Plug-In Parade Celebrates Obama Inauguration With Green Cars
Largest Event of its Kind Ever Sends Message: Americans Want Efficient Cars
SANTA MONICA—For the world’s greenest procession of its kind, 55 plug-in vehicles will parade through Santa Monica on Sat., Jan. 17 to jump start the nation’s presidential inaugural festivities with a message for Congress, Detroit and Barack Obama: America wants plug-in vehicles, the most fuel-efficient cars ever made.
Plug In America (PIA), the nonprofit organization leading the nation’s plug-in vehicle movement, will hold a 9:30 a.m. press conference followed by “Inaugural Parade West: Plug In, America!” at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, 1855 Main St. California Sen. Fran Pavley and others will send their message standing beside the Civic’s solar carport to signal that clean, renewable energy must replace oil to fuel the vehicles that will drive a sustainable and prosperous future.
“Today we congratulate President Barack Obama, who has called for one million plug-in cars by 2015,” says Paul Scott, one of the group’s co-founders. “But, with the audacity of hope—and the confidence born of years driving these cars—we’re asking Obama to accelerate his plan and make it happen three years sooner, then to boost that number to ten million plug-ins by 2016.”
The clean-car parade, coming as gas prices begin their inevitable rise again, represents the largest assembly of its kind in history. It demonstrates the number and breadth of new plug-ins coming onto the market and the continued viability of those that have been on the road since 2002.
“The number of drivers who have signed up for this parade exceeded even our own high expectations,” said Sen. Pavley, author of the nation’s first global warming law. “It sends a clear signal that Americans are serious about combating climate change and will vote with their dollars by purchasing clean, efficient cars.”
The event’s all-electric vehicles, all of them freeway-capable, include more than two dozen Toyota RAV4 EVs—with tens of thousands of oil-free miles on each—three Tesla Roadsters, two Vectrix motor scooters, one Zero Motorcycle, two Phoenix SUTs and a prototype Mitsubishi iMiEV. The latter is undergoing testing at Southern California Edison, which also will provide a prototype Ford Escape plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. A 1971 Porsche 914 is among other EV conversions.
The “Solar Taco” will also ride in the parade. The Tacoma pick-up truck, used by SolarCity to educate local students about solar energy, in addition to the Civic’s solar carport outfitted with electric car charging stations, broadcasts how EVs can be recharged with renewable energy.
Parade-vehicle owners and drivers range from Ed Miller, an engineer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Science Lander Rover project, to Alexandra Paul, an actress and Plug In America board member, to green leader Ed Begley, Jr.
Plug In America recently launched a campaign to encourage Detroit to build fuel-efficient vehicles with the billions in federal bailout dollars it has now begun to receive. The production of 10 million plug-in vehicles by 2016 by a retooled, electrified auto industry will create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs.
Even when charged on today's electrical grid, plug-in cars are cleaner than the average gasoline car. They also run on domestic electricity, notes former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, a Plug In America supporter and clean-tech venture partner with the Silicon Valley’s VantagePoint.
“Electric vehicles can deliver a deadly blow to our dependence on imported oil from hostile countries while addressing our environmental crisis,” Woolsey says. “A plug-in future is key to a sustainable America and a stable world.”
WHAT: 55-Vehicle Inaugural Parade of All-Electric and Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
DATE: Saturday, Jan. 17: Press Conference, 9:30 a.m.; Parade 10 a.m.
WHERE: Press Conference: Santa Monica Civic Auditorium parking lot, 1885 Main St., Santa Monica, CA 90405. Parade will travel from Civic south on Main Street to the neighborhood of Ocean park, then back to the Civic via Nielson Way
PHOTOGRAPHY: Contact zan@zdscommunications.com for hi-rez of photo below. Best birds-eye view of vehicles DURING PARADE are from Civic parking structure at 4th Street & Olympic Boulevard. For a sample photo contact zan@zdscommunications.com. Spectators expected as parade leaves the Civic lot and near storefronts between 2439 Main St. and 2507 Main St.
PARKING: Free media parking at the Civic
INFO: Zan Dubin Scott, zan@zdscommunications.com or (310) 383-0956
Zan Dubin Scott
ZDS Communications for Plug In America
O: (310) 392-1130 C: (310) 383-0956
F: (310) 392-1318
http://www.zdscommunications.com