Meet George Jetson
Is the car of the future a thing from the past?
- By Monica Bradbury
From the outside, an electric car looks just like any other car in a parking garage inside an office building in Midtown. It's a little old, true, but its owner was trying to save money, not look pretty. And it's small because, as with gas-powered cars, lighter vehicles are more efficient. If you have an electric car, being more efficient is the whole point. The real novelty of an electric car can't be appreciated unless you ride in one.
Mike Willmon's '88 Mitsubishi MightyMax pickup seems to roll, not pull, out of the tiny space in the parking garage. He turned the key but there were no other indications that the truck was started. But then it starts to pick up speed, and the realization hits: the car is not only running, it's accelerating. And hardly making a peep.
You won't hear an electric car if you're sitting next to one at a traffic light. You won't hear an electric car if you're sitting inside one at a traffic light. When a car that runs on electricity is stopped, it doesn't make any noise. And there aren't as many parts operating under the hood, and there's no exhaust, so it doesn't make much noise while it's moving, either.
At a traffic light on Northern Lights Boulevard the sounds of gas and diesel engines reverberate off buildings. Exhaust pipes putter. Fumes rise into the air. But the MightyMax doesn't even vibrate. When the light turns green, the pickup takes off with head-thrown-back-against-the-seat-if-you're-not-expecting-it speed. And you're not. The electric motor makes a sound like the cars on The Jetsons, but it's about as loud as the pitter-patter of the Flintstones' feet
This silence is strange. Even in the newest, most soundproofed gas cars, you expect the rumble of an idling engine. Cars got quieter over the last century, but we're still used to an aural indicator that everything is as it should be. Turn the key - the engine turns over. Step on the gas - hear it rev up. We might drown the car out by cranking the radio, but for most of us, it's like the sound of the refrigerator running: The constant hum is just background noise. In order to enjoy the convenience of automobile travel, we think that noise must be accepted, the same way we have to deal with exhaust and gas prices if we want to maintain the lifestyles we've all become accustomed to - right?
Willmon is standing next to his pickup outside a Holiday gas station in Spenard when a young, stocky guy in a white T-shirt and tennis shoes pulls up in a delivery truck and approaches him. He asks Willmon about the little vehicle Willmon calls the “Electrabishi.” Willmon converted the truck to electricity earlier this year. He gives the driver a business card with a picture of the Electrabishi and a web address. That happens a lot, Willmon says.
After watching the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? at the Dimond Center theater in late August, Willmon returned to his truck to find folks gathered around it. Others who had seen the movie noticed Willmon's truck in the parking lot and the “Electric” stickers and decals that adorn it. They were fascinated.
Willmon used that kind of curiosity to share information about electric cars at the Alaska Renewable Energy Fair this summer. He put his pickup in his assigned spot on the Delaney Park Strip and waited. Before long people were asking questions and signing up to receive emails and possibly join an Alaska chapter of the Electric Auto Association that Willmon was starting.
According to co-chair Will Beckett, the Electric Auto Association has more than 1,000 members in 42 states and nine countries. About 50 percent of the members have electric cars, Beckett says from Aptos, California. The others are seriously interested in buying one, should they become available.
“The vast majority are more environmentally conscious,” Beckett says. But people want electric cars for other reasons too.
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