If cross-country road trips are the quintessential American journey of the 20th century, I’m a quintessential American. I’d ridden thrice between Seattle and Boston by the time I was eight. At 17, I drove from Boston to Palo Alto, then back a year later, in a beat up ‘62 Falcon. I crossed the US another eight times– including once respectively by train and bicycle– while a student at Berkeley. Three decades later, I’m longing to do it again. Unfortunately, the 20th century is over. Since it began, the US and world populations have quadrupled. We’re straining world oil production capacity, and the specter of global heating and acidified seas from CO2 emissions is causing cognitive dissonance in my car-loving head. Driving’s future seems uncertain. But a new company, Better Place of Palo Alto, has a plan.

The “Solar Taxi” has arrived in Philadelphia a year, two months and 27k miles after it left Switzerland. A substitute high school teacher from Lucerne named Louis Palmer built the contraption, with help from four universities. The three-wheeled cluchtless, gearless gizmo weighs 1,000 lbs, including 500 lbs of sodium-nickel-ceramic Zebra batteries, manufactured by MES DEA in Stabio, Switzerland. The latter give the car and its 500 lb trailer toting 6 square meters of PVs a range of nearly 200 miles at night. Top speed is an electronically limited 55 mph at 1800 rpm. The 20 hp motor pulled the car up the Rockies at 40 mph. Though billed as 100% solar, Palmer tells TTAC the trailer produces half the car’s energy, the “other half” produced by solar cells on a collaborator’s rooftop in Switzerland that feeds the grid with power equivalent to the supplement the car requires from the grid. In any case, the car’s top speed sinks to 10-15 mph when powered by direct sunshine alone. But Palmer’s goal is to show the world that solar-powered automotive transportation is feasible. He says that $5,000 worth of rooftop solar cells in the US Mid-Atlantic could provide enough electricity for 10,000 miles/year.

If you live in Massachusetts, and you're among the roughly one in a million Americans that drives a hydrogen-powered car, you can refuel it without crossing state lines. The The Lowell Sun reports that PowerTap in Billerica, near Boston, is now open for biz, courtesy of Nuvera Fuel Cells. The hydrogen station opened just in time to replenish a parade of H-powered cars on a 13-day cross-country cavalcade from Portland, Maine to LA. The cross-country parade included a Honda Clarity, VW Tiguan, Toyota Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle, Nissan X-Trail, Merc S-Cell and BMW H7. Speaking to your intrepid reporter, the Director of Technology and Communications for the National Hydrogen Association revealed that these and other H-powered vehicles can fill-up at 62 stations nationwide (25 in California, 'natch). Serfass also proudly pointed out that the hydrogen provided by these stations is produced entirely via renewable energy or natural gas, although he doesn't know what percentage comes from which source.

Alzheimer's disease compounds the physical changes that accompany aging, which can undermine driving skills. Yet, studies from Brown University and Washington University indicate that patients can drive through the very early stages of the disease. The August 2008 Harvard Mental Health Letter (HMHL; sub) reports the Brown study of 84 patients with early Alzheimer's and 44 healthy older controls. All of the latter passed an initial driving test as compared with 88 percent of those with "very mild" Alzheimer's and 78 percent of those with "mild" Alzheimer's. Time to failure of the driving test was a median of 324 days (~11 months) for those with mild Alzheimer's, and nearly twice as long, 605 days (~20 months) for those with very mild disease. To handle the situation, HMHL recommends broaching the issue early, "while discussing other aspects of care," and documenting the patient's driving patterns. "Although patterns of behavior are what matter, citing specific incidents [?] to make the case may help convince a patient to surrender the keys," according to HMHL. The newsletter also recommends having a third party, such as clinician or friend present during conversations about driving.