Feb 25 - Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)



In 2007, Marc Korchin thought he had found his mission in life: To benefit the environment and save his fellow Bay Area residents money by selling zero-emission all-electric cars. Two years later, after burning through his life savings, he was forced to close his Berkeley dealership.

And Korchin is not alone. The Bay Area's independent electric car dealerships are in perilous shape, even as electric cars are being hailed as the next big thing by major auto manufacturers. Factors including a hurting economy, lower gas prices and, most notably, the cars' own limitations conspired to undo them.

A number of dealerships, including Zap of Concord, Davis Electric Cars in Davis and EcoMotors in Santa Rosa, appear to have closed within the last two years or so. Ethical Approach Electric Vehicle Center of San Jose has given up selling electric cars and switched to electric off-road vehicles. ELV Motors, in Santa Clara, now markets electric bikes and motor scooters to the public and sells electric car and truck fleets to campuses, corporations and cities.

The phenomenon extends to dealers of conventional brands who offer electric cars on the side. Anthony Batarse, head of the otherwise-thriving Lloyd Wise dealership in Oakland, purchased ten electric cars in 2008, sold only three and ceased selling the cars. Alameda's O'Connell Electric, the electric division of successful dealership O'Connell Volvo, is barely surviving, said owner Mike O'Connell.

 "From the beginning, they were doomed," said Will Beckett, vice president of the Central Coast chapter of the Electric Auto Association.

It didn't seem like that at first, at least for a brief shining period in 2007 when companies like Ethical Approach and Green Motors opened. Especially after the price of gas hit $4.45 a gallon in the Bay Area in June 2008.

In those days, every time Korchin stopped his 11-foot-long, green, 1,200-pound Zenn electric car at a traffic light, people would swarm the Berkeley resident. "What kind of car is this? How does it work?"

Since then, gas prices have plummeted $1.41 a gallon in the Bay Area, to $3.04. Now that a stop at the gas station poses less of a hit to the wallet, a big incentive is gone.

The cars' own drawbacks are part of the problem. Unlike the soon-to-be-released, freeway-read Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, most of the electric cars currently for sale are low-speed neighborhood electric vehicles.

Neither the Toronto-made Zenn or Santa Rosa-based Zap, the two electric cars most commonly sold in the Bay Area, go very far without a charge. The Zenn, which sells for around $15,000, can't go more than 25 mph; the Zap, which costs around $10,000, 35 mph.

"You can't take them on the freeway. That's why Marc Korchin and his ilk went out of business," said Ed Thorpe, past president of the East Bay chapter of the Electric Auto Association.

"People would come to my dealership and they would see what the car would and wouldn't do," said Korchin. "I'd say, 'Don't you want to help save the planet?' They'd say, 'Let someone else save the planet. I want something with good speed.'"

Dealers tried to sell the vehicles as second cars for use around town, but when the economy crashed, so did the number of people who could afford two cars.

In contrast, the much-ballyhooed Nissan Leaf, scheduled for delivery in December of this year, goes up to 90 mph and around 100 miles between charges. The equally touted Chevy Volt, a plug-in gas/electric vehicle, goes up to 100 mph and 40 miles between charges, and is scheduled for full availability in 2011.

Nissan isn't saying, but the Leaf price will probably be in the $25,000 to $30,000 range; the Volt is expected to retail for around $35,000.

As motorists clamor to buy these freeway-ready electric cars, "neighborhood electric vehicles will return to their natural niche: fleets for corporations, airports or university campuses where the speed limit is low anyway," said Sherry Boschert, cofounder of California-based Plug In America, a national electric vehicle advocacy group.

Along those lines, Doug Schwartz, founder of Santa Clara's ELV Motors, now sells neighborhood electric vehicles to companies like Google and Apple for use on their campuses. "We have managed to find a niche we can hang on to," Schwartz said.

Santa Rosa's Zap appears to be going in a similar direction; the company is currently competing to build a new version of the U.S. Postal Service's light transport truck. On the other hand, the Toronto-based Zenn Motor Co., one of the major independent electric car manufacturers, has ceased production of its neighborhood electric vehicles altogether.

"For a small firm like Zap or Zenn to make vehicles has never been very successful," said Tom Turrentine, director of the Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Center at UC Davis. "The automotive field is one in which it's virtually impossible for the little guy to make it."

Though neighborhood vehicles may be losing the David and Goliath battle, there is at least one relatively small electric car manufacturer with a good chance of surviving, Turrentine said: San Carlos-based Tesla.

"Tesla is very innovative and is attracting lots of money, though the scale is still nothing like what major manufacturers operate with," Turrentine said.

Contact Janis Mara at 925-952-2671.

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