March 2014. The original EVnut.com website is (sort of) frozen in time. As of August 2018, the site is no longer being updated.

2006 AD. There are over 26 million internal combustion vehicles on California roads. These vehicles consume more than 50 million gallons of gasoline per day. The vehicles you see below were not counted in either statistic.

These cars use NO GASOLINE. They are NOT gasoline hybrids or even plug-in hybrids. They are pure BATTERY ELECTRIC VEHICLES. These came off the assembly line as Electric Vehicles from the major manufacturers. They were built to comply with the CA ZEV mandate of the 1990's.

Pictured above is a significant percentage of the full-featured production battery electric vehicles on the road (at least until 2010 - yay!)- and my wife and I have "owned" them all. "Owned" is in quotes because the 1997 GM EV1 on the upper left was never sold. Lease only. We were fortunate enough to secure a two year lease on this vehicle (returned to GM, under duress, on 25-November-2003). See more by clicking the EV1 link on the left.

The Rav4EV on the other hand, was the only production EV to be offered for sale at the retail level - even though the sales window was only eight months long. We purchased the Rav4EV new from one of the 25 Official Toyota Rav4EV dealers. For more info, and to see many of the modifications I have done to this vehicle, click the Rav4EV link on the left.

The Ford Ranger EV was the most recent acquisition (since sold), and is a full-on pickup truck that drives and handles great. Lead acid batteries in a heavy vehicle with poor aerodynamics leaves us with just 50 miles of range, however (the Low Ranger?). Still it was VERY handy to have around for the few months I owned it! See more by clicking the Ranger EV link on the left.

Until 2010, there was no way to purchase or lease any new "highway-capable" production electric vehicle from any major manufacturer. The reason? It all depends on what cynical or logical explanation you wish to pursue. In 2003, the California Air Resources Board decided that EVs are not needed in the effort to clean our air - favoring Fuel Cell R&D over clean battery vehicles that could have been on the road ten years ago. Read comments on that decision here, and see the FCV page. Car makers didn't want to make them for the simple reason that they have so much invested in internal combustion engines. The good news is that many smaller companies took up the challenge to produce their own full-featured EVs. Find some of these in the EVs Available section.

The links on the left take you to general areas in my site, and the links at the top of the resulting pages will take you to specific topics. Thanks for dropping by, and for your interest in EVs.

In August of 2003, we began generating our own EV "fuel" from our roof-mounted photovoltaic system. Here are the two cars (we had at the time) posing in front of the panels, just one month before losing the EV1 to the crusher.