The third Santa Monica Alt Car Expo has come and gone. AutoblogGreen has been lucky enough to attend each iteration of this growing expo, and being back in Santa Monica made us want to take a look back. In December 2006, the first event was held at the Barker Hanger not long after the Tesla Roadster was introduced to the world in the same hall. The Alt Car Expo has always been about showing what average people are doing in the green car space - and making that information very easy for other average people to get. The show is free and held over two days, and the attendance numbers have only gone up. Around 10,000 people attended each of the first two years, but in 2008, the first time it was held in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, more than 15,000 attendees showed up, according to estimates from Platia Productions, the show's producer.

Things have changed through the years. As one AutoblogGreen reader, Dave S., noticed, Phoenix Motorcars did not have a booth. This disappointed him, since he flew all the way from Chicago to visit Alt Car. The Spyder was also missing and Zap! was nowhere to be found. Also, we missed Ed Begley, Jr. this year but we did get another dose of Terry Tamminen saying some of the same things and PHEV "godfather" Dr. Andy Frank was there again. I saw OKA's Miro Kefurt wandering the hall, but he didn't have his own booth this time. The OEMs - GM and Honda, at least - have their presence at the show, but it's never something new. Still, as you can see in the picture above, people loved getting some face time with the new Volt.

In any case, AltCar Santa Monica is a good show, and we're glad to cover it each year. You can read every post we've done about the show over the years here. Later this month, we'll be visiting the first ever edition of Alt Car Austin. Stay tuned.

Here's a tip for Terry Tamminen: retire the joke already. You know, the one about Arnold Schwarzenegger and whoever just introduced you as a speaker, how they were pumping iron together back in the day? We heard it about Ed Begley at the 2006 Alt Car Expo and then again at AFVI in 2007. When Tamminen told it again at this year's Alt Car Expo (listen to the audio clip below), I started to worry that he might not have anything new to say at all. But, while Tamminen is still a strong supporter of hydrogen, he didn't promote it quite as much as he has in the past. Indeed, he said that, "I think we should be talking to the about the alternatives that this expo exemplifies."

Tamminen's speech at AltCar 2008 was called "Advice for the Next President," and the 30-minute talk was a mixture of a rallying call for the green vehicle fans in the audience and specific advice for a President Obama or McCain.

Details after the jump.

Not everything at the AltCar Expo was an alternative car. Some, like the Prometheus electric motorcycle and the TrioBike (above) were car alternatives. In fact, the TrioBike is really a next-generation SUV. I mean, that designation just means sports utility vehicle, right? It doesn't have to identify oversized gas-guzzling grocery getter. And what's more sports utility than pedaling your kids around?

In any case, the TrioBike is a three-wheeled cycle with a large scoop in front that seats two small children or a bunch of groceries. An extra wheel sits under the compartment and can connect to the rear end to form a normal-looking bicycle. The front end then becomes a fairly standard stroller that looks like it comes from the near future.

Regina Keith is the U.S. sales representative for TrioBike. She and her husband Robert were the first in America to order a Danish TrioBike, but there are now two in the U.S. (another is apparently in Chicago). When the Keiths found out just how difficult it was to order one, they decided it was a good business plan to try and make it easier for other Americans to buy a TrioBike and worked with the Danish company to set up distribution in the States. Interest at the Santa Monica show was high, and Robert even said that a representative from the Price is Right stopped by their booth and suggested making the TrioBike a prize on the show. If you don't want to wait for that possibility, Robert said that retail sales will begin in the near future and the price will be around $4,500 (the Keiths paid around $6,000 for theirs).

