Katherine Lanpher, The Takeaway: When we think about news concerning automakers and news concerning cars, it’s not good. Ford Motor Company just this morning posted a $1.4 billion first quarter loss, and that was just the good news.
Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway: That was the good news. The White House is getting ready to lean on Chrysler to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and they have to do it by April 30th. After all of the auto-bailouts, not enough for Chrysler, they look like they’re going under, GM has pension troubles…
Katherine Lanpher: Exactly. So you might think, given all this talk, that all car news is bad news. But this week Public Radio International’s Studio 360, the weekly arts and culture radio program, is going to take a trip through the car culture of Los Angeles:
Kurt Anderson [on tape]: My name is Charlie Wynn and this is my mistress. It’s a 1964 Ford Falcon, about the only mistress my wife will let me have.
Katherine Lanpher: That’s host Kurt Anderson, he talked to hot-rodders, low-riders and car-designers working outside Detroit—make that way outside Detroit and he took a ride in a three-wheeled electric car, straight out of The Jetsons. He’s here now to tell us about it. Good to have you here, Kurt.
Kurt Anderson, Studio 360: Great to be here.
Katherine Lanpher: Now the news from Detroit and Washington is bad, but as we said you were in LA, what does the future look like? Better yet, what does the future ride like?
Kurt Anderson: Well, I rode in this Aptera, which is one of, is this electric car…
Katherine Lanpher: It sounds like something you’d put on your face or take for a gastro-intestinal disease.
Kurt Anderson: Exactly, its actually an ancient Greek word meaning flightless bird or something and it does indeed look like a flightless bird, like a Jetsons’ vehicle that doesn’t quite get off the ground, but it’s an extraordinary looking thing and moreover being in this beautifully aerodynamic little car that goes 90 miles per hour, if you push it, entirely on a plug-in charge, it’s kind of amazing.
Katherine Lanpher: Hey, listen, we have some sound here from Steve Fambro- he is the co-founder of the company that makes Aptera:
Kurt Anderson [on tape]: It looks like it might fly.
Steve Fambro [on tape]: Well it does fly- right by a gas station, we like to say. A lot of folks have said, hey look, if you had little wings that popped out it’d be a great Bond car.
Todd Zwillich: He’s clever.
Kurt Anderson: He’s the CEO- give him a break! He made this thing in his garage and it is, and now it’s this big company that they’re going to start selling these things for $25 or $30 thousand dollars later this year. And it’s just one of several electric car companies that are making a serious play that are in Southern California. And I’ll tell you, you know, being out there in Southern California, talking to these people, being part of this car culture, as this Detroit news was happening: it was an entire different way of looking at the automotive world.
Katherine Lanpher: And how much of this do you think Detroit might wake up and act on.
Kurt Anderson: I think, isn’t it a little late for Detroit to wake up? However, GM to its credit, has been putting all its bets on this car, hybrid car, mainly electric car that they have called the Volt which they hope to get out to market next year or the year after, if they’re around.
Todd Zwillich: Now does that mean the Chevy Volt, members of congress where I work talking about cap and trade this week, keep talking about the Chevy Volt like it’s the future of our energy independence. You’re frowning like they’re still way behind the curve, does the Aptera that you saw in California indicate that Detroit is going to be left behind on the Volt?
Kurt Anderson: Well, they may get left behind on the Volt because of GM’s enormous problems. What’s interesting about the Aptera and Washington is that because it’s on three wheels, which they’ve determined is just as stable and much more aerodynamic than four wheels, they aren’t eligible, thus far, for the new stimulus package electric car funding that’s come out. Which…
Todd Zwillich: Is there a four wheel clause in the stimulus, is that what you’re telling me?
Kurt Anderson: Precisely. That federal traffic laws don’t regard a three-wheel car as a car, but as a motorcycle. So, it’s one indication of how Washington is slow to catch up with the cutting edge of solving our problems.
Katherine Lanpher: I want to go back to the hot-rod culture, just the car culture that you found in Los Angeles. What intrigued you about that?
Kurt Anderson: Well, I was already out there for a while. And driving more as a result in the last couple of months than I had driven in the previous 20 years. And once you go deeper into that, and you see how into cars everyone is and how obsessively, fetishistic various subcultures are, it’s just fascinating. I mean…
Katherine Lanpher: And why is LA so car crazy?
Kurt Anderson: Well because it’s the first metropolis, big city really built around the idea of a car. So they are simply embracing the inevitable: that you’re in your car all the time, traffic has gotten worse, so you’re in your car even more and it’s a city about cars. And there’s, they’re unapologetically devoted to their cars, like some people are to, say, children or pets.
Katherine Lanpher: All right, Kurt Anderson. That show is going to air this Saturday on Studio 360. That is from Public Radio International and right here at home on WNYC. Thanks for coming by.
Kurt Anderson: My pleasure. Thank you guys.
