What I know about electric vehicles: They are vehicles, and they run on electricity.

I’m not much of a car girl, but I’m EV-curious. So when Miles Automotive invited me to their office at the Santa Monica airport to check out their cars, I roped my car expert friend Damien into joining me for an electric-vehicle test drive.

Miles Automotive’s been getting some good press for their consumer car-to-be. Called the Javlon, this car’s anticipated to go 80 mph with a 120+ mile range per charge — which can be done at any standard 100V or 200V wall socket. And unlike the $100K Tesla, the Javlon’ll cost around $30K — less tax deductions.

Except this car won’t be here for another few months — right around AltCarExpo time — so we couldn’t test drive it.

Instead, we went for a ride in the slower low speed vehicles (above), a crash-tested (to EU standards) car intended as a safer alternative to the golf cart type things you see on college campuses and such. Already in use at some of the UCs and Cal State Univs., these top out at 25 or 35 mph depending on the model.

I even tried driving it — and found out I’m not v. good at making turns sans power steering. No matter — These lil cars are for the fleet market, not for girls like me.

But back to the Javlon: I did get to sit in a gas model of the car (right, with Damien in the back seat), which feels basically like a regular family sedan.

Damien’s note of approval, understated as usual: “They might sell some of these.”

Not sure the Javlon’ll make me quit my biking ways, but this EV might be a viable alternative for would-be-green people who can’t afford a Tesla but need something bigger than the 3-wheeled NMG. Hopefully a model’ll arrive in time for people to test drive at the AltCarExpo.

Tags: milesautomotive, javlon, ev, electricvehicle

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>> Get your juice fix. Vital Juice Daily’s sorta like Ideal Bite, except you can sign up for city-specific weekly newsletters too — if you live in NYC or LA.

>> Cali residents speak out to demand tough ozone standards from the EPA. A new Cornell study says pollution causes 40% of all deaths, btw.

>> Relatedly, adopt a piece of the sky via Earthjustice’s new site. Sign a petition for cleaner air — which’ll be delivered to the EPA this fall — and in the meantime your lil message will float over the virtual skies. [screenshot from adoptthesky]

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag.

I have mine, so I thought you’d want one too. Today’s giveaway’s a CertainTees “Tread Lightly” T-shirt — a medium-sized yellow tee with a rhino energetically walking on a garden of flowers.

As with all CertainTees, this T-shirt’s 70% bamboo and 30% organic cotton, free of sweatshop-labor from harvest to finish, woven and sewn in the US, and printed with nontoxic inks.

Comment or email by Sunday to get in the drawing, which happens Monday. US addresses only.

Tags: certaintees, bamboo, organiccotton, tshirt

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Watch me bounce on the beds at Livingreen, an eco-store in Culver City.

This one aired 2 Mondays ago and I totally forgot about it! We shot it right after the transport bit, which explains why I’m wearing the same clothes — and look a bit zoned out.

Thanks to the Livingreen people for their hospitality –

Tags: livingreen, culvercity

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Moo on wheels –

To the right’s me in a CertainTees Cow T-shirt.

Summer got the “travel light” firefly.

I wrote about this eco-friendly T-shirt company before, but CertainTees has changed things up a bit.

New designs, new colors — and the prices’ve gone down to $44 a T-shirt. Plus free shipping until 2008 –

The Ts are a comfy 70% bamboo, 30% organic cotton blend, printed with low impact dyes and made sweatshop-free from harvest to finish. Plus, CertainTees carbon-offsets, and donates $5 per T-shirt sold via the website to 6 different nonprofits.

I think my fave design’s still Relic –

Tags: certaintees, bamboo, tshirt

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>> 99 black balloons — or more or less, depending on your energy use. Alliance for Climate Protection’s first ad makes polluting consumer choices visible — in the form of 2 oz black balloons. Check out the floaty short video — which is, in the end, positive –

>> For those who don’t drink their coffee black: Starbucks commits to going rBGH-free by December 31, 2007. The coffee behemoth that markets itself as eco-forward finally jumps on the no-rBGH bandwagon after the super-eco Kroger (note sarcasm) announces it’s shunning the gross milk.

Also — remember my suggestion ’bout discounts for bringing one’s own cup? Looks like many Starbucks customers and “partners” also want Starbucks to do more to encourage BYOC’ing — Scroll down the comments.

>> CNN covers fair trade coffee. It’s a rather quick overview, but that’s TV for you. A brief look at coffee farming in Kenya, the coffee film Black Gold, and the fair trade movement.

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Get in on The Great Los Angeles Ice Cream Party, a community event that invites you out to Heritage Square Museum for free ice cream, socializing, prize drawings, and a chance to help raise funds for restoration and education projects.

When: Monday, September 3, 2007 (Labor Day, 2 pm - 5 pm.
Where: Heritage Square Museum, 3800 Homer St., Los Angeles.
Cost: Free!

This ice cream social began back in 1997 — and today serves as a way for young people to get involved and directly interact with the LA community without the prohibitive costs associated with some fundraisers.

To that end, the event and ice cream’s free — and donations’re low cost: A $10 donation, gets you a guided tour of museum that day and 3 tickets for the drawing. Higher donations can get you additional perks and more tickets.

The money raised’ll go towards restoring the exterior of the Perry Mansion and supporting Heritage Square Musuem’s educational programs that teach about the development of Los Angeles.

If you can’t attend but want to get involved, you can make a donation to Heritage Square Museum.

BTW: Did you know that 2 big corps dominate today’s $59 billion ice cream industry? Nestlé and Unilever control half of ice cream sales in the US….

Not sure where the ice cream for this social will come from — or if anything’ll be organic or fair trade — but there will be vegan ice cream :)

Tags: icecream, laborday, losangeles

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I thought my tomato plant was just dying a very slow, twisted death, but it seems instead to be enacting a slow, twisted resurrection.

First it grew really tall really fast, then started wilting and turning brown from the top down.

Now, it’s suddenly growing new fresh greenery near the bottom.

Is this normal? The plant looks very not normal to me…. Click image for a closer look at its weird mutations.

I have yet to see any flowers or actual tomatoes since I got the plant in June.

On the upside, I’m happy to report I’ve successfully kept a plant for several months!

Tags: tomato

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A twice-weekly sharing of eco-shwag!

Enter to get your own DVD copy of Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, a film about the power of music, the resilience of the human spirit, and the history of West Africa. I reviewed the film here.

Comment or email by Friday night to get in the drawing, which happens Saturday — US addresses only.

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Spotted at the Groundwork Coffee store on Main Street Santa Monica:

More on Groundwork’s coffee buying policies here — though Ric Rhinehart, the guy I spoke to about this — has recently left the company –

Tags: groundwork, coffee, losangeles, santamonica

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