Listen here (8 min):

Saturday afternoon at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo was supposed to feature an all-out technology debate between everyone's favorite gasoline alternatives. Moderated by Rick Sikes, the fleet superintendent of the City of Santa Monica, the setup was billed as "Top experts representing PHEV, all electric, Hydrids, Natural Gas, Propane, Ethanol, Biodiesel, and Hydrogen will discuss and debate the latest information on these technologies." Sikes is the perfect person to lead this type of discussion because his City's fleet uses all sorts of non-gasoline energy to move around. Here's the starting lineup, the alt-fuels and their proponents:

• Dr. Andy Frank; professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, UC Davis, speaking for Plug-in hybrids
• Dave Barthmuss; group manager western region, Environment & Energy Communications Team, GM, speaking on "vehicle electrification" and GM's well-known "gas friendly to gas free" mantra
  
• Steve Ellis; marketing manager for Alternative Fuel Programs, Honda, talking about hybrids and hydrogen, mostly
  
• Joe Gershen; VP sales & marketing for Tellurian Biodiesel, speaking on, well, you can guess
  
• Dean Taylor; senior program manager, Southern California Edison talking on and on
  
• Lesley Brown Garland; president and CEO, Western Propane Gas Association on, surprise, propane

So, we've got the hook, the characters and the topic. How did it all shake down? Follow after the jump to find out.

For me, the highlight of the weekend's panel discussions at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo was two guys just sitting around and chatting. The reason the hour-long freeflowing discussion between the men was so good was that they - Dan Neil (left in the picture above) and Ken Bensinger, both writers at the Los Angeles Times - were smart, funny and unafraid. Basically, it's what you want in a discussion of where things stand today in the automotive industry: two people calling it like they see it.

Introduced by LA City Councilmember Wendy Greuel, the panelists covered everything from the cars on the expo floor - Bensinger called them the Model Ts of the new generation - the just how great gas is - Neil made the very reasonable point that, from an energy perspective, "liquid petroleum kicks ass." Details on what else made up the discussion are available after the jump.

One of the highlights of Day One of the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo was spending an hour with "Who Killed the Electric Car?" director Chris Paine and hearing stories about making both that film and his sequel-in-progress. While he said the studio/lawyers would not let him show any clips from the new film, he did say they've been filming for a while now and they really got serious about a month ago. The crew has so far visited the GM tech center in Warren, the Volt unveiling and Iceland. He also showed some stills from the sequel film, "The Revenge of the Electric Car" (still a working title, as far as I know) from last Tuesday and then showed some pictures from the trip to Reykjavík as well.

While talking about making his surprise hit film, Paine updated the suspects list by talking about where the various groups are today. For some of the line-up, the story today is pretty much the same. Batteries, in his view, were good then and are simply better today. But the auto companies are making much more pro-plug-in vehicle moves now than they were during shooting of the first film. Oil companies are also singing a different tune on this round than they were in the mid-'90s. Consumers, well, if you're reading this, then you can probably explain how people care more about EVs now than they did 10 years ago.

While it took a long while for Paine and his friends to figure out the murder suspect theme of the first movie, he's already got a possible message for the sequel: maybe the crazies aren't so crazy. As a proud self-described crazy who's not afraid to take a stand - whether that means making EVs in your garage or taking on CARB or the automakers with some creative actions - it seems like it might be time that the crazies are taken seriously. One clip he did play was a scene that was cut from "Who Killed The Electric Car?" This was a bit of street theater, a staged funeral for the Ford Th!nk, that the studio asked him to take out. In the sequel, we might be seeing more scenes of the crazies, both on the streets and in the garages, when the film hits theaters in 2010. I'm ready now.

Listen here:

During a panel discussion on public transportation today at the Santa Monica AltCar Expo, Cristin Lindsay, senior director of the Automotive X Prize, gave us a bit more information about the teams that have signed up to participate in the race. You might remember that in late August, the X Prize foundation announced that there were over 100 teams that had signed up to compete for the $10 million prize. While we've gotten our fair share of interviews in with some of these teams, we certainly haven't looked at all of them and don't quite know what sorts of vehicles they're working on. Indeed, the foundation is still vetting the teams for the competition. Today, during the Big Blue Bus panel, Lindsay said that 50 of those teams are working on small neighborhood vehicles, including low-speed NEVs. So, if you're expecting a whole bunch of Tesla Roadsters in the race when it starts next year, might want to recheck your expectations.

