A very special and honored "guest" arrived at the Renewable LA event on December 8th 2007.  A resurrected 1997 EV1!  They have successfully restored most all of the functions of the car to proper operation condition, although the lead acid batteries in the car are far from full capacity of when the car was new a decade ago.

Most all of these phenomenal vehicles were destroyed by GM, but a few were donated to various universities and automotive museums. Rumors are that 40 of the vehicles were donated by GM, but the whereabouts of only about half of them are known. The history of the EV1 and other electric vehicles is very well documented in the must see 2006 film "Who Killed the Electric Car" directed by Chris Paine.

Except for the one donated to the Smithsonian, all were disabled with some electronic parts removed and many of the wires severed. This car is one of the known ones, and belongs to Western Washington University and was brought back to life with the help of many dedicated people from the university and experts about the car living in the Mesa Arizona area (where the cars were both tested and ultimately destroyed).

This was a very cloudy and rainy day in Los Angeles, but this created a tremendous moment where the rain stopped and a beautiful horizon to horizon rainbow appeared over the car (actually it was a double rainbow briefly).

A personal note:  Thank you to all that have been involved with the restoration of this significant part of automotive history!  Also thank you to Chris Paine, Chelsea Sexton and everyone involved in the creation of the movie and to Plug In America for raising public awareness about Electric Vehicles.  

All images on this page were taken by Larry Paul using a Canon 20D and have been reduced in resolution for web viewing. Images are (c) 2007 Larry Paul.