The Energy Evolution - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 30

per-gallon Toyota pickup which used a 9-horsepower diesel engine.
In California one of the larger electric car builders was U.S. Electricar
in the 1970s. It converted the Renault LeCar to electric power and by 1994,
the company went public, with 300 workers in three plants. Its Los Angeles
factory converted Geo Prizms and Chevy S-10 pickups, but by 1995 the
company had large losses and complaints of defective cars.
The Solectria Company started on a small-scale in 1989 selling solar
panels, electric motor controllers, and converters to college electric vehicle
racing teams. This led to electric conversions on compact cars and pickup
trucks but even their most basic conversion was $33,000 and most sales
were to utilities and government agencies.
Solectria even had government contracts from the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and won a bid to build a lightweight
Sunrise EV. But, just as Solectria was looking for a partner, the auto com-
panies' own electric programs were being launched. Major automakers
had their own designs in cars like the GM EV1. The Sunrise did not make
it into production and only a few prototypes were built. Solectria did go
on to build the Force EV, which is a converted Chevrolet Metro and the
company was involved in the GM CitiVan, which was an urban delivery
vehicle.
Many firms were hopeful that they could compete with Detroit, but
Solectria had to price its Force EV based on a fully equipped Chevrolet
Metro that the company had to buy at retail from a local dealer. It took
Solectria seven years of building this car before it was able to buy engine-
less cars from GM.
By the late 1990s, it was clear that only the big automakers could
make the electric car really happen. But, these were the same companies
that had disdained electric cars earlier. GM once sued California in the
U.S. District Court in Fresno to block imposition of the state's zero-emis-
sions rules. These regulations would require automakers to build thou-
sands of electric vehicles using rechargeable storage battery technology.
But, the auto industry contended that conventional, electric-powered cars
were too expensive and too limited in range to be profitable.
Of the 300 million cars in the United States, only a few thousand
were highway capable electric vehicles and some of these were conver-
sions. Most dealerships do not put much effort in marketing alternative
fuel vehicles because of the limited demand. Battery electric cars suffered
from their limited range and lack of charging stations. They were only
marketed in a few states with very limited advertising. Even with this