GREEN MOTORING:Paul Scott is vice-president of Plug In America and is a long-time EV driver and is president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Southern California
QCan you tell us briefly how Plug In America came about, who was behind it and what are its aims?
APlug In America was formed from the group of about a dozen people who had protested the crushing of the electric cars made by Toyota, Nissan, Chrysler, Ford, GM and Honda. A 1990 California law known as the Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate forced those six carmakers to build and bring to market electric vehicles (EVs). After some 5,000 EVs were on the roads, carmakers overturned the law and began reclaiming the vehicles. Our protests resulted in about 1,000 of the original EVs being saved.
The name of our group had, to this time, been DontCrush.com, as we were trying to stop the crushing of the cars. We then formed Plug In America as an advocacy group to further our efforts to get new EVs to market. We are now a non-profit organisation and operate nationwide with 15,000 active members.
Our group is regularly consulted by original equipment manufacturers that intend to produce plug-in vehicles, journalists interested in the history and current status of the plug-in movement and thousands of individuals inquiring as to when they can buy an electric vehicle.
QThere has been a renaissance of the electric car in America. We are no longer talking about who killed the electric car, but rather who can give it life soonest. Do you feel you are reaching your goals?
AAbsolutely! While we may have lost some battles to save existing EVs a few years ago, and virtually no one was paying attention to the auto holocaust going on at the time - nevertheless, the industry has completed a 180-degree reversal and is now racing to bring plug-in vehicles to market as fast as possible.
It is a shame that we wasted a full decade of progress due to the charlatans pushing fuel cell vehicles on the regulatory agencies and elected officials who were supposed to be looking out for the interests of society instead of the oil and auto industries.
QDo you think the new Obama presidency has been good news for electric vehicles?
AOh my, yes! The difference is like night and day. Obama talks regularly about plug-in vehicles in terms of their ability to reduce pollution and keep us from having to buy foreign oil. He understands how important this is to our environment, the economy and our national security.
QPlug-In America featured in Who Killed the Electric Car?What can you tell us about your involvement in Chris Paine's new film, Revenge of the Electric Car?
AChelsea Sexton is a producer of the film. I am an adviser. Many of Plug In America's board members and other PIA members are contributing through interviews and assisting in our many events that Chris films for the documentary. I had a particularly good time when I traveled to Denver last summer for the Democratic National Convention. Chris had loaned me a camera and asked me to shoot interviews for the film. I have no idea if any of it will make the cut for the film, but I'm hopeful. We were giving rides in electric cars, including a Tesla Roadster, so some of the interviews should be pretty good.
QHow do you see the plug-in technology evolving over the next few years?
AThis year, there will be several hundred high-end Tesla Roadsters delivered, maybe as many as a couple of thousand highway capable EVs all together. In 2010, there will be several thousand, mostly Tesla, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Aptera, BMW Mini E, Chevy Volt and possibly Think and Miles Automotive cars. In 2011, we'll see tens of thousands from those companies, as well as Volvo, Ford, Mercedes, Subaru and many others. We'll probably see one million plug-in vehicles sold in the calendar year 2014 or 2015 latest. The numbers will grow fast after that.
The speed at which these vehicles will take over is going to be determined by the capacity of the battery factories more than any other single thing.
