Iowa Global Warming

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything new – let’s just say things are busy, busy. I’ll get to today’s excitement later in the post (a teaser: it involves going 0-60 mph in less than four seconds in an all-electric Tesla Roadster, riding along I-80 from Ankeny to Stuart).

Spent a few days on the road at the start of the month in the Twin Cities for the Midwest REAMP network meetings, then joined other leaders from around the country at the USCAN conference in DC and led the Midwest breakout session. Great stuff in both meetings, there’s a lot of excitement and a lot of great work being done to get the facts about climate legislation and the need for energy efficiency and renewables out there. Which is so important right now, because there’s a lot of misinformation going around. Something I’m sure a lot of our supporters here in Iowa have seen, of course.

There’s more, of course. Last Thursday, the Iowa Utilities Board put out an inquiry asking for comment on a number of technical questions related to the American Clean Energy and Security Act we passed in the House last month. Senator Harkin has been making statements about the bill, indicating he will weigh into the process of passing it in the House – though maybe not in the ways we might prefer. Sen. Grassley is, as always, a very tough vote. And all of this is something we can use your help with. Get in touch with us to get involved.

Which brings me to today. Today, I got the chance I’ve salivated over ever since I first saw one online. I got to ride in a Tesla Roadster for forty-odd miles of Iowa highway. Fully electric. Faster than a Porsche 911. Able to jump… okay, it’s not superman. It’s just incredibly cool, the future, now. We did interviews and got great footage at the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities (which has some cool features as well), and will have a great video for you shortly.

Sadly, after the ride I got word from our friends in Washington that Rep. Tom Latham has introduced an amendment to strip funding away from rail service. I’m hoping it gets killed in committee, but if it doesn’t, you’ll be hearing about it soon enough.

Andrew

General Motor’s Vice President Ed Peper announced yesterday at the Washington Auto Show that the D.C. area would be joining San Francisco as the second city in the nation to feature GM’s most prized electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt. As Mr. Peper noted, it looks like the the Chevy Volt, “Is truly coming to life.”

Interestingly enough, GM doesn’t expect to make much money off of the cars themselves. With a price tag of $30,000-$40,000, no one is suggesting the Volt will outsell its competitors; not at least until the price of batteries goes down. Mass-production will help bring prices down, but until then, GM is busy readying the metro area’s market for electric vehicles in some interesting ways, like working with state officials to allow Volt drivers a place in carpool lanes and building power-up stations at places of employment.

San Francisco seemed like the obvious first choice for GM to introduce the Volt last year, but D.C. came as a bit of a surprise to me. As Britta Gross puts it, San Francisco, “Raised their hand before we even made the offer.” The Bay Area is one of the largest markets in the U.S., one that has shown much interest in clean fuels over the past few decades, and so it would seem only logical that they should become the first city to host the Volt. D.C., however, strikes me as a slightly more peculiar choice. Economically, it’s is less than a third the size of it’s west-coast counterpart, with a fairly strong hybrid market and an environmentally friendly citizenship, but one not much more so than many others across the country. Instead, the choice seems to have political savvy written all over it. The auto industry hasn’t yet forgotten about their public embarrassment at the hands of the senate this fall, and might be attempting to make good by bringing their clean cars to the metro area, making it all the easier for big-wigs on the hill to be constantly reminded of GM’s commitment to electric vehicles. That’s all fine and well-lets just hope they start producing the Volt elsewhere, too.