Dear EcoGeek,

Who killed the electric car? Seriously, why can’t I buy one yet and when will I be able to?

Alan Carney
Dallas, Texas

Hey Alan, Much love to the people who made Who Killed the Electric Car?, because they got a lot of stuff right. It wasn’t any one person, corporation or technicality that killed the EV1. As with all product failures, it was a combination of tons of factors.

The reason major auto companies aren’t making electric vehicles look like this. First, Americans were looking for SUVs, not ultralights. Second, the technology was primitive, the biggest problem being that batteries could only take cars a hundred miles before they needed to spend hours at a charging station. Third, major car companies were too foolish to see that, in the next decade, electric cars could quickly become technologically viable and extremely appealing, so the abandoned their projects completely.

And now, here we are. Electric cars are technologically viable and extremely appealing. But no one’s done the kind of development necessary to introduce a pure electric vehicle to the mass consumer market. But it will happen. It’s just probably going to happen intermittently, by solving all three of the above problems in different ways.

Drivers will have to get used to smaller, lighter, sportier, more aerodynamic vehicles. It’s already starting to happen, and the new Prius body, most folks agree, is a very nice looking car.

Technology to make EVs more viable are being developed constantly. Ten minute recharge times, higher capacities and energy densities, and safer and more environmentally friendly components are all on the way, if not already proven. Of course, there’s a difference between a battery working in the lab, and being able to get it into a car for less than $30,000.

The short answer, for you, is that you can buy an electric car now. But you’ll either have to pay a premium for a Tesla or a Phoenix model (both companies have battery packs that cost more than Honda Civic) or you’ll have to go small, with NICE Cars or the Smart Fortwo. Or you can head to EVFinder, and search through listings for quite a lot of new and used electric vehicles.

But if you wait for mainstream manufacturers to catch on, it might be a while. Plug-in hybrids will soon (though no one has any concrete dates planned) offer an intermittent step which will allow for at least some emissions-free driving. We should see a Prius plug-in and possibly a plug-in from Saturn before 2010. And plug-in series hybrids (which always use the electric engine, but use a gasoline engine to charge the batteries (not to spin the wheels)) will offer another step toward full EVs.

But we’re going to have to wait for the ultra-expensive, high capacity, quick charging batteries to start getting way cheaper before we see any major car company embracing electric vehicles. Because if the EV1 hit the streets again…chances are, we still wouldn’t be able to get it off life support.

Ask the EcoGeek is a syndicated column provided by EcoGeek.org. If you want to ask a question, send it to Hank through our submission form.

Editor's note: EcoGeek.org's "EcoGeek of the Week" interview series is a relatively new feature over there, but we've been impressed with the subjects they lined up. When Head EcoGeek Hank Green asked us if we'd like to run the feature, we happily obliged."EcoGeek of the Week" appears every Tuesday at EcoGeek.org… and now also at Green Options.

Just because I love the actual world doesn't mean I'm not a pretty big fan of virtual worlds as well. Some have said that actively seeking out fake worlds to explore and enjoy is be a symptom of alienation from or even disdain for the environment. But I can't help but feel that's absolute crap.

And today I've got someone who very likely agrees with me, and he happens to be one of the biggest gamers in the world. Scott Cronce is the Chief Technology Officer of Electronic Arts. Scott's worked on dozens of video games over the last two decades and when I noticed his name pop up on the EcoGeek mailing list (don't you want to join too) I had to get in touch with him.

I was excited to learn that he's an even bigger EcoGeek than I am, and was happy to oblige us with an interview.

EcoGeek: CTO of Electronic Arts eh? That sounds a lot like "Head of Video Games for the Entire World." What are your responsibilities with EA?

Scott Cronce: This October I’ll celebrate my 19th anniversary at Electronic Arts. In 1988 I joined EA as a Technical Director for the simulations group were I was very fortunate to work on many types of games from military simulations to a little group of games we now call EA Sports. Over the years my responsibilities grew from project level to company level technology management. During console transitions I also have the extra fun of heading up our engineering efforts on new game machines. As EA grew I had ‘title creep’ to the point where it would no longer fit on a standard business card without multiple abbreviations.

EG: Do you think there's an interplay between the virtual worlds of gaming and the actual world of environmentalism.

SC: As a game play mechanic, of course there is. Just like in the real word, the virtual world is made up of resources to manage. A game designer can use elements of adverse environmental effects to balance out game play.

EG: When and how did you end up as an EcoGeek?

SC: It was mainly by accident but was accelerated by the California Energy crisis. My interests in the latest and greatest technology long ago earned me the title of ‘alpha geek’. For example, I ordered my Segway off Amazon the day they went on sale. At the time I didn’t consider it an Eco purchase, just a really cool toy. I have a strange desire to constantly beta test anything electronic, much to my wife’s dismay. I live in California and we went through a period huge increases in our energy bills. All those gadgets were starting to cost me upwards of $800 a month. Before that I never really paid much attention to my energy usage. I wasn’t about to stop using all those cool toys, it just meant I had another problem that I was sure could be solved by technology. I think it’s very natural progression for people to go from gadget geek to EcoGeek.

