Charging AheadCharging Ahead is a classic tale of perseverance against daunting odds in the pursuit of a personal dream--and an environmental revolution. You'd have to be a fool to market a consumer electric car, let alone challenge the big three auto makers with a little start up company. But MIT graduate James Worden, with his girlfriend and a handful of audacious engineers, did both and he's well on his way to success. In this marvelous narrative, business writer Joe Sherman vividly describes how Worden and his team built the world's most advanced EV (electric vehicle), the Sunrise. Combining insightful biography with the best of science and business writing, Sherman captures not only Worden's own gripping story, but also the technical challenge of designing an electric car in an age of anxiety over the environment. He depicts Worden's fascination with EVs from childhood (he built his award winning first electric car in high school), tracing it through his monomaniacal career at MIT, where he organized a student team that built EVs for races worldwide, to the founding of Solectria, a company committed to building a consumer electric car. Sherman shows how, despite all the obstacles, Solectria eventually lined up such strategic partners as the Pentagon on its way to producing the Sunrise a lightweight, all-composite, high tech commuter car. The Sunrise would triumph over rivals from the Big Three in the 7th American Tour de Sol, and later travel from Boston to New York on a single battery charge. Charging Ahead is an engaging story of James Worden's struggle to succeed with idealism, energy, and technological superiority against seemingly impossible odds. |
Contents
1 The Freewheeling James Worden Wins Another Race | 2 |
Rebirth of a Dormant Industry | 10 |
3 James Testifies on the Promise of Clean Cars | 18 |
4 An Idea Whose Time Has Come? | 22 |
A GoofyLooking Aluminum Thing | 26 |
6 Racing SolarElectric Cars at MIT | 30 |
This Marvelously Tattered Canopy | 34 |
The First World Solar Challenge | 48 |
13 No ZeroEmission Vehicle Mandate Is a Stake In the Heart | 94 |
14 The Sunrise Project and Its Partners | 98 |
Twelfth International Electric Vehicle Symposium | 122 |
16 Sunrise Almost Stalls Then Rolls Finally Races | 134 |
The Seventh NESEA American Tour de Sol | 154 |
18 Crippling the CleanCar Mandate | 164 |
19 Getting Sunrise into the Mainstream | 174 |
Epilogue | 187 |
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AeroVironment agency Air Act Amendments air pollution Air Resources Board Amendments of 1990 American Tour Angeles Anita Rajan interview Arvind Rajan auto and oil auto industry automakers Automobile automotive batteries Big Boys Boston Edison CALSTART carbon Catherine Anderson Clean Air Act clean cars cleaner composite DARPA driving Ecostar electric cars Electric Vehicle emissions energy engineer environmental environmentalists federal Ford Ford Ecostar fuel cell funding Glidden Tour global warming going ground-level ozone guys Haagen-Smit hybrid Impact James Hogarth James Worden interview Jeff Fisher kids Lovins manufacturing Massachusetts McAlwee Michael miles million motor needed Northeast Ozone Transport Commission partner Paul MacCready pickup problem prototype quotes racing team regulations regulatory Sghia-Hughes Sheila Lynch interview small companies smog solar cars Solectria Force Sunrise project technologies things tion Tour de Sol Trembly wanted Wayne Kirk Worden's World Solar Challenge ZEV mandate