Report from Santa Monica's Altcarexpo

Before I get started on evaluating the many choices presented at the Expo, I want to sketch in just why you might find yourself at such a gathering. It might be that something had shown you that global warming was more than a political football, but was a very real human tragedy enacted slowly, almost imperceptibly, before our eyes. While passing through Santa Fe, a very dry area, I caught a glimpse of how important is the scant rain there. When it doesn't come, knocking down the dust, enlivening the landscape, making gardens possible, nourishing the flora and fauna, then everything changes fundamentally. Can you imagine waiting a year for the rainy season, and then having to wait another year? If you're rich, you can buy a certain repreive: irrigate, air condition, vacation elsewhere. But if you're poor, and especially if you live from agriculture, climate change is almost like a bullet between the eyes. Your entire world is threatened, and possibly ended.

Global warming is closely tied to our energy choices, especially heating/cooling our homes and transportation. Once you see clearly the connection, you might make different choices the next time you buy or build a house, easily cutting your heating bill in half, or less. And when you're ready for a new vehicle, you might come to an exposition, ready to radically cut down on fossil fuels.

So let's imagine that you're at the expo, ready to retire you old car, and you have a modest amount to spend. The easiest choice is a gas hybrid, especially a Prius, which will not only give you 25% more mileage, but also teach you, with the onboard computer, how to be more fuel conscious. With such a car, when the warrenty runs out, you can convert to being a plug-in hybrid with an additional investment, giving you perhaps 80 MPG depending on your use. The conversion voids Toyota's warrenty, and may eventually cost about $12,000 for the conversion. It presently can be done, more expensively by Calcars.org, or edrivesystems.com. A good place to start is pluginamerica.com.

A second easy choice is to choose a diesel car. This gives you 25% better mileage, equal pep thanks to turbocharging, and gets you ready to take the additonal step of going to bio-diesel when you get a little more committed. Europe is already going diesel; Italy, I believe, is over 50% diesel. These two choices don't require being too 'geeky' about alternative energy, since the fuels are already easier to find.

You could also buy a Smart Car next spring, when the prices come down from the present $30,000 to perhaps $20,000. Economy is perhaps 55 MPG, and you are also being a part of a move to smaller cars. They can be bought through Chrysler dealers.

The next step in increasing committment, is CNG or Ethanol, both involving car modification and fuel supply complexities. For CNG, the Honda GX is ready to go, or you can convert another car using Baytechcorp.com, or AFVSolutions.com. Another car possibly coming out soon is the eco-fueler, a three wheeled CNG car. See eco-fueler.net

But now let's imagine that you're really committed, and you begin to think about a battery electric car--a pure electric. You're pretty sure that one of your household cars can always be used within an electric car's range from home. You're excited by the idea of using quite a different sort of vehicle. Now you have perhaps three choices for type of vehicle.

You can really spend the dough and order a high-end electric. good performance and range, spiffy styling. You'll be making a hefty down payment on a car not yet in production. See teslamotors.com for the Tesla Roadster, or universalelectricvehicle.com for the Electrum Spyder There's a certain amount of 'pie in the sky' character to these choices, since the vehicles are only in prototype.

Secondly, you can go with a conversion of a safety-approved full size gas car. Two choices come to mind: ACPropulsion.com will convert a Scion, costing $15,000, for an additional conversion cost of $55,000. This will give you the latest electric car technology. Phoenixmotorcars.com will convert a Korean full sized car also using advanced technology.

A third choice of type is to choose a NEV, neighborhood electric vehicle. Here you have lots of choices, but a 25 MPH max speed. I would try to borrow one for a week before you go this way. Look at itiselectric.com or zenncars.com or milesautomotive.com and many many others. You can also look at RIVA, made in India, but not imported yet.

In three-wheel configuration, you do not have the speed limitatio, being in the motorcycle category. see littleradioev.com for the zap cars, or go to their main website zapworld.com, or myersmotors.com for the re-introduced Corbin 'Sparrow'.

