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is this a great place - or what?

Solar car tour hits bump in Quarter; burglar breaks in an hour after it pulls into N.O.
by Doug MacCash and Ramon Antonio Vargas, The Times-Picayune 
Tuesday April 28, 2009, 8:45 AM
      Solar Car 

     


Marcelo da Luz gave up his job, girlfriend and nearly a half-million dollars to build a solar-powered car and drive it all over the Americas, a trek that brought him and several international volunteers, following in a van, to New Orleans early Sunday evening.

But an hour after he parked on a busy, well-lighted French Quarter street, someone broke into the van and stole passports, laptops, credit cards, cash, a digital camera and a portable hard drive.

Despite the estimated $10,000 loss, da Luz seemed in high spirits the next morning, describing the break-in as a "dent" in his ecological barnstorming tour. He insisted that he was still enjoying his first visit to the Crescent City. After discovering the theft, da Luz and an assistant from the Netherlands trotted to a nearby tavern to "drown their sorrows."

The futuristic solar car, unmolested by thieves, lured gawkers and sympathizers Monday morning as it rested near the intersection of Esplanade Avenue and North Peters Street like a metallic manta ray.

Betty Altenburger, of Philadelphia, arrived from a nearby hotel in her pajamas to eye the glinting black-and-gold vehicle. She bristled when she learned of the theft.

"These guys were working for a cause bigger than both of them, " she said. ". . . It's just really sickening. It would be nice to show them that not everybody's like that."

Altenburger offered da Luz and the solar crew breakfast. Then she returned with a $20 bill -- a donation.

Passers-by pointed cell phone cameras at the car. One posed for a shot by reclining on its smooth body, until da Luz warned her she might crack some of the 893 brittle solar cells coating the car's fiberglass shell.

Jennifer Zdon, The Times-PicayuneMarcelo Daluz on Monday stands next to the solar-powered car that he invented and has been driving across country. 
A smashed window

Da Luz, 40, has driven his 13-foot-long, 470-pound, spaceship-like car and crew of volunteers to the Arctic Circle, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles. During the latest leg of his 15,000-mile trip, da Luz zipped through Houston, Lafayette and Baton Rouge.

Until he parked the van Sunday at about 7 p.m. near the Old U.S. Mint, he had no problems.

"We left it unsupervised for maybe 45 minutes, " said da Luz, a native of Brazil.

"They worked incredibly fast, " said Michael Feith, a volunteer assistant from the Netherlands.

When they parked, the sun was still out. Though the van contained thousands of dollars worth of valuables, Da Luz and his volunteers felt comfortable simply locking it and walking away.

But when da Luz returned to the van about 8 p.m., someone had smashed the back window. The door lock protruded in the open position.

The items reported stolen included the laptops, two passports, one digital camera and a portable hard drive, said officer Garry Flot, a New Orleans police spokesman.

Feith, 21, a student, lost his passport, a laptop computer and a backup hard drive containing the trip's finances, a business plan and journal entries he needed to turn in to earn internship credit for the trip.

Volunteer photographer Winnie Ko of Hong Kong lost a laptop, most of the pictures she had taken and nearly $2,000 in cash. She had planned to spend it in New Orleans, da Luz said.

"She flew (and drove) halfway around the world for this, " he said. "She was going to stay a week because this was her last stop on the trip before flying home, but because this happened, she left" Monday.

When the time came for Monday's demonstration drive, da Luz and Feith grasped the car's front and rear edges and split open the body like a giant boiled crab. Da Luz slid into the form-fitting seat. It's unlikely the car could accommodate anyone less svelte. He steers with what look like motorcycle handlebars. He peers forward through a teardrop canopy, and rearward via a video-camera feed. The little vehicle can hit 70 mph, and go from zero to 60 in six seconds.

With little start-up sound, da Luz pulled the all-electric car away from the curb and sent it humming quietly along Esplanade. It skimmed just a foot above the pavement.

Though the unusual car has been all over the world, one local onlooker feared the vehicle's three delicate-looking wheels wouldn't survive the Crescent City's notoriously fractured streets.


Pursuit of his dream

Da Luz, a former airline flight attendant, first conceptualized a solar-powered car back in 1987, when he saw solar power cars race across the Australian outback on TV.

Since that day, he has believed "this technology is clean and sustainable. We could be using it, but we lack the political will, " da Luz said. "We're all waiting for a government, something, someone to save the planet for us. It's not going to happen."

Da Luz later flew to Australia to see the cars in person. Students and teachers helped him develop a concept while he juggled time with his girlfriend and his flight attendant job.

Da Luz spent about $500,000, mostly his own money, supplemented by donations, to build the car, which stores solar power in 26 lithium-ion batteries. The airline laid him off because he spent so much time on the car. His girlfriend left him, too.

But da Luz pushed on and readied the car, which he named "Power of One, " for a test drive by March 2005. Because Canada's authorities wouldn't register it for road use, he drove it on a frozen lake. He then flew it to Barbados to register it. He has since driven it nearly 15,000 miles, mostly on back roads, recently breaking a world record for distance traveled by a solar-powered car, according to several media outlets.

He has been stranded in places for days when the sun didn't shine. Da Luz said the police stopped him in Alaska stopped after a motorist called 911 to report "a UFO on the streets."

Despite his setback in New Orleans, da Luz plans to continue east to the Atlantic coast of Florida.

"I don't hope anything bad happens to whoever did this or anything, " he said. "I just hope their lives turn out better so they don't need to do this to anyone else."
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