Ac Propulsion

In the grand salons of the Greater Los Angeles Auto Show, it's billion-dollar business as usual: hectares of cars waxed to look richer beneath lasers and strobes, never to be made poorer by rain and incontinent pigeons. Then there's North Hall, where the real car guys go.

Like many Silicon Valley engineers, Martin Eberhard loves cars, especially fast ones. But the self-described "closet gearhead" didn't feel comfortable buying a hot rod that guzzled gas from the Middle East or some other troubled region. So three years ago, Eberhard and friend Marc Tarpenning launched Tesla Motors Inc. Their goal: to design a sports car that would go as fast as a Ferrari or Porsche, but run on electricity.

In his State of the Union call to revitalize the economy, President Obama suggested that Americans today face a new "Sputnik moment" ? the challenge of another foreign superpower bent on domination. Just as a complacent America was jolted into action when the Soviet Union launched the first Earth-orbiting satellite in the 1950s, Obama warned, today the nation must rise to the challenge of an economically expansionist China. It was a potentially powerful appeal, aimed at both pride and fear: China, not the long-dominant U.S., has the fastest computer and the fastest trains.

Fearful that repeated electricity outages might keep it from delivering the service its well-heeled clients expect, the 220-acre Ojai Valley Inn & Spa is trying to unplug from California's power grid. The Ventura County resort is evaluating a plan to place natural gas micro-turbines throughout its property, using the electricity they produce to run the 210-room hotel and diverting heat to warm its water, said Brian Skaggs, the hotel's director of engineering.

The idea was nearly unheard of: Unite more than 40 companies, utilities and public agencies to work side-by-side to kick-start an advanced electric-vehicle industry in Southern California. If successful, the endeavor would create thousands of jobs for aerospace and defense industry workers idled by defense cuts.

"All the electric runabouts I ever saw, while they were very nice cars, didn't seem to go very fast or very far. . . . " --Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout, 1910 As transportation, sniff the cynics, electric vehicles remain a hobby for people too old for slot cars. Nonsense, scoff the energy evangelists. Electric vehicles are global salvation from the infernal pollution of internal combustion and a slowing of incineration of God's brown earth by man's obsession for fossil fuels.

In Northern California, a power company is spending tens of millions of dollars to develop an electric car smaller than any subcompact--along with the facilities needed to recharge it. In Tokyo, a natural food co-op is using electric trucks to deliver fresh produce to congested residential communities. Customers praise the vehicles for curbing noise and pollution.

It's 90 degrees and smoggy in Glendora, ozone capital of the nation, as Esther Pratt slips out of her driveway in an oddly quiet little Geo Metro, flips on the air conditioner and heads down Arrow Highway to buy potting soil. The car has been converted to run on an electric motor the size of a shoe box and Pratt, 27, has been driving it daily on the 20-mile round trip to her job in Monrovia.

Learning to live with an electric vehicle isn't difficult in Southern California, but it is not a seamless transition either. Think of switching from carnivore to vegetarian: Suddenly you've got some cooking implements you'll never use again, others that you need to rush out and buy. You have to change your shopping habits and hunt farther afield for goodies to make meals tasty. Same is true with an electric car.