You can hear Lindsay mention this X Prize update at around minute 29 in the audio included in this post.

UPDATE: well, maybe not.

Three new and radical bus concepts were unveiled in Santa Monica this morning as part of the third annual AltCar Expo. The bus of the future contest is an exercise in what's possible down the road, but it's also very timely: public transportation ridership in Santa Monica is up seven percent compared to last year.

The judges were looking at a lot of different aspects of making a better bus. As one brochure describing the contest explained, "tomorrow's buses need to be sleeker, sexier, environmentally-friendly, customized for maximum comfort and responsive to all the different ways people want to use transit." No small task.

Three students from the Art Center College of Design were selected to have their big bus dreams as finalists in the competition. These are fanciful concepts, not product specifications for tomorrow's factory output. The contest focuses not just on sustainability, but also on what riders in 20 or 30 years will require from their buses.

First up, from Gabriel Wartofsky, is the Icon Bus. Wartofsky said he wanted to translate the well-known London double-decker design into something a little more California, so his sleek concept provides a lot of window space to check out the beach or the mountain views here in Santa Monica. As for the green angle, the Icon Bus is designed to be a Positive Emissions Vehicle, which means that there are TiOx gills to eat ozone in the oxygen and it is built using part made from sequestered CO₂. Crazy, but why not? The Icon Bus won the Sustainability Award from the judges.

My favorite of the bunch is Giuseppe Fillippone's Cougar Bus, which is designed around a cat-like skeleton from which passenger pods of various sizes hang. During busy times, big pods carry more passengers and during the middle of the day, smaller pods mean less mass moving down the street and so less fuel burned. The Cougar Bus was awarded the Innovation Award.

Lastly, there's Mike Peterson's Clear Volume Bus, which shares the Icon's love of making the outside visible to passengers. Also, the middle section of the bus drops down to curb height to ease the mad dash on and off the bus at each stop. The Clear Volume Bus won two awards, for Branding and Ride-Ability. We should be getting high-res images of these concepts later. For now, though, enjoy these pictures taken at the Big Blue Bus booth.

Well, today was day zero of the third annual Santa Monica AltCar Expo. The public is invited to check out all of the green rides at the Santa Monica Civic Center starting tomorrow, but anyone who was walking by the center's parking lot this morning could get an early taste of what will be on display this weekend. We were roaming the area with our camera and thought you might want to see what we saw.

It was impossible to miss the predominance of electric vehicles at the parking lot preview today. From the Skeuter to three examples from Wild Electric Custom Cars, from the new Zerobike (it's the black bike in the gallery below) to the old standbys from Miles EV and Hybrid Technologies, there were lots of electron-powered rides on display. There are always some surprises to be had here at AltCar, and so far the MIIN-AER car (above) seems to be the most unusual. This is a 1999 Porsche Boxter that's had its ICE guts ripped out and replaced by a compressed-air system. The designer says that it'll go 50 miles at 65 mph and takes just ten minutes to recharge the tanks. Even though the press release pasted after the jump says media could take the car for a spin, that didn't happen. We'll see what the weekend brings.

One other vehicle that caught everyone's eye was the Triobike, a sweet pedal-powered bike that has a baby stroller attached to the front. Basically, you load up your kids in the stroller, ride to your destination, then detach the stroller from the bike and then push the kids through the park or mall or whatever. The Triobike can also carry a front tire around and convert to a normal two-wheeled when needed. A friend of mine said that the one improvement she'd like to see would be to have the kids pedal the adult around. They've always go so much energy, right?

Take a look at all these rides in the galleries below.

Kim Adelman's plug-in Prius was at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo back in October, but somehow stayed hidden from my camera and eyes. The good news is that EVWorld's Bill Moore spotted the car and talked to Adelman about the car and Adelman's new company, Plug-In Conversions, which will send people to your house to convert your Prius to a PHEV in a day while you're off enjoying a latte or a game of poker (or, OK, working).

