‘Eclectic kids’ with an electric dream

By Cliff Newell

The Lake Oswego Review, Oct 5, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

On Oct. 18 the Dow Jones Emerging Ventures Forum will be held deep in the heart of Silicon Valley, and it is truly an august event.

One thousand venture capitalists, people with millions of bucks burning holes in their pockets to invest in the future, will be on hand to view 60 selected CEO presentations of hugely ambitious projects.

It will feature deeply experienced, distinguished, dignified people in really fine business suits ready to give their best shots at gaining the respect, awe and mainly the money of companies that can make them a big success.

Plus four kids from Lewis & Clark College. None of them past the age of 20. Whiz kids. They may lack the experience, but they have intelligence, enthusiasm, drive, vision, optimism and cohesiveness.

Most of all they have a great idea: Producing an electric car that revolutionizes the way America travels. A car that does not pollute the environment and uses cheap, renewable energy.

“There we’re going to be, these little, tiny kids with all of those big CEOs,” said Amber Case. “But our idea works. It’s completely feasible. That forum recognizes us as competitors in a new era.”

Certainly, it is a rare opportunity for any company to get the chance for a presentation at the Dow Jones forum.

As Joey Braman said, “I’m ecstatic about this opportunity that no start-up company ever has. Anyone of them would fight for a long time to even get in the office of one of these companies, and we’ll be standing up in front of a thousand venture capitalists dying to hear our story.”

The story started 15 months ago with Mario Landau Holdsworth, a buoyant young man who can instantly instill in a listener his own enthusiasm and sense of urgency. He wants to change the world, and he wants to change it soon.

“The leading climatologists give us a 10-year window,” Holdsworth said. “Or else there are going to be huge consequences of global warming and rising gas prices.

“That is something that gets to people like us in college. We care about that. When you see how fast things are happening and how fast we need to change, we have to get moving!”

The birthplace of the Lewis & Clark Electric Car Club took place on a lawn right across from Templeton Student Center. Holdsworth and friend Adan Vielma would sit there after physics class and have excited discussions about meeting the challenges of global warming and looming energy shortages.

Soon they realized they had more than talk. They were coming up with “something very creative.”

“We started meeting on a regular basis,” Holdsworth said. “We asked, ‘What can we do with this?’ We decided to go for it. It had to be a real solution. It had to be comprehensive, with both the electric vehicles and the infrastructure.”

“This is the best time for anything to happen,” Vielma said. “We’re all here together, we eat together, we work together. Why wait until we get out of college to do something?”

In the following months, the “Team” was formed: Five young people with diverse talents, yet with the unity needed to get a powerful idea off the ground. They are:

n Mario Landau Holds-worth – 20, a math major who has been intensely interested in electric cars since high school, CEO of greenit, founder of the Electric Car Club, and coordinator of the project.

n Amber Case – 20, sociologist and chief communications officer.

n Joey Braman – 19, the “business guy,” economics major, chief operations officer.

n Benjamin Thonney – 20, chief information officer, English major, who “helps us communicate ideas.” He is currently studying in Scotland.

n Adan Vielma – 20, an inventor who already runs his own software company. “Adan is one of the most brilliant human beings ever,” Braman said. “Books will be written about him.”

The brilliance, passion and maybe even genius of this group are undeniable. But why electric cars? Isn’t this a bright idea that has already faded out? There was even a recent documentary film made called “Who Killed The Electric Car?”

To borrow a line from Mark Twain, the Electric Car Club states the reports of the demise of the electric car are highly exaggerated. In fact, they’re downright wrong.

“People say, ‘An electric car, huh? How is your’s different?’ The truth is the technology is here,” Holdsworth said. “The new battery technology is up to par. In 15 months we’ve come up with a lot of solutions.

“Our biggest conclusion is that cars can sell at an affordable price and run on all renewable energy, at half the price of gasoline.”

“The prototype of charging technology has been developed. It’s very small, it’s very simple,” Case said. “That’s the beauty of it.”

Vielma, who thrives on simplicity, says, “The electric car is simple. It’s a car, a motor and a happy guy that drives it.”

