Man shows power of dream

He hopes to sell Obama, others on electric cars

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published June 15, 2008 at 6:34 p.m.
Updated June 15, 2008 at 11:53 p.m.

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Photo by Joshua Duplechian / Special To The Rocky

Democratic National Convention delegate Nate Vanderschaaf, of Longmont, is the owner of a rare car that runs solely on electric power. Vanderschaaf would like to speak to his party and a national audience from the podium at the convention about the promise of electric vehicles.

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Nate Vanderschaaf has a dream:

Slip his car keys to Barack Obama - and off they'd go.

He's not a crazed fan. He's the owner of one of the world's few truly electric cars and also a Colorado delegate to the Democratic National Convention - which falls in a summer when most poor souls are getting poorer paying $4 a gallon for gasoline.

The Longmont man sees a chance to sell the idea of electric cars to a national audience and - hope against hope - offer a test drive to the possible next president of the United States.

"The whole point of this is, I want our elected officials and the public to be aware that electric vehicles are quite viable - not just viable, they're desirable. They're sexy," said the 34-year- old computer network engineer.

Even better, they can compete. His 2003 Toyota RAV4 EV "is an SUV that can seat five people, pull a trailer, haul cargo and go up to 80 mph, and cost almost nothing in electricity."

Vanderschaaf's EV (for electric vehicle) is a type of all-electric car featured in the 2006 documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car?, which showed how oil company opposition and lack of consumer demand doomed that generation of electric cars.

Approximately 300 RAV4 EVs are in private hands today, Vanderschaaf said.

Thanks to a six-figure salary, he was able to pay a collector's price of $40,000. When the car was made in 2003, it sold for $29,000, Vanderschaaf said.

His EV goes 100 miles on a charge. Recharging costs $2.

Funky, funny and intense, the husband and father of two is throwing all he's got into pulling off a history-making, kick-the- tires, four-day demonstration:

He got the host committee to agree to showcase his car and as many as 10 other privately owned electric cars (and possibly use them for test drives and to taxi delegates around).

He buttonholed an Obama staffer at an earlier event and got him to pitch the idea of a test drive to the candidate.

He hopes to help Colorado win a DNC contest as the "greenest" delegation of the convention.

And he's done it all since bursting onto the caucus scene Feb. 5.

"I catapulted out of nowhere strictly on the shock and awe of my automobile and the hope it represents," he says. "I just turned up and said, 'You got to see this.' I realized the market will not bring electric vehicles to the people. We need our government to jump-start it."

Vanderschaaf says he was one of those kids who took things apart to see how they worked. He was an auto mechanic at 17. But he glimpsed his destiny when his daughter was born: "When your child comes you realize the clock is ticking and the time to make things happen is today."

Natalie is now 3. The family, which also includes wife, Laura, and Max, 6 months, tool around in the EV and a Prius hybrid.

Vanderschaaf nurtures one more convention dream: the off chance he'd be asked to speak from the podium to the party, and to a national audience. He's scribbling down ideas, but ultimately, he figures, he'd do better just speaking from his heart.

"I'll tell ya," he says, his voice rising. "It's like I'm watching America drown in a sea of gasoline and I've got the only lifeboat. That's what I think."

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