Special Deluxe

by Neil Young

  I was sure freedom lovers would fight that idea.

  Hey! Was I running for office? What was I thinking? Rub, rub, polish, polish. That bumper was looking tremendous! There is nothing like polished chrome. A diverse fuel market, carbon taxes, and rewards for responsible driving could maybe pay for infrastructure repairs and rebuild American roads, which would employ hundreds of thousands while helping to save the planet.

  It was capitalism! (If I didn’t want to make waves, I didn’t really have to tell anybody about this. I could just think it to myself, couldn’t I? Of course not.) I was talking like a socialist or something. There were many bad words to describe my thinking. I should have just turned myself in.

  Folks may think that idea will never work, but it already has been accepted by more than two dozen of the nation’s biggest corporations, including the five major oil companies! They are planning their future growth on the expectation that the government will force them to pay a price for carbon pollution. They see it coming. Coca-Cola recently announced that global warming was hurting the company’s bottom line because of a lack of water in some countries. Hurting the bottom line? Could carbon abuse be un-American?

  I stood up and looked at my work. Miss Pegi was radiating beauty in the morning sunlight, practically blinding me with the brilliance of her chrome and eggshell paint. What a beauty she was, inside and out. I could have this forever. Forever? What did that mean? What would it look like?

  So there I was again, thinking about my grandchildren.

  I wondered, Am I worrying too much? Am I too concerned about CO2 and global warming? I didn’t think so.

  • • •

  TRAVELING ALONG THE HIGHWAY, toward Washington, DC, on a beautiful day with the top down, I decided to try driving faster, maybe cruise at seventy-five miles per hour like many of the other cars. Miss Pegi did not have to be slow, although I usually liked to travel about sixty because that uses around half of the fuel of seventy-five miles per hour and produces about half of the CO2. Tracking these numbers was fun for me, but I needed to be careful not to go too far and bore the hell out of everyone. What a great conversationalist I was turning into.

  Miss Pegi rode like a dream. It was like she always wanted to be going that speed. Seventy-five miles per hour! She was built for this. She was clean! I was grooving along, driving on future fuel and being responsible. This was cool!

  As I traveled, I thought about the things I would say to the National Farmers Union in Washington. As an advocate for renewable fuel, I was scheduled to talk about biofuels and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in a positive light. The standards were coming up for a vote and oil interests wanted them to go away and for the amount of ethanol used as an octane booster in gasoline to be reduced or eliminated. Big Oil’s solution to octane boosting was a cancer-causing chemical that they own themselves. They like that better. They wanted to shut the door on biofuels.

  Driving along at seventy-five miles per hour, like there was no tomorrow, I smelled fuel. Looking at the dashboard instruments I saw that the generator had stopped and was automatically trying to restart. I realized Miss Pegi was out of fuel. I slowed her down to save energy and cruised to the next gasoline station on electric power alone. She had no problem reaching it. She still had about forty to forty-five miles’ range left. Going fast had quickly charged her generator to the maximum so I had full electric range.

  It was a hot afternoon and we had electric power to spare as we silently pulled into the shade next to the only gas station in Reliance, South Dakota, and filled up with some cellulosic ethanol we carried in the chase vehicle. We had started calling it “Freedom Fuel.” The owner of the station, a man named Lowell, came over and was watching us. The guys got out their cameras. We started to talk, and told Lowell what we were doing, how clean Freedom Fuel was, and why we were using it instead of gasoline. Lowell said that all the farmers in the area would use Freedom Fuel if they could, but there was no place to get it. We talked about that unavailability for a while, about America’s reliance on fossil fuels and no choice available for alternatives at the fuel stations along all the highways. It was a good talk, and we felt that Lowell would be selling and using clean renewable Freedom Fuel if and when he could. We shook hands and drove away, with Lowell standing by his gas station listening to the sound of an electric car quietly pulling away into the future.

  Going slower again, about sixty-two, I was watching the fuel gauge like a hawk, but of course it didn’t matter. It had never worked right and still wasn’t. How had we missed that? I had to calculate miles and speed in my head as we traveled along to come up with an approximate amount of fuel remaining in the tank. When we were going seventy-five miles per hour, twice as much fuel was required compared to sixty miles per hour, and I had miscalculated that badly. Maybe I was having too much fun! I made a note to get that gauge fixed as soon as we got back home to Brizio’s.

  The next morning I was up polishing Miss Pegi’s rims in the sun. Everyone commented on how beautiful they were, simple yet elegant stainless steel with the name LINCVOLT emblazoned on each one. Soon we were on our way again, pulling onto the road, rolling along in a beautiful silence with the wind blowing through our hair and the top down. That day we met a farming family living in Iowa with a cornfield in their backyard and talked to the farmer and his wife for a while about the weather, filming. Suddenly the Lincvolt movie was all about climate change. His wife was looking out on the field behind their home.

  “Things have changed so much I don’t know why people don’t see it,” she said, looking off into the distance, kind of talking to herself as well as us. “It has never been like this in all of our years.”