Moore notes that Adelman has discovered a bit of a sweet spot with electric-only range: eight miles. While the big automakers are all shooting for the 25-40 mile range, Moore writes that Adelman says that with an 8-mile range (and the ability to plug the car in before returning home), "you can achieve the same fuel efficiency as a car with a larger, more costly battery pack." Customers can choose a more powerful battery pack, but for those important eight miles, Plug-In Conversions will hook you up for eight grand.

[Source: EVWorld, h/t once again to Domenick]

We introduced you to the BugE concept vehicle earlier this year, and at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo we finally got to see this strange beast in the metal. Not quite a car, more than a scooter, the BugE is one of the many entries in the city-commuter-use-only category of new vehicles. You can read the specs in our original post, and see what some kids think of the vehicle in the gallery below. Some say that smile is the "EV grin."

The OKA NEV booth at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo caught people's attention for one simple reason: a price tag of $7,500. The OKA neighborhood electric vehicle is an interesting little car - seriously unhip, cheap and ready for you today. The details are not that great - 20 mile range, 25 mph top speed - but there's reason to believe that Miro Kefurt is on to something here. Make is simple and sell it today. He tells it best, so watch the video to hear the history of how this successor to the Yugo ended up as a zero-emission vehicle in the U.S. There's more information on the car here.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader jg3, I've added a video of the Lada OKA's crash test after the jump.

When the Electrum Spyder was unveiled at last year's Santa Monica Alt Car Expo, we enjoyed getting our first taste of this ambitious all-electric sports car. A year later, the Spyder has changed a little bit (as you can see in these pictures of the Electrum Spyder from the other night when compared to the original images) but the people in the company, Universal Electric Vehicle, have grown a lot. They're a few steps closer to getting these cars on the road. All they need is $2.5 million or so in funding for virtual crash tests and so on. You can hear all the details in the video with UEV president and CEO Diana Lane above. We'll be looking forward to images and more information on UEV's Combi 3 (if that's how you spell it) and other vehicle.

The story about the panel that Diana mentions at the beginning of the video is told here and she wanted me to make sure I explain that the bike computer that's installed in the Spyder as a spedometer was added so the car could act as a pace car at a bike race recently.

For more on UEV and the Spyder, check out our two videos from last year's expo (#1 and #2).

Like many people, I first "met" Chelsea Sexton through the documentary film "Who Killed The Electric Car?" Last year, as part of the promotion for the movie, Chelsea spoke with AutoblogGreen about all sorts of things, including the fact that she won't buy a hybrid until there's a plug on one. She's sticking to her guns and has been working hard with Plug In America to put pressure on the automakers to make PHEVs. Chelsea says the she's heard from GM employees that without pressure from the public, the Volt would never been announced, much less gotten the promotion that we're seeing from GM. But why am I still typing? The whole reason for bringing a video camera to events is to allow us to present green car advocates in their own words.

We like Chelsea because you can stick a video camera in her face and she'll effortlessly float from topic to topic without losing focus or important details. The protest against Toyota that she mentions in the video was supposed to happen today, so we'll be on the lookout for new of that event.

Enjoy.

Related:

• Exclusive Q&A with Chelsea Sexton about the EV1, why the Prius gets a 'C', and who really killed the electric car
• Sundance's The Green does the "Drive" issue, the ABG review

If you've never heard Dr. Andy Frank, from UC Davis, speak about plug-in hybrids, you're in for a treat. Frank, who has been featured on AutoblogGreen quite a few times (highlights include an interview on UC Davis' Team Fate in the Auto X Prize and talking about kicking the oil habit with no sacrifice in lifestyle), is rightly considered one of the fathers of hybrid technology. He's been working on cars and PHEVs for thirty some years and spoke at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo's Plug-In Technology Panel. I apologize for not including the cartoon images in the powerpoint presentation that Andy (everyone calls him Andy) used, but you can still get a great picture about the future of PHEVs in the talk.

The panel was moderated by Ron Johnston-Rodriguez, from the Port of Chelan, and also features Dean Taylor from Southern California Edison, Marguaritte Jones of Austin Energy, and Roger Slotkin of RS Management.

Hear it entire thing here.