Summary
"We're here to say that the electric car is not dead," proclaims John Kassel, a Burlington attorney and chairman of EVermont's board. "We've been keeping them alive. The big automakers should be doing it, too, because the cost goes down when you mass produce."
[Harold Garabedian], who is also deputy director for air quality at the state's Agency of Natural Resources, welcomed the challenge. "In the Northeast, we wanted to exhibit leadership. One strategy was the notion of adopting California's emissions program," he recalls. Thanks to an initial push from then-Governor Howard Dean, and federal grants facilitated by Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman Bernie Sanders, the Waterbury-based EVermont was soon at full throttle as a public-private initiative. "We put together a number of projects to collect data," Garabedian says of his operation, which has a staff of four consultants and an average annual budget of almost $1 million.Until a few years ago, EVermont was the only company making electric cars in the United States, according to technical director [Stephen Miracle]. But the Evergreen is now evolving in the shadow of other eco-friendly entrepreneurial endeavors hoping to capitalize on the oil industry's "well-to-wheel" quagmire. In late July, Tesla Motors unveiled the sleek, sporty Roadster, an electric with lithium-ion batteries that hold a whopping 250 miles per charge. The rich and famous are already plunking down $100,000 deposits for 100 "collector's edition" cars now available from the company, located near San Francisco. The vehicle may eventually sell tor a slightly more affordable $45,000.See the full content of this document
Extract
Power Drive
Never mind the recent lethal heat wave and its possible link to global warming. Harold Garabedian looks cool as an organic cucumber behind the wheel of a vehicle that emits no carbon dioxide. Equally admirable while navigating a busy Waterbury thoroughfare on this humid August afternoon, he has made no pain-at-the-pump contribution to blood-for-oil in the Mid East. That's because Garabedian, research director of the non-profit, alternative-technology enterprise EVermont, is out for a ...
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