Now Entering Voltageville
I just came back from a fairy-tale world where people drive around in cars that don’t need gasoline, except that this place really exists. The city of Vacaville, California, halfway between Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay area, holds the distinction of having the highest concentration of electric vehicles (and public electric vehicle charging staions) per capita in the United States. And we’re not talking about “neighborhood electric vehicles” that can only go 25 miles an hour on certain streets; we’re talking about highway-capable vehicles that can go up to 60 mph for up to 120 miles.
Yep, the people who made the documentary movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?” could have found the electric vehicle alive and well in Vacaville, which has earned the nickname “Voltageville” in the local press. The city has 25 electric Toyota RAV4s in its fleet, and at one time boasted 100 electric vehicles on its streets, owned both by the City and many of its visionary citizens.
Of course, that was back in the early part of the decade when electric vehicles (EVs) were still being sold in California by Ford, Nissan, GM and Toyota. Today, sadly, EVs are scarcer than hen’s teeth, but Vacaville’s diminished fleet keeps buzzing along, thanks in large part to a network of charging stations installed throughout the city, where anyone with an EV can charge up for free. We’ll be writing more in our October issue about Vacaville and Ed Huestis, the pioneering city management analyst who turned it into Voltageville, but some news can’t wait: Thanks in large part to work by Huestis and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Vacaville may land the new Tesla Motors electric vehicle plant. The plant, which could employ up to 400 people, would produce Tesla’s Model S highway EV, a five-passenger electric sedan with a range of 225 miles on a charge. If this dream comes true, Voltageville might have to rename itself High Voltageville.