Vermonter carries state's hopes with electric car at Tour de Sol
Toolbox
By J.C. MYERS Staff Writer - Published: April 30, 2006
EAST MONTPELIER — Steven Miracle drives around with his gas gauge on empty, but it has nothing to do with the high price of gasoline. His new car doesn't use gas.
Miracle, an East Montpelier mechanic, is finishing work on an electric car that will be entered in the 18th annual Tour de Sol, to be held May 10 through 14, at Saratoga Spa State Park and Spring Auto Show in New York state.
Miracle says the car he built is entirely electric, has zero emissions, and is highly efficient: "When you hear the word 'internal combustion,' that means the vehicle is only around 25 percent efficient, because most of the energy is being dumped as heat."
His car, which is a completely modified Toyota Echo named the "E Vermont Evergreen," can be recharged in around six to eight hours by plugging into a conventional residential electrical outlet.
"I think we have a good chance of winning," said Miracle of the full-size production vehicle contest. "There will be a bunch of alternative fuel vehicles, 'grease-burners'… I'm going to bring my nose plugs and ear plugs."
Miracle works for E Vermont, a research and development nonprofit that builds and evaluates alternatively fueled vehicles. Harold Garabedian, manager of the project, says E Vermont has raced in the Tour de Sol four times and its 1999 entry was the overall winner.
According to the Tour de Sol's Web site, the event is a "celebration of environmentally friendly vehicles that use less fuel and emit less climate change emissions." The four-day event will include a "Monte Carlo-style rally and high mileage challenge," a full-size production vehicle contest, an around-town vehicle challenge and a contest for students building model solar and hydrogen fuel cells.
Miracle, who describes himself as a 'born mechanic' who had a little tool kit when he was 4 years old, started working on bicycles in the mid-1970s and had an airplane mechanic's license by the time he was 21.
Miracle said that in the early 1990s, he had an epiphany about energy efficient cars because of a bad muffler and a clogged carburetor on an old Saab he drove.
"I would coast down hills in Montpelier and wait in traffic with the motor off because the car wouldn't idle. Then I would have to start the car and rumble through Montpelier with no muffler; it was embarrassing. I thought if I had a little electric motor I could get through town without starting the car."
Because of "defense diversion" funding that became available during the Clinton administration as part of the "peace dividend" – savings of military spending that came at the end of the cold war – Miracle got a chance to build his first electric car in 1991.
He collaborated with two other local energy efficiency buffs and mechanics — Hilton Dier III and Paul Scheckel — to form the Vermont Electric Car Co. They transformed a Saab 96 into a one-of-a-kind electric vehicle.
"It was during the first Gulf War, and the military was really concerned about their vehicles leaving a 'heat signature,' that could be picked up by infrared sensors," he said, explaining that electric cars don't emit heat the way internal combustion vehicles do.
The car that E Vermont is entering in the race this year uses an electric motor powered by a newly developed German battery and has a 100-mile range before it must be recharged. "It's just like your old slot car," said Miracle.
Miracle admits the Evergreen isn't built to replace a conventional car. But he contends that for most American families that own multiple vehicles, at least one of those cars is used for short, local drives. He said the electric car would work well under those conditions in all temperatures.
Miracle maintains that if people stop thinking about cars as personal possessions that serve as extensions of their personalities and start seeing them as forms of transportation, then the electric car will become more relevant, especially as fuel prices increase.
"The main obstacle to be overcome (in using electric cars) is the public perception that you have to go 70 miles per hour for three hours to be free," he said.
Miracle said he is not sure whether E Vermont will build more electric cars. He says the electric car is a very small "niche market." "I think it will take a whole other generation to take the sting out of giving up the conventional auto," he said.
Garabedian says the Tour de Sol is a demonstration project that brings high tech transportation solutions to the public. He adds that the price of electricity, as a regulated commodity, is fairly stable — unlike gasoline.
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