway. Can you believe this? I really learned the hard way.”
But the car lumbered on past the offramp gas station and crawled up the steep hill to his house on its last few volts.
With a relieved sigh, McCollister plugged in the charger. He stepped back as neighbors gathered around to gape and gasp and a clipboard-toting Saturn rep tut-tutted over his dream car.
“I just couldn’t pull into the gas station back there,” he said. “I could never have gone in there again. But they would have gotten a great laugh on me.”
