Gas To Electric Conversions: The Road to a Greener Life by Alyssa Barigian
While interviewing Paul Pearson, the president of Gas To Electric, Inc., I learned about his mission for Los Angeles County: to reduce gas emissions by bringing electric cars to San Fernando Valley. He introduced the Gas To Electric Ford Ranger to the City of Santa Monica, California, and with this electric car, he believes we can further lower carbon emissions, starting with one county at a time.
Vision Magazine: As president of Gas To Electric, Inc., how do you feel now that your new electric conversion of the Ford Ranger is helping the city of Santa Monica be greener?
Paul Pearson: I think the best part about it is that the city has a very progressive fleet department. At least 90 percent of the vehicles you see use some form of alternative energy. This is the first fully electric truck in the fleet. They work really well in stop and go traffic and they’re good city vehicles because one of the things that an electric car does is that when it stops at a stoplight, it is not polluting the air; in fact it is not even running. It uses zero energy as it’s stopped at a red light. So for congested cities like Santa Monica, that’s where these vehicles are exceedingly good.
VM: There is a new strict mindset of “going green” these days. How does your new Ford Ranger live up to that mindset?
PP: The City of Santa Monica program is a good example to the rest of Los Angeles as to what a truck should do. Yet I was the only one in a city of about nine million (and probably 2 ½ million cars) in a fully electric vehicle. Eventually this Ford Ranger project will turn into a much larger project, possibly converting 1000 Ford Rangers within the area. I don’t know how many people I influenced on my way to work today, but two people thought enough about it to call me.
VM: How did you get the idea to start Gas To Electric, Inc.?
PP: The City of Santa Monica, through the Department of Motor Vehicles, actually arrested me a little over a year ago, for building electric cars. They did an undercover operation at my small workshop in Santa Monica and somehow decided that there was a law against building electric cars. The cars I was building were not for sale; they were merely for personal use. So after spending six months in court with the City of Santa Monica and incurring charges from the state of California, the judge finally threw everything out. During that time I got a call from a man whom I had met a few times in Santa Monica at different electric car events, and he said, “I’ve seen your work at car shows; have you thought of doing full custom electric cars? We have a Ford Ranger program that we would like to get started and I’d like you to put in a bid on it.” So I bid on it and a couple of other companies did the same, and I won the bid. That’s where we are now. I spent the last 30 years in Hollywood owning a mechanical special-effects company. One day, I discovered a little neighborhood electric vehicle; this inspired me to start building them from scratch and then I started building prototypes for other show cars. That’s when Gas To Electric started.
Now we’re turning toward conversions because even though there are people who do conversions in different states, there is almost no one to do them in Los Angeles. Here we are sitting in the most polluted city in the country, so I felt the need to set an example. Now I’m back to where I was when I was a 10 year old, fascinated with traveling on an extension cord.
VM: What advice would you give others who want to further lower carbon emissions in the city of Santa Monica?
PP: One thing about an internal combustion engine is that if you start up your gasoline car and you drive it two miles and pick up groceries, and then you drive back two miles, you’ve probably polluted the equivalent of driving 15 miles on a freeway. One of the important things about reducing emissions in Santa Monica is that whatever pollution we cause in Santa Monica almost invariably is lowered by the ocean winds, yet it is blown east over the city of Los Angeles into Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and into Arizona. So what we create in our community in Southern California is actually worse east of here.
Fifteen years ago, I had a business in the San Fernando Valley and I contracted chronic bronchitis and my doctor told me to leave the Valley. So we closed down my special-effects business in North Hollywood and moved to the other side of the hill because the air quality was considerably better. Still, though, I’m looking at one of the busiest freeways is the world and I picture that 20 years from now, that freeway can be 50 percent electric cars. Santa Monica is an important place to start cleaning up as much as possible. People driving electric cars represent the future of what’s going to have to happen.
To learn more about Paul Pearson or Gas To Electric, Inc., please visit www.gas2electricconversions.com. Alyssa Barigian is currently attending college in Michigan and pursuing an English and Communication double major. Her passion is to become an editor for a magazine and also write non-fiction books.