EG: Do you have any personal environmental achievements that you think are particularly awesome.

SC: I think I got a little obsessed with my electricity usage. I filled up my roof top with 56-220w solar panels. It finally dawned on me how big the system was when my Solar company put pictures of the array on their website in industrial section. I guess I went a little overboard. We then changed out our gas components to electric and swapped out all our incandesce lights for compact fluorescent. I was amazed how high tech they had become, I could even get dimmable ones! Next came the electric scooter, what a great way to get around town. Not satisfied with my new electric hobby, I hunted for an electric car that I could use for my 45 mile round trip commute. I found a 1995 U.S. Electricar (basically a Geo) that had just enough range to get me to work. After a 10hr charge I was ready to drive it back home again. It was fun but not that practical. I was then lucky enough to find a 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV. Now that’s a real electric car. With its 120 mile range It not only became my daily computer but my main car. My wife liked it so much that I found another one for her. We still have our gas car as backup but rarely need to use it. I haven’t needed to by gas since last December. It’s really a shame that consumers can’t walk into a dealership today and buy an EV. Maybe companies like Tesla Motors will change that.

EG: Do you think EA might get in on the current environmental craze in any way?

SC: There are many more people like myself at EA. I think you’d be surprised to see how many hybrids are in our parking lots and how many employees are environmentally active. As a corporation we have always been very environmentally conscious. Our games are pure entertainment. We have had many games were some environmental element to them but we haven’t made one entirely themed on the environment. Maybe in today’s heightened awareness we’ll have more opportunities to do more.

EG: What makes you hopeful for our world's environmental future?

SC: We have a history of reversing and rectifying problems we have caused to the environment so I see no reason why we won’t continue. What gives me extra hope today is the extent of investment I’m now seeing put into green technologies. That means there is actual money to be made. We are going to see big boom in new ideas and technologies over the next few years.

EG: What do you think are the best ideas and innovations we've got to save the world.

SC: That’s a hard one. I’ll stay away from miracle inventions and instead just deploy the ones we already know work. To start with I’d like to see all new construction use solar (like thin film shingles). We could drastically cut down energy costs for the average home owner while eliminating the need to build new power plants. I’d like to see us bring back the plug in electric car. We have thousands of homemade plug in hybrids now, sure would be great if a consumer could buy a new one. Nonprofit organizations like www.pluginamerica.com are staring to make some headway, I just wish auto manufactures along with local and federal government agencies would help.

Editor's note: Yesterday, we discovered that both Green Options and EcoGeek have representatives visiting WindPower 2007, the American Wind Energy Association's annual convention and trade show. In order to give readers of both sites a wide range of coverage, we decided to join efforts and share our posts. This first one comes from EcoGeek writer Ransom Riggs, and was published earlier today.

Day one of the Windpower 2007 conference has come to an end, and having just rubbed elbows with something like 6,000 attendees, 400-plus exhibitors and national legislators and policymakers from around the country, I thought I'd try to make sense of it all. The confab was put on by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), and heavily attended by many of folk who belong to it: wind energy producers, manufacturers who produce things like wind turbines, poles, and transmission lines and wind outreach and education organizations. The conference features tons of panels, discussions and presentations, but much of the talk at this year's Windpower focused on just a few issues:

• A lot of people -­ and not just wind industry representatives, either ­- believe that wind energy is and will remain an increasingly crucial part of our national renewable energy portfolio. No one had anything particularly negative to say about nuclear or other non-c02-emitting power generation technologies, but all agreed that of those other options, none were as ready as wind power was to step up to the plate and work. (It takes years and years to bring a nuclear power plant online, for instance, and not nearly as long to build and permit wind turbines). The wind industry feels that its golden moment is now.
• The AWEA has set a really tough goal for itself and for the wind industry: to produce 20% of the U.S.' power by the year 2020. As good as that sounds, no one really knows how it's going to be accomplished. Panelist Bob Lukefahr, of BP's alternative fuels division, stressed the challenges: It will require "technology we haven't invented yet," he said, and entails "political and economic complexity this business has never faced before." For starters, they're going to have to figure out how to deliver all that energy; even if we had the turbines to do it right now, it would cost at least $60 billion to build the transmission lines to get that power onto the country's grid, according to AWEA President Randall Swisher.
• The future of the wind industry depends on the White House, and if the next few presidents we have aren't wind-friendly, wind will stay small for the long haul.

The good news is, there are plenty of states out there interested in having the wind industry set up shop in their regions. At Monday's confab alone, the mayor of Los Angeles and the governors of Montana and Iowa made nice to the assembled windustryites, and at least one congressman (D.C.'s own Jerry McNerney) and a senator (Tom Daschle) lent their support to the cause as a whole. In short, the industry is booming, consumer interest in renewable energy has never been higher, and the future ­ depending in part on what happens in the 2008 election ­ looks bright.