Corrections or additions?
These stories by Barbara Fox were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on
May 6, 1998. All rights reserved
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Parade of Electric Cars
A circus-like parade of alternative energy cars is
coming to town. The intriguing and splashy array of vehicles in the
Tour de Sol, the United States Electric Vehicle Championship
“race,”
will be on display at Princeton High School on Monday, May 11, from
7:45 to 10 a.m. Then it will wind its way down Washington Road and
Princeton Hightstown Road through West Windsor, pass Mercer County
Community College, and go through Hamilton Square and Yardville on
its way to Burlington.
Adding to the festive character of the parade is that the four dozen
competing vehicles carry orange pennants and logos of the sponsors
and are accompanied by about 100 support vehicles. One of the teams
is comprised of 40 elementary school children from a Vermont school,
and sometimes — screaming and yelling — they help push their
entry “Helios the Heron,” a converted Volkswagen microbus,
down the road.
“It is absolutely like a circus, a traveling road show,” says
Nancy Hazard,
who administers the event for the
Massachusetts-based
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. “We travel from site
to site and set up a display so you can see the vehicles and talk
to the people who produced them. We are about 300 people strong, and
you will find no difficulty finding someone to talk to, everyone from
representatives of major car companies to high school students.”
“We have come a tremendous way,” says Hazard. “Ten years
ago we started the Tour de Sol with six solar racing cars built by
students. Now everything is really market ready. People will see the
vehicles they will be buying and using in the next decade. People
will be very pleasantly surprised at the quality of the vehicles.”
Though the Tour de Sol is not really a race, it is a contest. The
cars will be graded on braking and handling. The amount of electricity
or other fuel that each car uses is measured each day, as is the
reliability
and range. Toyota is not competing but, as a sponsor, will provide
the lead car, a Prius five passenger four-door sedan that sells in
Japan for about $17,000. Ford is providing a display model and
Chrysler
is bringing a preproduction prototype. The New York Power Authority
is entering a Honda EV Plus, and Solectria has several entries,
including
a motor scooter. (https://www.solectria.com
). Also entered
are an electric “Charger Bicycle”
from California, an ’86 Ford Escort from Cinnaminson High School,
and a ’96 Chevy Beretta from Swarthmore College.
Plug-ins, for an electric vehicle, are obviously
important.
At the end of the day the four dozen vehicles in the Tour de Sol
“circle
their wagons” to plug into the trailer with the electric power,
which in turn is plugged into another power source.
In years to come, will gasoline powered cars ever be as unpopular
as smokers in restaurants? “Yes, we will get to the point where
people will prefer to drive the electric vehicle,” says Hazard.
“Some think the gas station will be called the `energy provider’
and it may have a number of fuels. Others think the electrical
recharging
will happen in people’s homes.”
Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, Princeton HighSchool, 609-452-1491. Display of vehicles powered by alternative formsof energy, part of the annual Tour de Sol. The race starts inManhattanon Friday, May 8, and ends in Washington D.C., on Thursday, May 14.Call the NESEA at 413-774-6051 (https://www.nesea.org)to volunteer.After 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 10, the race cars leave Morristown andwill enter Princeton via Liberty Corner, Martinsville, and ChimneyRock, to 533 South through Manville, Millstone Borough, Griggstown,and Rocky Hill Borough, to Route 206 and into Princeton. The entourageparks overnight at Princeton High School and is on display from 7:45to 10 a.m. Parking is available on Walnut, Franklin, and Guyotstreets.On Monday at 10 a.m. the cars exit Princeton, heading east on Route571 through West Windsor to Route 526 through Dutch Neck andEdinburgh,south through Hamilton Square and Yardville enroute to Mount Holly,where they will be on display at Burlington College from 11:30 a.m.to 4 p.m.Top Of PageElectric Station CarsIn stop and go traffic, electric cars shine, becausewhen you take your foot off the accelerator, the batteries recharge.That’s what Sandra Brillhartand Nassef Solimansay. Andthey should know.Soliman drives an electric car between the Junction train stationand Parsons-Brinckerhoff at the Carnegie Center. As executive directorof Greater Mercer Transportation Management Association,https://www.gmtma.org), Brillhartkeeps a Solectria electric car (a rebuilt Geo) at 15 Roszel Road anduses it for demonstrations and for attending meetings.GMTMA is working with the state transportation department to encouragethe use of electric cars.Brillhart’s and Soliman’s cars are part of a three-year $1.5 millionDOT demonstration project that is supposed to test the effectivenessof nonpolluting electric cars to determine their effectiveness asshort-range commuting vehicles, as well as to attract reversecommuters.Solectria Corporation provided up to 21 electric sedans for”Project:Power Commute”. Though the cars cost $35,000 to $38,000 they arevirtually maintenance-free and of course require no gas, only anelectricalcharge.Solectria Corporation has produced more than 300 electric vehiclesthat have driven more than 2 million miles in six years Based