On 8 November 2000, Mark took Cheryl to the Anaheim Auto Show. This maybe isn't the most romantic kind of a date, but since we expect to be in the market for a new car in three years or so, he wanted to see what her tastes were like, and in particular if his preference for alternative-fueled vehicles was going to get in our way. He would, ideally, like to get a four- or five-seat electric sedan; nobody makes these at present, but Cheryl liked the two-seat EV1 electric coupe from General Motors (which happens to be Mark's favorite car), so we rented one from EV Rental Cars up by the Los Angeles Airport a couple of weeks later so she could see how she liked driving an electric car.
Here she is in the driver's seat after church on Sunday 19 November. Mark posted a detailed driving report on the car a couple of years ago; in brief, the beastie has a lot of smooth power, and it is very quiet, with little sound except for a gear whine that sounds like a jet turbine spooling up as you accelerate!
The dashboard reinforces the high-tech, "spaceship" feel of the car--when you punch in your numerical code (no physical key is used), the car "boots up" like the computer it is, flashing the warning lights in an arc under nearly the full width of the windshield. Note the 127 miles estimated range remaining, after driving 8 miles from the airport to Mark's apartment; unlike the other EV1s that Mark has driven previously, this one has advanced NiMH batteries, with about 30-50% more range than the basic lead-acid version of the car. Nonetheless, we could certainly do just fine with the basic car's 70 miles or so of range between (overnight) rechargings; Mark's natural-gas-burning van will have to be retired by July 2007 when the 15-year certification of its fuel tanks expires, but both of us agree that holding on to cars for many years is a good idea, so we will still have Cheryl's late-model Saturn SC2 to take on longer drives when needed. Just thinking ahead a bit!
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