He Gets A Real Charge Out Of This Car

GRINNING like a kid with a new toy, Bart Lynam drove up to the front door of The Seattle Times in his electric car.

He parked it next to two newspaper boxes. The headline in that day's Times: ``Oil prices put economy into a stall.'' A headline in the morning P-I: ``Highest-ever gasoline will climb more.''

While most people are grumbling about high gas prices, Lynam is touting the virtues of electric cars.

When he opened the trunk to reveal 15 batteries, a crowd of people on their lunch breaks gathered around to gawk.

``This happens every time,'' Lynam said. ``People are really interested in electric cars these days.''

Actually, it's a used electric car. It was previously owned by a Seattle man who didn't drive it much and put only about 3,000 miles on the vehicle.

Lynam bought it - for $1,750 - at the Woodland Park Zoo's annual fund-raising auction in July.

He started bidding impulsively, almost as a joke, ``after one too many glasses of wine,'' Lynam said. Suddenly another bidder dropped out - and the car belonged to Lynam.

The car is an Electrica 007. It was built by Jet Industries Inc. of Austin, Texas, in 1981. It's one of only 50 that the firm made.

The company also built several hundred electric vans and pickup trucks. But Jet went out of business in the early 1980s, largely a victim of cheap gasoline prices.

The car doesn't look like much at first glance. It's a 1981 Dodge Omni, white with blue stripes. It's got a long scratch across the hood.

A casual observer might not even notice it's electric, although the words ``Electric Car'' are written on the rear fenders.

Also, Lynam got a vanity license plate: ``ELECRIC.''

``They only allow seven letters, so I couldn't spell it right,'' Lynam explained.

The car has a total of 20 standard 6-volt batteries - 15 in the trunk, 5 under the hood. Next to the rear license plate, beneath a black cover flap, is a three-prong plug.

The Electrica 007 can go about 60 miles before its batteries need recharging. It takes eight hours to fully charge them.

Lynam drives it into Seattle every day from his home in Edmonds, about 17 miles. He takes Interstate 5.

``I go right along at 55 miles an hour,'' Lynam said. ``It will do 70 on a flat.''

He recharges it each night, using a 240-volt line he installed in his garage at home.

``To charge it up, you could use the same outlet that you have for your electric clothes dryer,'' Lynam says.

At the Diamond parking lot next to his Seattle office, where Lynam parks the vehicle during the day, he persuaded company executives to put in a similar plug. After commuting from home, he can fully charge the batteries in about two hours. (Diamond isn't charging him for the power - yet, Lynam said.)

Lynam figures it costs him about 10 cents an hour to charge it. On an 80-cent full charge, he can go 60 miles - or about 1.33 cents a mile.

That's pretty good compared to a regular gasoline-powered car that gets, say, 20 miles to the gallon, at $1.25 a gallon - or about 6 cents a mile.

``It's about one-fourth of the cost,'' Lynam said.

Of course, the big difference is the cost of batteries. He figures the 20 batteries will have to be replaced every three years, costing about $1,300. More durable batteries are available, which can last 15 to 20 years, but they cost about $1,000 apiece.

``The whole key to electric cars is developing a more efficient new battery,'' Lynam explained. ``That's the direction we should be going.''

Lynam is former vice president of Paschen Contractors Inc., the company that built the Washington State Convention Center and much of the new I-90 bridge. He's now president of his own firm, Sludge Management Inc., which has a contract with Metro to dry and recycle sewage sludge at the West Point treatment plant.

An environmental engineer by training, he loves to tinker with machinery and gadgets. The electric car is right up his alley.

``The real reason I bought this was to get some personal experience with an electric car. How does it drive? What's the range? What's the battery life?

``Now everyone asks me the same question: Why don't we have more electric cars? I think we will, for two reasons: one's economic, and the other's environmental.''

Lynam pulled a newspaper clipping out of his pocket. It was about a new project in California, where the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Southern California Edison Co. recently agreed to jointly invest $7 million to bring 1,000 Swedish-built electric cars to the area by 1992, and 10,000 by 1995.

Officials said the vehicles would initially sell for about $25,000, but the price could come down with large-scale production.

``I'm convinced we will have electric cars,'' Lynam said. ``I think the 1990s are going to be the decade of the modern electric car.''

As Lynam was about to drive off, someone noticed a gas-tank lid near the Electrica 007's right rear fender. What's that for? Lynam was asked.

The vehicle has a small gasoline-powered heater, similar to a boat heater, Lynam explained. It burns about a half-pint of gasoline an hour. Lynam figures he can heat the car for a whole winter on a couple of tanks of gas.

Smiling at the thought of spending only about $2.50 on gas in the next few months, Lynam drove off happily in his quiet, pollution-free Electrica 007.

John Hamer's column appears Thursday on the editorial page.