Friday, March 21, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
GAIL LUCAS IS READY for the future. Really ready.
As the Las Vegas Valley slips out of compliance with federal air quality standards and closer to transportation restrictions, the 54-year-old Desert Research Institute computer programmer can drive around town with a clear conscience.
She owns 11 electric cars.
"I haven't bought any gas in five years and I don't plan to again," the white-maned environmentalist tells a group of students crowding around one of her electric fleet parked in the Durango High School quad.
"I'm an environmentalist, I care about the air."
Lucas is visiting the school as part of a career-day program for chemistry students. Her message is one of preparing for the future, and she's brought along a prop that's drawing lots of attention -- Sparky.
The yellow, somewhat clunky, wedge-shaped vehicle is a 1981 model built by Sebring-Vanguard, a company that has long since folded. It's a far cry from the sleek, new $34,000 EV1 introduced in December by General Motors.
"This is an older vehicle," Lucas admits. "It's obsolete, but it works. I've proven it works."
She didn't have to pay five figures for it, either. In fact, Lucas picked up Sparky for $2,500 plus transportation from Dallas.
On the down side, it has a range of only about 40 miles and a top speed of 40 mph, about half the EV1's touted numbers.
Those figures might be enough to turn off a lot of drivers, but they're fine for Lucas.
Mostly, she rides her bike to work and classes at UNLV. For longer trips around town, she hops in Sparky or one of her other battery buggies.
"If I'm going to be an environmentalist, driving an electric car gives me some credibility," she says. "You know, practice what you preach."
Lucas says she drove a 1972 Cadillac Eldorado until Michael Naylor, the Clark County Health District's air pollution director, told her "I shouldn't be driving it because it was polluting."
So Lucas gave her car away and started riding her bike.
But when the ice-skating rink opened in the Santa Fe hotel-casino, the longtime skater found she needed some wheels. There wasn't much of a bus system then, she explains, so she started looking at electric cars.
"I bought one, then bought another, then I just went overboard," she says.
"I really like them. I can drive without worrying about being a polluter.
"They don't smell bad. I don't have to go to the gas station and deal with the fumes. I don't have to worry about oil changes or belts breaking. There's almost no maintenance on them. And they're quieter."
The "biggest drawback," she admits, is the battery technology. And that's one of the things she brings up to the chemistry students.
"If any of you can invent a new battery technology," she tells a group of about 60 during her talk, "you will be the Bill Gates of the electric vehicle industry."
Electric vehicles are being developed around the world, she says, and jobs will be available for scientists in the field.
"The most important thing," she tells the students, "is preparing for the future.
"Things change. Technology changes. Jobs change.
"It doesn't matter what you want to do right now, you probably won't be doing that your whole life."
Lucas knows. She's been there.
Right out of high school, she joined the Ice Capades and went on national tour. She came to Las Vegas 20 years ago to skate in the Ice Fantasy show at the now-imploded Hacienda.
She skated professionally until she was 40 and realized she needed a new line of work. So she went to UNLV and studied computer programming.
Her professor got Lucas her first programming job at a health-care facility, then she landed the job at DRI. That was 14 years ago.
Luckily, she tells the students, her parents had insisted she finish high school before going into professional skating.
"Had I not stayed in school and taken some math classes, I wouldn't at all have been ready for the changes.
"Don't close any of your doors."
Whether or not that message sunk in, only time will tell. But there was some skepticism among the students about opening the door on an electric vehicle.
Unlike some racy EVs, Sparky doesn't look too hot.
"Yellow banana" and "driver's ed go-kart" are terms used. It doesn't have a sound system or air conditioning, the leg room is lacking and the seats are hard.
Remember, Lucas says several times, this is an old vehicle. It's not state of the art.
But one bottom-line item made lots of sense to some students -- and will eventually be the force that turns the internal combustion tide.
"If I didn't have to buy no gas," says Brian Townsend, "heck yeah, I'd support that thing."
archive