inWilmington,Massachusetts, it is competing with Ford, Toyota, General Motors,and other international car makers in the EV field. At last year’sAmerican Tour de Sol, a 1997 Solectria Force NiMH electric sedan brokea range record for production electric vehicles by finishing 249 mileson one day and went on to win the race.Among Solectria’s technological innovations have been all-electricair conditioning and heating, cabin pre-heat, automatic batterythermalmanagement systems, and drive systems. Its nickel metal-hydride (NiMH)battery, now used for laptop computers and cellular phones, isscheduledto be used in a General Motors Ev-1 electric car this fall. TheseNiMH batteries are expected to replace the old-style lead-acidbatteries.The state project’s cars are “garaged” at New Jersey Transitstations in Morristown and Cherry Hill as well as in Princeton. NewJersey has one of the largest, if not the largest, station cardemonstrationproject in the Northeast. Don Borowski(Rider, Class of ’80)is the project manager for the electric car project for New Jersey’sDepartment of Transportation. He has two of the electric cars at DOTheadquarters E-mail: ondb@aol.com).Station car programs similar to New Jersey’s have begun in California,Florida, Massachusetts, and New York.”At this point the limitations are the batteries, which add alot of weight to the vehicle and reduce the range,” says Borowski.”That’s why we have gone with the station car project. We aretaking them seven to ten miles away to a place where they can berecharged.If you are going to use electrics, let’s make sure we do it the rightway.”Borowski admits to some disappointments. Acceptance of the electriccars “has gone faster in Morristown, perhaps because there isa concentration of reverse commuters. Princeton has been a littlebit slower.” It didn’t help that it the “plug-ins” atthe Vaughn Drive parking lot of the Junction train station wereinstalledonly last month — eight months late.The electric cars’ drivers attended some training sessions, and theemployers are paying $100 monthly. Soliman, manager of the ParsonsBrinckerhoff geotechnical department, commutes with another engineerfrom Metuchen and uses the project car to get from the train stationto the Carnegie Center. He also uses the electric car for 30-miletrips to the DOT, but never to job sites (he is working on designsfor bridges in Ocean City and Newark). “It won’t make it,”says Soliman.”We estimate the safe range of the car would be 35 to 40 miles.We drive it while it has up to 55 amps, but after 50 amps it startsto slow down,” says Soliman. The car has three accelerationsettings(economy, normal, and power) and uses 1.3 amps for one mile, he hasestimated. But if you floor the accelerator it will consume 1.7 ampsper mile. “If you get used to the car you can get more mileageout of it,” says Soliman.Though Soliman echoes the standard idea that the electric car is goodmainly for station commuting or as a second car for short trips,Borowskinevertheless points to the Solectria model, the Sunrise, with thenickel metal hydride battery that in last year’s race did more than240 miles on a single charge: “I don’t think people realize thereis a vehicle that would get that kind of range. Once you hit the 200mile threshold you are meeting the needs of most people.”Says Borowski: “It’s important to let people know about what thefuture holds.” And Borowski says his electric car doesn’t attractstares, “but people behind me may notice I don’t have atailpipe.”The National Station Car Association (E-mail:stncar@ix.netcom.com. The Electric Auto Association, 800-537-2882.Electrifying Times (https://www.teleport.com~etimes.Top Of PagePedal Power?Bicycles help solve energy problems, and they also dealquite neatly with parking problems. To encourage biking shortdistancesin Princeton, the Greater Mercer TMA hopes to launch a”freewheels”program, which makes refurbished donated bicycles available to thepublic for crosstown travel. People pick up a bike from any ofnumerousstation stops and leave it at another stop when they are done. Nocharge, no paperwork, and presumably fewer cars.But the program, which has been successfully launched in such citiesas Portland, Oregon, Austin, Texas, and Madison, Wisconsin, has runinto another form of congestion — municipal red tape. PrincetonBorough Mayor Marvin Reed has asked the TMA to delay implementationto research liability and insurance issues.”Naturally we’re disappointed,” the TMA’s Sandra Brillhartsaid in a statement. “We have spent a great deal of time and moneyhaving the bikes refurbished and developing marketing materials. Ican’t really say how long the delay will be. I don’t believe thereis any reason why the program wouldn’t work in Princeton.”– Barbara FoxWould your business or organization like to be a “stationstop” on this new transportation network? You would provide a spotfor thebicycles to be temporarily parked. Call 609-452-1491.Top Of PageFor Finances, a Paper SystemManaging paper and information doesn’t seem thatimportantuntil you can’t find the document you need. Until a crisis develops– when someone is in the hospital and needs a previous X-ray,or when someone is dying and needs the key to the safe deposit box– most of us ignore the nitty gritty organizational chores.Paul Brobson and James Cundari have developed LifeFile to rescue thedisorganized and encourage the organized to achieve even greaterefficiency.At first look, their product appears to be nothing more than a stackof labeled folders, but it is actually the well-thought out firststep to a document system that can eventually be transferred to acomputer or even to a