Yet the invention of a battery capable of sustaining a charge for up to 300 miles answers just one question. There are a whole string of other concerns, like how much will an electric car cost?

“This will not be a $500,000 car,” Case said. “We hope this is something everyday people can afford. The minute the price becomes comparable to a regular car, we become competitive.”

Once you are on the road, how do you charge up your electric car?

“It’s very do-able,” Holdsworth said. “A distribution system can be developed in which electricity refills can be done just as quickly as a car can gas up. The cost of installing an electric charging station is at most 1 percent of the cost of building a gas station.”

“People are leery of switching to a new technology,” Case said. “If we can make it painless, we can sell it, then everyone will want to adjust to it. In fact, they’ll be excited to switch over.”

Certainly, reducing pollution and saving energy are worthy goals. But why electricity instead of fuel cells and bio-fuels? Holdsworth and Case think they have some strong answers.

“With bio-diesel fuels, at best you’re talking about recycling old products that won’t provide enough energy to sustain a city,” Case said. “We could grow our own products for bio-diesel fuel. That would help the agriculture industry but that takes food away from people.”

Hydrogen fuel cells, Holdsworth says, practically defeat their purpose from the get-go.

“Our argument is very simple,” Holdsworth said. “Hydrogen fuel cells are not the most efficient way of powering cars. Hydrogen is not a fuel source. It has to come from somewhere. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make it.”

In other words, sayonara to saving energy.

The bottom line is that a practical electric car can bring about a bonanza on saved energy.

“Gas cars are 20 percent efficient between the gas tank and the wheel,” Holdsworth said. “There’s more loss from the refinery to the gas tank, then it falls to 6 percent going from the oil well to the wheel.

“With electricity the efficiency from plug to wheel is 75 percent. From 20 to 75 percent just by shifting the drive train from gasoline to electricity.”

Yet even if all questions and concerns about electric cars are satisfactorily answered, there comes the biggest barrier of all to success: The giant oil companies that have dominated the way America has done vehicular transportation for the past 100 years.

That does daunt the Lewis & Clark students. But not too much.

“We’re in a precarious situation,” Case said, “but we’ve got to try it. If the USA doesn’t like this idea, another country will see it and say, ‘We can adjust to it.’ We’ll have a market somewhere else.”

‘We can adjust to it.’ We’ll have a market somewhere else.”

“We think the people want it,” Holdsworth said. “There’s a demand for technology like this. Even the most conservative thinkers are saying this. We know it’s a politically charged issue, especially because the oil industry is such a huge thing.”

The club members believe they’re in the right place at the right time to have an impact.

“We can penetrate the market,” Case said. “We can make a difference.”

Holdsworth believes “Oregon will support us no matter what other states do. This community and Portland have shown time and time again they will go where others will not go.”

“Almost everyone we’ve contacted about this has been extremely helpful,” Vielma said. “People see vision in us.”

Right on campus the Team is getting tremendous support. It began with a very good gimmick – the club placed an electric golfcart, with a sign (saying “Can You Make It Work?”) advertising a special promotional event, in front of student center. The result was “tons of sign-ups” and a great turnout at the meeting. The students have been incredibly interested in the project ever since.

“The student body wants to invest in us,” Holdsworth said. “People come up to us all the time and ask us when they can buy stock.”

Braman tells them, “Not now, but soon.”

But the best reason why their electric car can succeed?

The kids themselves.

“I was in another project, but I didn’t like the group cohesion,” Case said. “That was not conducive to success. Here, when I talked to people like Mario and Adan, people who I really respect, things couldn’t be better. I knew this actually had a chance of working.”

“Our intelligence, drive and playful attitude bring us together,” Braman said. “We have great cohesion.”

These students believe they are in a very grand place in their lives. They are on an adventure, and it will reach a whole new level when they display their electric car in Silicon Valley.

“It’s like “The Wizard of Oz” or “Lord of the Rings,” Case said. “We have enough power to overcome what is in front of us. We’re a very eclectic group of kids with a dream.”

For more information about the Lewis & Clark College Electric Car Club, go to the Web sites www.lclark.edu/~ecar/ or www.gogreenit.com.