Solartaxi Pix

From: Paul Scott
Subject: Solar Taxi comes to AeroVironment
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:33:06 -0700

I had gotten rather raving reviews from Plug In America board members Dan Davids in Seattle and Ron Freund in the Bay Area of this "Solar Taxi" guy, Louis Palmer, and his indomitable support team. Dan hosted Palmer and his crew in Seattle after this three wheeled EV, pulling an 800 watt solar array, crossed the border into the U.S. for the first time and Ron hosted them in the Bay Area as they were making their way down the west coast to LA.

I got an invite from Earl Cox to come out to AeroVironment and meet these guys and see their presentation. I honestly didn't know what to expect since I hadn't gone to the website yet to read all about them (but you should: http://www.solartaxi.com).

Louis is a Swiss school teacher who has a burning desire to stop global climate change. He came up with the idea to build a small EV, power it with a small solar array, and literally drive it around the world to get publicity for this clean technology. He is one year and a few weeks into this trip and only has the U.S. and part of Europe left to complete his travels. The combination of PV (photovoltaics) and EV (electric vehicles) is a powerful one and readily understood by people the world over.

They are assiduously documenting every leg of the trip into a surprisingly entertaining and informative powerpoint presentation that we got to see in the AeroVironment conference room. These guys have been everywhere, with one astounding exception, Japan. Apparently, the Swiss and Japan have no agreement on their license plates, of all things, so Japan would not allow them in the country. They got permission from the likes of Saudi Arabia and North Korea, but not Japan. Go figure.

After completing this journey, Palmer intends to drive a battery EV without the solar panels around the world. He's making contact along the way with individuals and companies interested in helping out on this project. With all the OEMs in development on EVs around the world, I think he'll have plenty of interest and help.

One more interesting note from yesterday was that Palmer and his team were unaware of the history of AeroVironment when they arrived. I think they were told that it was an engineering firm with interests in efficiency and EVs, but little did they know it was the company that developed the Impact, the concept car that became the GM EV1. Among the many brilliant engineers surrounding the solar taxi were Bill Parks and Bart Hibbs who were part of the original team that developed the Impact. As this news sunk in, the team got into long and involved conversations with some of the best engineers in the U.S.

On a personal note, I was given a short, but very exciting tour of the inside of AeroVironment's airplane development skunkworks. I've never seen so much carbon fiber in my life! What a very cool company! I remember reading about Paul MacCready in the mid 80's when I was in Eugene working at a nascent computer animation company and thinking what an interesting group that would be to work with. To see it on the inside was quite the thrill. I feel privileged to know some the engineers who do work there. They are some of the smartest people I know.

Paul