State Mandate on Electric Vehicles

Your July 21 editorial on electric vehicles got the automobile industry’s message wrong, and unfortunately it’s not the first time. Ford is not anti-EV. We have spent more than $150 million on EV development and major efforts will continue regardless of what happens on the mandate. Ford has the largest EV test fleet in the world, which already has logged more than a half a million miles. We’ve launched a “glider” program to make product development less costly for EV converters. And we’ve announced plans to build a electric Ford Ranger pickup truck beginning in 1998.

The problem is that we cannot give customers the EVs most expect--not yet, at least. Extensive interviews with potential customers show that they expect a 100-mile range; but with today’s batteries, available range is about 50 miles. Customers don’t expect to pay any more than they do presently for gasoline vehicles, but with today’s technological limitations, prices will be two to three times higher. They want the same or less maintenance, but for now batteries will need to be replaced every two or three years at a cost of up to $5,000. Public testimony given on June 28 confirmed that all domestic and foreign manufacturers face exactly the same hurdles.

PETER J. PESTILLO

Executive Vice President

Ford Motor Company

Dearborn, Mich.

* Your editorial said, “Few of the elderly who responded to a ‘taxpayer alert’ . . . realized they were shills for the Western States Petroleum Assn. at a hearing of the state Air Resources Board in El Monte.” I am chairman of Drivers for Highway Safety (DHS), I was there and your facts are simply wrong.

WSPA joined with us; DHS has opposed the EV mandate from the beginning. DHS is a technically oriented group, and its members act as “shills” for no one. Our members have extensively studied the feasibility of EVs and we can more than hold our own in any technical discussion. The source of funds for the “luxury bus” (it did have a restroom) and the box lunches was well-known (and appreciated) in advance by those on the bus. It saved us from driving our individual cars from Orange County to El Monte.

Finally, who are you calling “elderly,” anyway? Many of us do not consider ourselves in that category, and I personally find the term a bit insulting.

BILL WARD, Chairman

Drivers for Highway Safety

Costa Mesa

* There is and will continue to be a small market of enthusiasts for today’s feasible battery electric vehicles, representing about 0.2% of the market. Limited by this decade’s battery technology, these vehicles will offer severely limited range, from 120 miles to as little as 30 miles in winter, with full passenger load, at near-end of battery life, with recharge times of from five to 10 hours.

In order to penetrate 2% of the market in 1998 as mandated, these vehicles will have to be sold for $10,000 less than the cost to manufacture. The difference will have to be subsidized, one way or another. There are a number of more promising zero- and ultra-low-emission alternatives on the horizon within the next decade, including hybrid internal combustion/battery vehicles and fuel-cell electric vehicles. The electric-vehicle mandate in its present form, by diverting the efforts of the manufacturers and the support of government, will only delay the day when we will see a more practical, affordable non-polluting automobile.

JACK MALLINCKRODT, Member

Drivers for Highway Safety

Santa Ana