LAKEPORT — A new club in Lake County, the Konocti Electric Auto Association (KEAA), wants to help county residents free themselves from the gas pump by educating them about the benefits of driving an electric car, as well as advocating for an infrastructure to support electric vehicles (EV).
“We live in a beautiful county,” said Dr. Randolph Sun, president of the KEAA, “and driving an electric car can help keep it that way.”
Sun, who owns a 2003 Toyota RAV4EV, decided that more people needed to learn about EVs to help stem the tide of global warming and pollution not to mention the rising costs of petroleum.
Sun charges his SUV at home. He just plugs it in to a standard 220 outlet overnight and in the morning, he”s ready to go.
His home is equipped with solar panels which generate more electricity than he uses, so charging the batteries in his EV is free but he estimates that if he did not have the panels, the charge would cost him about $2, which will take him 120 miles.
“We hope to set up a charging infrastructure throughout Lake County,” Sun said, to join with the 1,500 charging stations already in place throughout California.
Since electric cars use no gasoline or diesel fuel at all, there”s no emissions (or a tailpipe). Neither is there any oil, no transmission fluids because there is no transmission and, “since there is no engine there”s no tune-up,” Sun said.
His Toyota EV4 gets an equivalent of 112 miles per gallon, the batteries should last 250,000 miles, the motor should last 1 million miles and it has a top speed of 80 miles per hour. So why don”t more people drive EVs?
“The current administration sued the state of California for their zero-emissions policy,” Sun said, “and they won.”
Because of a mandate by the California Air Quality Management Board to require 2 percent of vehicles to have zero emissions by 2003, automakers were forced to bring electric cars to market which they did on a very limited basis.
Toyota, General Motors, Ford and Honda all produced EVs which were very popular people had to be put on a waiting list but the auto “industry spent millions lobbying in Sacramento, sued in federal court and successfully eviscerated the mandate,” according to DontCrush.com, a coalition of RAV4 EV drivers, former Honda EV+, GM EV1, and Ford Th!nk City lessees, and clean air and energy independence advocates.
“Now Toyota, GM, and Honda are confiscating and destroying thousands of electric cars [that were leased vehicles], despite offers of cash from satisfied customers,” the Dontcrush.com site states.
Many EV owners speculate that automakers don”t want the “good news” of EVs to spread, so they have destroyed EVs that were not privately owned.
Sun and 14 others are trying to spread the “good news” anyway and they”re inviting anyone who is interested in learning about EVs to their next meeting on Friday, May 26. You will be able to see numerous types of EVs in the Memorial Day Parade in Lakeport on Saturday, May 27.
For more information on the KEAA, visit www.konoctieaa.org. On June 28, a film called “Who killed electric cars” will be released and distributed by Sony Pictures. Sun is lobbying for a local showing of the movie.
Contact Terre Logsdon at tlogsdon@record-bee.com.
