Hero: Dean Jeffries and his Kyote II EV

You might not recognize the name Dean Jeffries, and he's probably OK with that... but chances are you know his work customizing and building cars. He's done work for James Dean, Parnelli Jones, Gary Cooper, Steve McQueen, and Carroll Shelby (and many, MANY others) and even developed his own paint, "Jeffries Indy Pearl." He's also built a lot of famous cars for TV and movies, to include the original Black Beauty cars from the first Green Hornet, the Monkees' Monkeemobile, the moon buggy from James Bond - Diamonds Are Forever, and even worked on the Batmobile! He's also an accomplished stunt man, with many credits in movies like Die Hard, Bad Boys, Death Race 2000, and The Blues Brothers. Jeffries even created the famous flying eye design  that made Von Dutch famous. You can see a lot of his work at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles.


As a stunt man on the film Honky Tonk Freeway, he made a five-ton truck jump a 110 foot gap over a collapsed freeway overpass; he succeeded in the jump, but the shock system in his seat was too stiff. In his own words in a AAA.com interview, upon landing, "I broke my back. Now I’m in a five-ton truck going over 100, and my legs don’t work, so I picked up my right leg with my hands, put it on the brake pedal, and pushed as hard as I could.” He was able to safely stop the truck, but when he got to the hospital, no one helped him for an hour... so what did he then do? He went to his shop, made a custom brace for his back out of aluminum and got back to work. “I was stunt coordinator, we still had one more to do that day. Wasn’t no big deal.”


So, other than being one of the toughest guys to ever make a cool car, how did he come to make it to our "Hero:" category on ForgetOil.com?

In the midst of making crazy dune buggies, super hero cars, and basically being an indispensable part of SoCal Car Culture and Hollywood history, his philosophy, skill, ingenuity, and attitude he holds have made him known as a great person to nearly everyone he's ever met... and he also built a pretty cool electric race car, the Kyote II EV way back in 1970! It's pure electric, and based upon his standard Kyote (pron. "Coyote") II dune buggy. Here's a few videos of it in action:

In all of this business of reducing the world's dependence on oil as a fuel, we have to remember to have fun, we have to innovate, and we have to work to capture the imagination. It seems like Jeffries' Kyote II EV did just that, over 40 years ago.


Jeffries says in his AAA article, “I’ve been very lucky. I didn’t plan nothin’. I just took things day by day. There’s been some bad times, but that’s just life, you know? Now I wake up every morning happy that I woke up. I love what I do, and I’m thankful for every day I get to do it.”


Keep going Dean, we're fortunate to have you.

pickensplan Pickens Plan 

"There is no question that people want to get off oil from countries that are not friendly to us." @boonepickens http://ow.ly/3Zbew

"Toward a clean energy future" - C. Boyden Gray

From Twitter:

pickensplan Pickens Plan 

RT @angaus: “#Natgas emits nearly 50% less carbon dioxide, with almost no sulfur dioxide, particulates or mercury” http://bit.ly/fFqcth

From dyn.politico.com

"Despite all the rhetoric in recent years, little has been done to address the nation’s energy problems. To get oil, we still send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. wealth annually to nations that are not friendly toward us."

"... we need a bridge to a future where our nation’s energy needs are supplied by a mix of lower-emission resources, like cars and trucks powered by clean alternative fuels, including electrification. That affordable bridge is natural gas.

Natural gas, which already generates 23 percent of our electricity, is cleaner than energy sources like oil or coal, which generate deadly fine particle pollution. Natural gas emits nearly 50 percent less carbon dioxide, with almost no sulfur dioxide, particulates or mercury.

New, abundant supplies of natural gas have been found domestically, so it can be the first step toward a new era in which energy generation and use in transportation are homegrown, cheaper and safer."

"Energy security is the most important issue of my generation. It holds future generations in the balance across so many levels. Now is the time to act — for the sake of national security, public health and economic prosperity. Let a new, cleaner energy economy allow America to become a leader in innovation yet again."

