WALNUT CREEK, Calif. – With high gas prices and the release of the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, plug-in auto advocates hope more people will come to see the electric vehicle as something that fits into their everyday lives.

It may be easy for naysayers to dismiss the film and the spotlight it shines on the electric car as a passing cultural fancy, but enthusiasts say the technology is here, ready for mass production and can easily dovetail into the average American household.

To spread the word, electric car junkies have glided silently to movie theaters in their home-built and store-bought vehicles. They’ve passed out flyers and talked up the technology, hoping their friendly enthusiasm sparks wider consumer interest.

Scott and Anna Cornell of Pleasant Hill, Calif., attended the movie’s opening at their local theater. The couple own four electric cars and a gas-powered Volkswagen van. They converted two of the electrics, a 1979 Volkswagen Rabbit and a 1968 Karmann Ghia, themselves.

While Scott is an electrical engineer and Internet technology manager, he said even people without vast technical knowledge can build an electric car out of an old gas-powered vehicle by purchasing a conversion kit.

The Cornells said they’re an average American family with the same travel needs as most.

“We have two kids. I work; she stays at home. We live in the suburbs,” Scott Cornell said.

Anna Cornell took two years to convert the Rabbit herself, stealing into the garage while their then-infant daughter was taking her afternoon naps.

“I don’t have an electric-engineering background,” said Anna Cornell, who once went an entire decade without driving a gas-powered car. “Making pillows, doing cross-stitch – that I know how to do.”

Scott Cornell converted the Karmann Ghia in just a few weeks. The Cornells’ converted cars each cost about $8,000 to build.

The couple spend about as much to maintain and power them as they would the smallest subcompact, gas-powered vehicle. They regularly change the water in the lead-acid batteries. They rotate the tires and change the brake pads. And that’s about it.

They can drive about 50 miles on a full charge and easily keep up with freeway traffic of up to 80 miles per hour. Soon, Scott said, he’ll add solar panels to their home so they won’t even have to buy electricity.

The film that is drawing new attention to electric cars is a whodunit that opens with a mock funeral. The murder victim is GM’s EV1, a fully electric, plug-in car leased to customers in the late 1990s but never sold.

GM executives eventually killed the electric car program, recalled the vehicles and sent them to the crusher for disposal.

In the film, filmmaker Chris Paine finds that GM, the oil industry, the federal and California governments and consumers all contributed to the EV1’s murder.

The “defendants” are motivated in turn by greed, incompetence, ignorance and complacency.

“It’s a metaphor for why it’s so hard to get America out of the 20th century,” Paine said.

Little by little, the message seems to be getting out.

In San Francisco, for example, a coalition of environmental groups and electric car advocates recently stood up at a news conference with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s senior adviser on energy and the environment.

They announced a new campaign to get local governments and businesses to promise to buy plug-in hybrid vehicles if auto manufacturers ramp up the production of the cars. Unlike pure electric vehicles, these hybrids run primarily on electricity and then switch to gas or diesel when the power runs out.

Showing that there are enthusiastic buyers is a way to encourage the auto industry to start mass-producing plug-in hybrids, said Sam Haswell, spokesman for the Rainforest Action Network, one of the organizers.


The Cornells are doing their part, too. To help encourage everyday drivers to jump on the electric bandwagon – and to mingle with like-minded folks – the Cornells attend car rallies and races sponsored by their club, the East Bay, Calif., chapter of the Electric Auto Association, which boasts 90 members.

Will Beckett, the group’s vice chairman, lives in Santa Cruz, Calif., and drives a converted Chevy Metro.

Even though Beckett’s car can run only about 40 miles on a charge, he said it takes care of most of his driving needs.

“You don’t do long trips. The purpose of a pure electric vehicle is for 80 percent of what you do, which is commute and short trips,” Beckett said. “Very few electric-car drivers run out of fuel, and it’s really easy to find a plug.”

“The one time I did run out, we went to a restaurant across the street and plugged it into a grocery store then went home.”


Still, filmmaker Paine said the No. 1 reason people won’t switch to electric cars is because they can’t drive 300 miles on a charge. The other issue is they can’t recharge in five minutes.

The range problem is solved by the plug-in hybrid car.

As for the recharging time, Paine said consumers initially weren’t excited about the prospect of recharging their cell phones, either. “But people got used to it.”

He insists the technology for electric cars is ready for mass production.

“They’re totally here and ready to go,” he said.

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(c) 2006, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.).

Visit the Contra Costa Times on the Web at http://www.contracostatimes.com.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

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PHOTO (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): ELECTRICCARS

AP-NY-08-11-06 1706EDT