CD.The paper version of LifeFile sells for from $39 to $65, dependingon whether you get the basic personal version or the small businessversion, and it is being manufactured through a joint venturerelationshipwith one of the three top office supply manufacturers in NorthAmerica,Atapco. It is being marketed as a promotional gift, a way forattorneys,accountants, financial planners, or realtors to cultivate long termrelationships.”In essence, Life File is a vertical pile with prioritiesattached,”says Brobson.With an initial investment of $100,000 (half their own funds, therest from an SBA loan) Cundari and Brobson set up shop last year atthe Jersey Avenue incubator in New Brunswick to do life managementservices and document management systems.Cundari, senior vice president of operations, majored in English atSt. Peter’s College and went to law school at Seton Hall. After alaw career he went into the insurance business and was chief of staffto the chairman of the state assembly insurance committee.Brobson, the president, is also an insurance agent and financialplanner.A native of Ocean City, he majored in economics at CatholicUniversity,Class of 1984. He worked for a major insurance company for 13 years.He named the firm after his first two sons, Tyler and Randy, and nowhas a third. Tyrand originally planned to sign on large companies,such as insurance firms and stock brokers, to underwrite the recordingof a client’s precious documents on a CD. The client would returnto the agent or broker every year to have the CD updated, which wouldconsiderably enhance the client/agent relationship. But most clientsdid not have the documents sufficiently organized to be ready fora recording session, and contracts with the big companies were scarce.”But we quickly discovered that consumers really loved the hardcopy system,” says Brobson, “so we built an entire productline around this market demand.””Although there are several filing supplies that contain someof the features of the LifeFile File Management System, there areno other turn-key personal document management and storage systemsavailable to consumers on the market, currently,” says Brobson.One starts by funneling all incoming paper into oneof five orange folders: Bills to Pay, To Do Immediately, To Do Later,to Forward to Someone, To File in LifeFile. “The manual makesit simple to do the work,” says Brobson. “We advise people,don’t try to take 30 years at once. Start using it from today forwardwith the papers you are accumulating,” says Brobson. “As timegoes by you will determine whether you want to attempt the transferof 30 years of documents into the system.” When you get aroundto actually doing the filing, the system has four colorcodedcategories:Legal, Tax, Financial, and Personal, 10 category dividers, and from52 to 200 preprinted file dividers, depending on which edition youhave, plus plenty of blank files. The file categories range from”realestate,” “credit cards,” and “what you owe” to”medical information” “memorabilia” and “what’sowed to you.”LifeFile will be sold through a Queens-based firm, Diamond DirectMarketing, using infomercials and some television shopping networks,before being distributed through traditional retail channels. “IfI put it on the shelves right now the consumer would not buy it, butif I put it on an infomercial, it can be demonstrated, and get somebrand recognition,” says Brobson.Tyrand is also partnering with Documagix to integrate LifeFile withPaperMaster “personal file cabinet” software, which is bundledonto leading sheet-fed scanners. It is also pursuing relationshipswith makers of file cabinets, storage crates, and fire proof safes.Deloitte and Touche is the firm’s systems integrator and strategicmarketing partner.When attorneys or accountants use LifeFile as a promotion, they aregiving something valuable that will keep their names in front of theirclients daily. The next step is to get the clients to divulge or sharetheir filed information. That’s a scary thought if you are the client,a tantalizing thought if you are the attorney or financial planner.”The financial service company is dying to get the client’sinformation,”says Brobson. That’s where LifeFile’s probate management and wealthmanagement services come in.Brobson quotes surveys sponsored by Deloitte & Touche and Cigna,releasedlast December, indicating that more than 80 percent of consumers feelthat maintaining a relationship with a personal financial advisoris either important, very important or critical. He pooh poohs theidea that most people will soon do their financial business on theInternet and emphasizes that a wealth management or probate managementproduct will enhance client relationships. “Yet insurancecompaniesare dumping millions into an alternate distribution channel, theInternet,when in reality people don’t want to do business there,” saysBrobson.Does a small business or home office really need this system? Brobsoncites these figures: 90 percent of all documents handled daily aremerely shuffled. Workgroups lose 15 percent of all documents thatthey handle. Workgroups spend 30 percent of their time trying to findlost documents. Companies spend $20 on labor to file one document,$120 on labor to search for a lost document, and $250 on labor torecreate a lost document.A good system for integrating paper copies with digital copies mightbe a bargain after all.– Barbara FoxTyrand Consultants, 100 Jersey Avenue, NewBrunswick 08901. Paul Brobson, president. 732-249-2310; fax,732-545-0120. E-mail: tyrand@planet.net. Home page:https://www.tyrand.com.Previous StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
