Some make the jump to electric cars.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

T r a n s p o r t a t i o n

Who killed the electric car is the question posed by a recent documentary film on General Motors' now legendary EV1. But a better question might be: Is the electric car ready for prime time, at long last?

Maybe not yet, industry observers say, but it's closer than ever because of advances in battery technology and rising fuel prices that could make the battery-powered electric car a more appealing option for motorists in coming years.

"Yes, people are willing to consider an electric vehicle," said Brett Smith, a senior industry analyst with the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. Those people fall into two groups.

Some consumers will recognize the limitations of electric vehicles and take the plunge anyway because of the environmental benefits, he said, while others won't be willing to part with their fossil-fuel vehicles until electric-vehicle technology improves.

"Those that are truly willing to make that commitment and give up something, including money, are a smaller group than you may believe, Smith said. "Everyone is an environmentalist until it comes to their wallet."

Well, not everyone. Eugene real estate broker Zarifah Spain took the plunge this summer, buying a tiny three-wheeled, raspberry red, Chinese-made electric vehicle called the Zap Xebra. She said she couldn't afford to buy a gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle, such as the popular Toyota Prius, but she couldn't see driving her 2000 Toyota Camry around town every day.

She said she had read Al Gore's books on the environment, and then saw his movie about global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," which gave her a new sense of urgency.

"I want to be part of that movement toward electric vehicles and away from gas ones," she said.

She had heard about Xebra, sold by a Salem dealer, Electric Wheels Inc. She liked the fact that it has four doors and seats four, and that it cost $10,000, less than half the cost of a new a gas-electric hybrid.

"It makes sense for people who do a lot of driving around town," she said.

The vehicle uses six 12-volt batteries to power an electric motor and can cruise with traffic at 35 to 40 mph.

But it has limitations. In addition to its small size, it offers a rough ride, a weak heater, no air conditioning and no trunk. Its quality is not up to the standard of gasoline vehicles.

Perhaps its biggest drawback is its driving range, which Zap says is 25 to 50 miles on a charge. Spain's Xebra has so far gone far less than that, she said. She ran out of juice three times after she first got it and now stops driving when she gets to 20 miles on a charge. She has been told the range will improve as the batteries get broken in.

Despite the shortcomings, Spain said she's happy with her car, which she alternates with her Camry, which saves on gas and extends the Camry's life. "I like driving the car a lot now," she said. "I frankly tend to use the Xebra when I know I'll be using it for a lot of short hops."

Electric cars are not new technology - they've been around as long as internal combustion engines. The challenge has been to develop batteries that could power a car at speeds and distances to which American motorists have become accustomed.

"Battery technology is the Achilles' heel of electric vehicles today," Thomas Weber, head of research at DaimlerChrysler, told Reuters. "If battery manufacturers could make a breakthrough, then the electric car could see a renais- sance."

The technology may be emerging. Lithium ion batteries have become lighter and more powerful. Now, a handful of entrepreneurs are using those batteries to power electric cars that are fast and very expensive.

The electric car receiving the most attention is the Tesla, financed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. A sleek two-seater to built by Lotus, it uses to a lithium ion batteries to go from zero to 60 in a reported four seconds and to reach a top speed of 130 mph, with a range of 250 miles per charge. Even with a price tag of $100,000, orders for the first 100 cars off the line sold out in about three weeks, and so far the company has taken 160 full-cash orders, said Ron Freund, chairman of the Electric Auto Association in Palo Alto.

Aside from Tesla and a handful of other well-financed U.S. electric car start-ups, most electric cars are built or imported by smaller companies. At least 19 companies are building or importing electric cars, according to the Electric Drive Transportation Association.

The same group estimates that about 70,000 electric cars ply U.S. roads, up 25 percent from 56,000 in 2004. They're used in planned communities, in large office complexes, on university campuses and for parking enforcement, said Jennifer Watts, spokeswoman for the association.

So far, no manufacturer has come out with something between the high-performance, high-dollar Tesla, and the low-cost, pedestrian Xebra, Freund said. "That's the market somebody is going to discover," he said. "The market is a tough thing. It's pretty well understood the big guys" - the big six Detroit and Japanese auto makers - "are not going to play for a while, so it's going to take Silicon Valley to show them."

Early adopters such as Spain aren't waiting.

Spain said driving the Xebra "takes more thought." The driver of an electric car has to watch the speedometer, the odometer, the volt meter and a battery warning light that comes on when the batteries are under heavy load.

"You learn to read those things all together to know how far you get before you get into a danger zone," she said. "You have to pay attention.

`That is symbolic of the entire issue. We are facing an era of limitations. We can't just guzzle anymore. We have to be more conscious of how much energy we're using."