By JAMES McNAlR
Herald Business writer If it weren't for the unrelenting roar of traffic on I-95 in Miami, you'd be able to notice that the white pickup driven by Bob Suggs doesn't make a sound.
Suggs, manager of Florida Power & Light's electric vehicle program, is behind the wheel of a gasoline-free, battery-operated mutation of a Chevrolet S10 pickup. The truck, repowered by U.S. Electricar Inc. of Sebastopol, Calif., reaches a-top speed of 70 miles per hour, doing the zero-to-60 portion in 12 to 14 seconds. He can drive it 65 miles a day on an overnight charge that eats less than $2 worth of electricity.
"It's comfortable and it handles well," Suggs said. "The motor is totally quiet. You're in a world of silence, and that makes all other noises that much more pronounced."
Before long, Suggs will be joined in his quiet commute by other electric vehicles Already there are nearly 1,000 plug-in vehicles puttering about on U.S. roads. And with legislative mandates for electric vehicles going up in California and a dozen Northeastern states, Ward's Automotive predicts there could be 329 000 on the road by 2003.
Electric motors are common m golf carts and off-road vehicles, but for more widespread use on city streets and interstate highways, one n-must look to Europe and Asia.
That is destined to change. Pressed to cut fossil-fuel pollution the state of California has mandated:;dated that electric vehicles make up 2 percent of all vehicles sold in 1998. 10 percent in 2003. Maine Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Maryland have followed suit with laws emulating California's call for a low-emission vehicle.
Florida has no such law in the works, but Floridians will nonetheless see more electric cars by Summer's end.
U.S. Electricar is tooling up a 41,000-square-foot factory in Riviera Beach that, in September, will begin taking the gasoline engines out of Chevrolet S10 pickup;~ trucks. The engines will be replaced with electric motors and banks of 52 batteries filled with gelled lead-acid. Initially, the company will sell only to the fleet market, taking minimum orders of 30 trucks at $30,000 per truck.
We don't feel the consumer market's ready," said U.S. Electricar spokesman Alex Campbell. ' Fleets are perfect introductory applications for electric vehicles because they normally have driving ranges of 30 miles a day."
The company plans to roll out 80 trucks in September, eventually getting up to 400 cars and pickups a month. At that rate, ~t would become the country's largest producer of electric vehicles for conventional road use.
B wouldn't be the only producer though. General Motors Ford and Chrysler all have early models on the street. And among the pack. of unknowns is a Palm Bay company, Renaissance Cars, that expects to begin shipping a battery-powered roadster sometime in August for sale to the general public.
Already there are nearly 1,000 plug-in vehicles on U. S. roads. Some predict there could be 329,000 on the road by 2003.
Bob Beaumont, Renaissance's chief executive officer, said his company has ordered enough components to make about 600 cars by year-end. He said he has signed up 20 Florida car dealers including Sun Chevrolet in Kendall and Maroone Chevrolet in Pembroke Pines, to sell his Tropica roadster and Excita utility vehicle. Both will carry price tags of less than $16,000.
"Since we had a feature story in Car & Driver magazine in March, I'd say we got 3,000 phone calls and letters," Beaumont said. "We're getting a lot of unsolicited deposits."
Here's what the Big Three are up to on the electric car front:
Chrysler has sold 50 of its under 100 miles." Tevan electric vans to electric utilities since April 1993. The Tevan is sold with Dodge Caravan or Plymouth Voyager medallions on them and has an eyebulging $100.000 pricetag.
GM is testing 50 prototypes the vanguard of the future. of its Impact commuter car in Los Angeles and expects to begin selling it in the late 1990s.
Ford has delivered 34 of its Ecostar vans to corporate customers, but wouldn't say when the public can buy it. The Ecostar travels farther than most electrics between charges - about 100 miles, but it's pricetag is as daunting as Chrysler's Tevan - $100,000 for a three year lease.
Pam Kueber, a Ford spokeswoman, said it costs $48,000 just to produce the Ecostar's pack of 480 sodium-sulfur batteries.
"In order for electric vehicles to be acceptable to the mass market, they could not cost any more than a gasoline-powered vehicle of equivalent size,',' added Kueber. "And our market research indicates that people get real uncomfortable with the range of under 100 miles.". FPL will demonstrate the U.S. Electricar at public events, such as the FPL Energy Expo in the Broward Convention Center in August. Suggs is convinced the current crop of electric vehicles are the vanguard of the future.
"I think we'll start seeing small numbers of electric vehicles over the next few years and a good population of them by the end of the century," Suggs said. "Florida's the second largest auto market in the country, so there's a naturally occurring reason for them to be here."
FPL has no ownership stake in the electric car industry, said Suggs. The utility is merely looking at possible fleet use, business opportunities, and the mushrooming of electrical demand from mass car rechargings.
"If people are going to be charging vehicles on our grid, we have to see what the impact would be so we could produce with the least cost," Suggs said. "We want to know what we have to do to respond to that."
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