- C. Boyden Gray, who served as White House counsel to President George H.W. Bush and as an adviser on energy policy. 

Circa 1897: the first truly electric car? the "Runabout" by KFI 640 AM's founder, Earl C. Anthony

I (JP) took this photo at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and while already a fan of AM talk radio station, KFI and of electric vehicle, couldn't possibly have imagined that the history of the two were so beautifully intertwined.


Newcomb Weisenberger, an engineer for KFI AM 640 for 33 years, and I'm sure one of their greatest treasures, had the great pleasure of working directly with Earl C. Anthony, and had the wherewithal to preserve many  amazing  pieces of not only automotive history, but also military and technological history.  OldRadio.com has been gracious enough to host Newcomb's memoirs, which are a fascinating and delightful experience to read.


I'd like to directly show you to his account and recollection of Earl C. Anthony's "Runabout," which has been touted as the "first fully electric car" by many in the field, perhaps even utilizing an early form of regenerative braking! ECA built it at the young age of only 17; according to the placard at Petersen, he was, "a competent electrical engineer who also designed and built the 1.5 horsepower motor that powered the car." 


The vehicle you see in the photo is believed to be a reconstruction built on a new wooden frame and using the existing other parts (to include bicycle forks!) due to an accident the vehicle was involved in on the very rough and unkind early Los Angeles roads.

Circa 1966: the first Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle

Another great find at the Petersen... If only it were possible for us to keep pretending that Electric Vehicles, Hybrids, or even Hydrogen Powered Fuel Cell Vehicles were even a somewhat recent endeavor... they aren't.

In 1966 GM presented the "Electrovan," based on the 1966 GMC Handivan, which is credited as "the first hydrogen fuel cell car ever produced." Hydrogen power is by no means new, at the time of the Electrovan, fuel cells had already existed since the early 1800's, and even NASA's Gemini spacecraft ran off hydrogen, with the water produced actually being drunk by the astronauts! General Motors does seem pretty secure in its claims to have been first to use a fuel cell to power an automobile, though.

HydrogenCarsNow.com has a great article on the van, it's capabilities, weaknesses, and a lot of other valuable information on Hydrogen cars.

eROCKIT - a Segway Killer? a new vehicle altogether?

The recently launched eROCKIT (http://www.erockit.net/) is creating quite a stir, most notably on a recent TechCrunch article touting it's abilities and applications while trying to somehow tie it to the Segway in terms of tech without making it seem like birth control on wheels. 

Barring the eROCKIT's creator's claims of feelings of "moral superiority," feeling "super human" and being "king of the road," it is strides more attractive than a Segway, and much faster, but it isn't quite garnering the attention that we're sure the Ferrari's he's passing are.

So what gives? Are we the only people thinking this thing is going to need more than an ad campaign scored by Herbie Hancock?

Well, you kind of just have to watch the videos to understand. They give a small taste of what Electric Vehicle enthusiasts have been calling the "EV Grin" for years now. It's cool, it's clean, it's fast... it's quiet, yet has gobs of torque from the moment you hit the accelerator through the point you pass yet another filling station that holds no sway for your wallet (unless you want a Redbull.) Now, if only the price point for this will come down low enough for it to be more than "a toy for the rich" as the Volt and Leaf are being labelled here and there, that could REALLY be what would make the eROCKIT stand out. That, and if they throw in a cool pair of shades like he has in the video.

An Intro to the Pickens Energy Plan

"I'm only opposed to one thing: our imports of oil"

Pickens: We are in a crisis. In 1970, we imported 24% of our oil; today it's 70%.

T. Boone Pickens on CNBC, breaking down how we can cure America's addiction to foreign oil. Why ethanol and bio-fuels will not provide large scale results, and how Natural Gas and wind farms CAN do this.

He's leading the way for America in terms of oil independence.