Stanford Rally 2002.
Noticeably absent this year where all the major manufactures who had
appeared with their EV's in the few recent previous years.
No Honda no Nissan no GM no Toyota (except the Rav4) and no Ford. Is
it me or did most auto makers kill off their unborn EV's finally.
Oddly to Toyota's credit they offer the only real manufactured EV for
sale but only a few private owners provided any for the public to see.
Basically no BUZZ is what I felt what I mean buy that is none of the
elusive humming of EV research from the big boys.
At least we use to get a piece of news or see something interesting in
the past from these guys.
OK so Ford brought their Fuel Cell Car (BFD) you still can't plug the
thing in to a wall outlet.
Hybrids are cool but same problem.
The Stanford rally is one of the biggest gatherings of EV's on the West
Coast and to see hardly any offerings from the Big Boys to me was
disappointing but not surprising.
What I find sad is that this show and rally provides a platform for EV
makers to show off this stuff and it would not happen if it weren't for
a small group of caring dedicated folks volunteering their time.
With out the direct support of the Silicone chapter and Will Becketts
amazing efforts at keeping this event alive their would not be a
Stanford Rally, really the only major West Coast EV event of its kind.
Now that CARB is deranged I mean defanged you can bet the American Auto
makers will do as they please now in California.
Thus the minuscule offerings the buying public has now.
The Stanford Rally gives us average mere mortals a chance to go and see
and touch and enjoy and drive or ride in an EV once a year every year
for free, really no kidding.
I feel the Stanford Rally is king with a great mix of creative one of
kind EV creations and what ever anybody can find and bring manufactured
or conversion EV.
This location rocks. Weather has always been sunny and warm. Great EV
charging trees setup in two locations. On the beautiful Stanford campus
at Hoover Tower. Good public turn outs and decent facilities near buy.
Towards the end of the show most of the EV drivers agreed on a EV Parade
through downtown Palo Alto. Now that was fun driving with approximately
50 EVs of all types like a solar powered car and EV bikes and EV
scooters and EV anything goes and the bigger EV cars. We got the publics
attention with people waiving and honking and cheering us on as most of
the EV's had signs saying we can reduce foreign oil and denouncing war
over oil . It was like nothing else you've ever seen and like about 3
blocks worth of different EV things moving down the street was about as
wonderful a sight as any of you can imagine.
Pleasant dreams,
Danny Ames
(EV Rabbit and Think City driver)
