into new ways to make them more efficient. “The interesting thing about cars is 97 percent of the energy they use is to move the car, and only 3 percent is used to take the person in the car somewhere,” said John Cook, the sustainability coordinator at UC Riverside. “We should think about what we’re trying to achieve, and once we do I think we’ll find that public transportation and electric vehicles are great solutions.” UCR also is working in the field, using a $2 million award for its Center for Environmental Research & Technology to build up to 2 megawatts of solar arrays, advanced battery storage and charging stations to power vehicles entirely by sunlight. The system should be operational by October, and research will continue for two years, Cook says. In addition, the university is converting a shuttle bus from diesel to electric power to take students and
Mark Cloud, an account manager with Riverside Public Utilities, connects a Chevrolet Volt to a charging station near City Hall.
university personnel to and from CE-CERT and the main campus. It also will tap into the solar-powered system, via a new Level III charger. Cook is witnessing a growing number of electric vehicles on campus used by students, faculty and other university employees. “That’s starting to drive the demand for more chargers, and once that starts happening people will be even more willing to get electric vehicles,” he said. Alvarez also is noticing an uptick in EV interest, and he predicts that will accelerate, but he adds that it will still take some time before there’s one in every driveway. “There is an appetite for the electric car, but we’re not there yet — not by any stretch of the imagination,” he says. “Then again, we weren’t there when the telephone started. We weren’t there when the television started. “We’re breaking ground in educating the consumer on the viability and the range of electric cars. We’re not reinventing the car, we’re just adding an electric battery to it.” To learn more For information about electric vehicles, including incentives and rebates, visit these websites: Alvarez Electric Motors Co. www.ecocentre.us Center for Sustainable Energy http://energycenter.org GreenCar.com www.greencar.com Green Car Congress www.greencarcongress.com Green Riverside www.greenriverside.com april-may 2013 | riversidethemag.com | 25