Compressed Natural Gas--As before, I found this to be a neglected alternative in personal transportation, even though widely used in public fleets, such as busses. The Honda GX is the only available choice, although at least three companies offer conversions. The GX costs $25K with a $4K rebate. As usual, the rub is getting CNG. If you have natural gas at home, its easy with a home compressor to charge your car whenever needed. Otherwise, you need to go on-line and find commercial CNG stations, which are numerous only in Cities. Long distance travel with CNG would be challenging. CNG requires some major changes in the engine--higher compression especially--and a very expensive onboard tank. You would get 28/39 MPG and compressing at home would cost about $1 a gallon. Mainly, you would be burning a very very clean fuel, although it is nonetheless, a fossil fuel--getting scarcer, gradually more-agressively extracted.

Bio-Diesel. Many people like the dual-fuel type of vehicle, able to burn veggie oil, as well as commercial bio-diesel/fossil diesel. Some have automatic switching of the two, going to veggie diesel when the tank is sufficiently heated. Commercial Bio-diesel costs about $3 a gallon. Restaurants are wising up and often no longer give away veggie diesel. Veggie diesel is a little harder on engine longevity. The Mercedes diesel car is a real favorite. Homebrewing bio-diesel at home is sometimes a little iffy in terms of quality control.

Plug in Hybrid--here there were some surprises for me. Mainly, that this is not the immediate consumer option I thought it was. Calcars has made a lithium battery pack which fits nicely in the trunk of a Prius, and voids the car's warrenty. The car then gets about 80MPG if driven less than about 30 miles at a speed less than 34 MPH, at which speed the engine would kick in. This pack costs about $30K and might cost $12K in '07. Calcars hopes Toyota will mass produce this conversion soon, but the latter shows no sign of doing so. Two other companies do the conversion. Hmmm... not quite as promising or cost effective as I had thought.

Battery Electric Cars--these purely electric cars were the lion's share of the expo. Truly dozens of choices. Looking back on the expo, you could almost say it was about electric cars. It will be hard to organize the miasma of choices. I'll try.

First, do you want 2,3,or 4 wheels. For 2 wheels, there were electric bicycles and scooters galore, which have been around for about a decade, all made in the far east. Izip, for example has bicycles with all three battery types--lead acid, metal hydride, and lithium ion, each a doubling of efficiency of the previous--for $400 to $2000.

For three wheels, which have the advantage of less regulations, you could try a Meyers reintroduction of the Corbin "Sparrow" rather pricy at $26K but very well done and slippery, with quite limited cargo and passenger space. Zap was there with their trike-style chinese three wheeler.

But most of the electrics were 4 wheelers, which gave you a choice of an import not safety approved, which would be registered as a LSV--limited speed vehicle--or a regular import or conversion which could be registered for unlimited use. This is the central dillemma for electrics at this stage of legislation. If your vehicle can't meet the US regulations, you are sidelined to the very limiting speed of 25 MPH or less. And believe me, this is a real challenge. We all hope this regulation might change to 35 or 40 MPH as it is in Europe.

And, finally, there was clunky old moonbeam and her curmudgeon builder singing his song: Just lighten up. Stretching gas is still a good idea. Don't wait. Do something now. . No one else shared this less-exciting nitch, but I was glad to present it. I agree, though, with the LA times accessment: I looked out of place amid California's beautiful people.

When we put on our global glasses, and suspend our American love of extremes and gadgetry; we see that other countries have consistently employed 'evolutionary technology' . They've kept walking, bicycling, scootering, public transportationing, dieseling, and presently are doing tiny diesel 'quadra-cycle' cars. Ho hum, you say? Yet very effective and wise.

So, on the whole, it was an exciting expo, and also a little daunting. There is still a threshold you have to jump over in alternative vehicles. You have to make a committment and undergo some inconvenience at this stage of development. Yet, you can't help feeling the excitement, because through the miasma of possibilities, the hype, and the long-shot prototypes, you sense that there is definitely a way ahead. You sense that, with climate change ever more obvious, this time we won't be lulled back to sleep.