Charged Up by Clean Machine

Last week, while most of you were filling our atmosphere with hydrocarbons and soot, I was smugly driving a vehicle that never emitted a single smog-forming molecule.

Zip. For one week, I was the proud “owner” of a 1998 Honda EV Plus, an electric car. And it felt good to be good.

Pardon my superior tone, but operating the cleanest car in the world takes one from humble commuter to sneering enviro-crat in about 60 seconds. My boss figured that as an environmental writer, I would have a special appreciation for the electric car. In truth, my motive was partly to atone for all the smog I produced in a lifetime of driving Southern California freeways, and for the fact that my regular gas-gulping car is a 13-mpg Chevy 2500 pickup.

My EV (we were on initial-name basis) was a squat, teardrop-shaped four-seater that resembles a shuttle craft from some space opera. Folks at Ventura County’s Air Pollution Control District lent it to me under a program to promote electric car technology. Local government and business fleet managers can borrow it, too. In the fall, it goes to schools where kids can ride in it.

But don’t expect it to be crowding the highways soon. Torrance-based American Honda Motor Co. Inc. built only 300 electric cars, mostly to comply with a mandate from California to produce smog-free cars. It is the first electric car that carries four passengers and is powered by advanced nickel-metal-hydride batteries, 24 in all.

Toyota, Ford and General Motors have also manufactured electric vehicles. By summer, 14 will be operating in fleets managed by officials in Santa Paula, Fillmore, Simi Valley, Ojai, Thousand Oaks, Casitas Municipal Water District, Cal State Channel Islands and Ventura County. About 50 motorists in Ventura County have leased electric cars from dealers, according to Jerry Mason, air quality engineer at the Air Pollution Control District.

Seated in his second-floor office above the outlet that was charging my EV, Mason recited a list of do’s and don’ts, as a rental car agent might, and extolled the virtues of smogless transportation. Don’t drink and drive, don’t sell the car, don’t smuggle drugs. I felt 16 again.

The technical stuff didn’t much tickle me; I was just thrilled because the car had a cup holder, CD player and smelled new.

“Most important,” Mason emphasized, “is be sure to plug it in every night after a full day’s driving.”

Huh?

Otherwise, he said, the electric motor will run out of juice and the car will stall on the highway. There won’t be a power cord in the world that can reach you in the boondocks or urban jungle where you can roll to a stop.

OK, now I was paying attention. It was an ominous warning that haunted me for every mile to come.

At that, he passed me the keys and I was on my way to rendezvous with the automotive future. Buckle your seat belts. This is going to be a ride.

The EV Plus has four wheels, two doors and a steering wheel, just like any other car. But underneath the gold metallic sheet metal is a whole new machine. There is no tailpipe or fan belts or transmission. Beady little headlights, designed for energy efficiency, shine bright and bluish. A regenerative braking system helps recharge the batteries when the car stops. The battery pack is sealed out of sight beneath the floorboard.

When I turned on the key, I thought something was wrong. Dashboard instruments lit up, but nothing else happened. No roar of horsepower, no vrrooom sounds when I depressed the pedal, no shake or kachunk when I shifted gears.

Nothing at all. Not a twitch, vibration or puff of exhaust. I thought, the battery must be dead, but in fact the juice was flowing. A little yellow signal on the dash said “Ready to Run.”

Starting the EV is like booting a computer, only quieter. Oooo, I like this!

With a gasoline engine removed, you hear things in a car you never heard before. The rhythmic patter of tire rubber gliding over concrete. Wind swirling around the car. Less like driving and more like flying, being at the wheel of the electric car is a sensory altering experience. Quickly, I inserted my Miles Davis CD, because I knew it was going to sound so good.

The music was crisp, unadulterated by annoying engine noise. My car hummed softly, like a big sewing machine. Mr. Davis and I were jamming at 70 mph or so.

People recognized this car as odd. At first, as I drove around the county, I thought ladies were checking me out. But in fact, it was the car that attracted attention. Pedestrians were startled by its stealth when it crept up beside them in parking lots. They ogled when it passed from the opposite direction on residential streets. It’s not sexy, but it is distinct.

And it’s faster than many cars on the road. Power is not a problem; my EV scaled the Conejo Grade at 68 mph. Handling was not a huge problem; the EV is about as nimble as my pickup or a minivan I once owned. A heavy load of batteries--the little EV Plus weighs 3,520 pounds, 800 more than if it were powered by a gas engine--means it doesn’t corner like an Alpha Romeo.

On my last trip, I cruised up to Santa Barbara in electric car serenity. I found the best part was driving past gas stations, never stopping. All those dirty, polluting cars did. But not mine. I was being transported. I felt clean. Guilt over my polluting past was lifting. I was a glimpse of the future; after all, the oil won’t last forever. May my kids or grandkids only know nonpolluting cars. Imagine all the vehicles, driving pollution free. . . .

Wait a minute! Something was happening to the 10 little energy bars on my instrument panel, the EV’s version of a fuel gauge. My morning started off with a full battery charge. Like falling dominoes, a green bar had turned yellow, then orange and then disappeared. A few miles later, another one vanished. Then another. I hadn’t reached Rincon Point yet, and I was down to seven bars, about a 70% charge. OK, now I was in trouble because I’m a journalist with the math skills of a basset hound, and I had to figure out how much farther until my car would fizzle like a spent light bulb.

Honda says the EV Plus can go an average of 72 miles on a full charge. So that meant I had, uuhhhh, the square root of a hypotenuse times the area of a circle divided by the number of popes in the 9th century equals: maybe 50 miles of battery power left. Yikes, Miles, we might reach Santa Barbara, but we wouldn’t make it all the way back!

Therein lies the big problem with electric cars. They just are not yet practical.

For power failures, a 110-volt charging cord in the trunk of the EV can plug into any household outlet, but it takes all day to charge and Mason recommended avoiding it. The 220-volt chargers can restore an 80% charge in about two hours. But unlike gas stations, there are few of them.

The Ventura County agencies that have been leased electric vehicles are outfitted with charging stations the public can use. Consumers who lease the cars must have the more powerful chargers installed in their garages for about $1,000, said Honda spokesman Dan Zukowski.

Complicating matters is the fact that the battery pack has to be replaced about every three years, just as for a flashlight or other rechargeable electric appliance. Mason said a new battery pack for the EV Plus costs $29,000. For those reasons, auto makers are leasing rather than selling electric cars to the public. But with a lease payment of $455 per month, this car is only for the wealthy or seriously green.

Honda knows the electric car has limitations. That’s why the company stopped making the battery-powered EV Plus once its 300-car quota had been met for the state Air Resources Board. A few are still available for lease, but not many.

“There are built-in limitations to the technology that the industry hasn’t overcome,” Zukowski said.

Instead, Honda and other auto makers are concentrating on building hybrid cars, which have small gasoline engines to augment electric power, and fuel cells, which use chemical processes to directly produce electricity.

Pulling off the freeway near Seacliff, I made a U-turn and headed back to Ventura on Pacific Coast Highway. In the afternoon, I plugged the car into the charger at the air district headquarters and returned the keys.

I’ll miss my EV. It left me encouraged that humankind may soon find technologies that move people efficiently without trashing the environment.

I took a trip to the future, and I saw hope.