The influencer
Impacting the EV scene for 3 decades
2003 Washington Post article on crushing of EV1s
Ever since the 1970’s, when he and his brother would take turns sitting in gas lines on Saturday mornings during a severe gas shortage, Earl Cox had been interested in the development of a vehicle that could run on something other than oil-based fuel.
His interest grew deeper when he was an officer in the U.S. Navy and it became clear to him that the country’s military efforts were so largely motivated by the need to protect oil interests.
“If you’re spending all these resources trying to protect something, maybe you should work on reducing the ‘something’ so you won’t need to protect it,” Cox said.
Early EV1 adopter
While at graduate school in electrical engineering at Cornell University in Ithica, New York, Cox heard about the GM Impact, an electric vehicle (EV) program that General Motors had with Hughes Aircraft, a firm it had recently purchased.
“I knew some guys who had worked on the Impact, the prototype for the EV1,” Cox recalled. “I kept asking GM people when the car was going into production... I kept asking ‘where are you at?’”
“When the Impact finally came out, renamed the EV1, I realized it wouldn’t work for us,” Cox continued. “I had a 30 mile commute to work… and there were no charging stations there.”
But things changed for Cox when GM came out with a new version of the EV1 with a non-toxic nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery with more than twice the energy of the original lead acid battery. This doubled the range of the car and his problem was solved.
After pulling some strings, Cox took delivery of the new version of a leased EV1. Because he had begun working during the week for a Silicon Valley startup, he opted to use the vehicle in the Bay Area. When he would return to Southern California on weekends, he left the car with his parents Don and Mary Cox (featured in a previous EVA blogpost), who became enamored with EVs, too.
“It was just a great car,” Earl said. “I loved it, my parents loved it. I spread the word as far and wide as I could… until the lease was over in 2003 and GM said they were taking the car away.”
Saying no to crushing it
Cox soon found out that when GM reclaimed the EV1's, the cars were destined for crushing. Not letting a bad deed go unpunished, he joined the effort to stop it, participating in activities around Southern California alongside many of the people featured in the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?
“You look at the credits on that film; those were all of my co-conspirators,” Cox said, adding that he himself can be seen in a few scenes. “We formed a group, dontcrush.com. People all over the world supported this movement… the core group became the founders of Plug In America.”
“We knew what was going on because we had inside information,” Cox continued. “We knew the cars were being crushed because an unknown GM employee had sent us pictures.”
When the group learned about 30 to 40 EV1’s stockpiled at what was then the General Motors Training Center in Burbank, California, they staged a protest that turned into a vigil, Cox taking night shifts.
“That became a rallying point,” he said. “People from the press were involved but they couldn’t break a story against the car companies unless it was a very essential story… unless it was newsworthy. So we tried to make it more essential. We tried to drum up publicity.”
The “Los Angeles TImes’ refused to become involved until the ‘Washington Post’ showed up and we found ourselves on the front page of the second section of that paper,” Cox said. “Not to be totally scooped, the LA Times jumped in right away.”
Expanding Tesla’s charging network
Eventually, GM took the cars away and the protesters went home. But Cox stayed true to the EV cause, and in 2006, when he heard news of the Tesla Roadster, he was immediately attentive. Since he was known to the EV community, he received an invitation to the Tesla unveiling in Santa Monica, California, and invited his parents down to join him.
“My folks split the cost with my wife and I on our first Tesla Roadster—it was #60 off the line—and we split the time with it,” Cox said, explaining that a major challenge was to find a way to trade the car back and forth between Pasadena and Palo Alto.
“The obvious place was the Harris Ranch on Highway 5, but we needed a charging station to make it work,” Cox recalled. “I found out that the CFO for the ranch was a member of the city council in Coalinga, so I thought I’d show up there.”
Cox drove up to from Pasadena, charging his Tesla at the RV Park in Kettleman City before heading for a meeting at the ranch, where he gave the council member/CFO a ride in his car.
“These guys are pioneers, they got it immediately,” Cox said, “I said I could give them a charger if they could install it at the ranch. They jumped on the idea. It was a major win-win for everyone.”
The start of something big
To dedicate the installation of the first such charger between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Coalinga held a press conference and an impressive ribbon-cutting ceremony. In attendance was then-Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel as well as other executives from the company. Seven Tesla owners showed up with their Roadsters in support.
“The charger’s still there at the gas station next to the barbecue place,” said Cox, noting that this installation paved the way for Harris Ranch to become the largest supercharger station in the world with 100 chargers.
“What’s so ironic is that Coalinga, short for “Coaling Station”, was put on the map because it was a major stop for steam trains to stop for coal as they traveled from northern to southern California,” Cox concluded. “You just never know how things are going to work out.”
Today, Cox drives a Tesla 3, is a member of the Electric Vehicle Association chapter in Orange County, California, and promotes EVs everywhere he can. This included an April, 2018 appearance as ‘Starman’ at a Yuri’s Night event at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. Dressed in a space suit, he sat in his Roadster outside the event and was available for photos.
Cox dressed as ‘Starman’ at Yuri’s Night in 2018.