Sunday, December 28, 2008
Boca Raton News

“The technology is here, it’s time for production,” says State Rep and House Majority Leader Adam Hasner (R-Boca Raton).

A well-known advocate for alternative energy, Hasner has for many years, and in his own words, “has walked the walk and driven the drive” with his ownership and use of a hybrid vehicle.

A champion of alternative energy from bio-fuels and other sources, Hasner said recently, however, that the future for alternative energy — and weaning the US from dependence on foreign oil — will largely be in the development of electric vehicles.

“Oh, we’ll have hybrids,” he said — and that’s actually how he sees the future for many Americans – a primarily electric vehicle, but “plug-in hybrids” using a variety of alternative fuels, at least for the foreseeable future, to deal with gaps in plug-in stations, and/or battery life issues until that technology is more refined.

A “Failure”

“What’s disheartening,” Hasner added, “is that the technology has existed for years” to move toward electric automobiles, “but the auto industry failed to walk the walk by plugging the plug.”

“The failure to act over the past 30 years is what put us here,” Hasner said, and we can’t miss the opportunity created by this crisis to make battery powered cars the standard. That’s the surest way to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil while creating new jobs.”

Hasner also pointed to what a California firm is doing in Israel as the model for what the US should be doing here.

Project Better Place has built 400 wired parking spots, mainly in and around Tel Aviv since June. Charging stations find a triangular plug that into a socket where a car’s gas tank is normally found.

Hasner says the firm is planning to wire 100,000 parking spots in Israel by 2010. The plugs will energize a fleet of electric cars being developed by the Renault-Nissan Alliance — scheduled to begin driving in Israel in 2011, and making Israel the first country in the world to have large scale electrical car usage.

Drivers will pay by the mile, based on a computer look at much electricity the car needs and calculate the cost.

“We have the technology,” Hasner said, “and now it’s time to plug the plug right here.”