  Farmers experience the effects of climate change on a daily basis more vividly than anyone else. They are on the front lines. Around the world, disappearing topsoil and unsustainable farming methods create the largest amounts of displaced CO2 of all the known factors, including transportation. Living soil is the best carbon sink we have, and chemical fertilizers are destroying it. A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon than it releases. It’s the balance of nature. Science is sometimes inconvenient.

  Later, sitting at a rest area with the generator on, I heard a weird sound under the car. It sounded like something metal was banging around in the exhaust system. I called Roy. The next town we hit, we stopped to get our muffler replaced by a farmer and car guy Roy had contacted. We found his place, got Miss Pegi in his barn, and put her on a lift. When he saw how she was built, with all of the custom work underneath, he called a friend who owned a real muffler shop and made arrangements for us to go there. When we arrived, we found we had to get a new catalytic converter. By running on fumes after I ran out of fuel, we had burned a hole the size of a golf ball in Miss Pegi’s catalytic converter. That was hot. A piece of the converter had blown through and was caught in the muffler, rattling around. That’s what we had heard in the rest area.

  When we called Bruce Falls to report on the converter, he repeated that he was worried there might still be more damage. Things were fine now, though, so we hit the road in the afternoon, Miss Pegi gliding like a dream on a mellow two-lane blacktop through the heartland.

  Thinking about what I would say to the National Farmers Union in Washington, as I drove Miss Pegi east, suddenly it dawned on me that I was not Jimmy Stewart. This was not Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and probably no one would listen to me there once I started talking about the climate. I was becoming too used to second-guessing myself.

  I sat in a long line of cars outside of the capital. A gentle rain had started to fall and the roadway was shining like a mirror, reflecting the shapes of the thousands of vehicles around me. I pondered how hard it would be to get someone to pay attention to CO2 or second-generation biomass fuel. I made a promise to myself to speak anyway, so I could sleep at night knowing I had done everything I could. I had used my voice.

  Eventu
ally we found ourselves on a road that ran along the Potomac River. There were no buildings, just a line of pavement through an incredibly green wonderland. The rain had stopped and we were almost at our Washington hotel, cruising Miss Pegi through this endless verdant passageway. Everything was green. The after-rain mist was still hanging in the air. Several miles of this euphoric living green fantasy passed before there was a slight turn toward tall buildings. I saw a traffic light ahead.

  At this point, I heard CLICK, and Miss Pegi’s motor lost all its power! The sound stayed about the same, but there was no power to accelerate. I slowly eased Miss Pegi’s massive form toward the shoulder, where she stopped in a perfect position just off the road. What could have happened? I remembered the unsolved mystery.

  This was disconcerting, to be sure. I turned off the key, waited about a half minute, and then turned it back on, rebooting Miss Pegi like a computer. She liked that. Click-click, that familiar sound. Soon we were back on the street heading for the hotel, and I was really wondering what the heck was going on with Miss Pegi. Luckily, Bruce Falls was on his way. He was coming to Washington to help me introduce the concept of a Bio-Electric Transportation Model. We had an appointment with Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader, and his staff. It was a valuable opportunity to get some input from them.

  That night, outside the hotel, Bruce was working on Miss Pegi right where we had parked. The mystery problem had continued haunting us. It was consistent. Bruce said those relays clicking were protecting us from a threatening condition. He had to learn what that condition was. We had a scent. We were tracking.

  Our meeting with Senator Reid and his staff went well. We had a chance to present our concepts and ask questions about barriers to implementation that we might expect. The senator and his staff were very helpful in directing us toward solutions to some of the legislative challenges that were surely before us, roadblocks to change. We had a second staff meeting in the Capitol the next day with our fuel supplier, POET Ethanol, an important potential partner in the Bio-Electric Transportation Model.

  The next day our meeting with the National Farmers Union was scheduled, and we had always said that Lincvolt would be there. We were ready with our message. I had written it out:

  There is no silver bullet to replace fossil fuel. It will take versatile combined systems and it can already happen now. With the Bio-Electric Transportation Model, electricity and biofuels born from the sun can ultimately become the dominant source of transportation energy, replacing fossil fuel. The economics of standardized car batteries being leased by the car manufacturers, then the owners, and then to public utilities after they are too depleted to function in cars, could drastically lower the cost of electric cars and fully extend a car battery’s useful life. The leasing model greatly reduces the cost of new electric cars by removing the cost of expensive battery purchase, up to $10,000 in cost reduction. Utility Electric power will be generated by many different means in the future, moving toward solar and renewable, and legislation is already in place to mandate battery storage for utility companies to enable renewable energy use. That is the versatility and freedom electricity enables.

  For daily transportation, electric power and biofuels working together can make a substantial difference. Dramatically less liquid fuel is used by long-range bioelectric cars compared to standard fossil fuel cars because of the design of a series hybrid. The biogenerator is just there for rare long trips and emergencies outside of the normal daily commute average (thirty-three miles), a range that is completely covered by an overnight charge. That’s the model Lincvolt exemplifies.

  At the Washington park, located near the Capitol, where I was speaking, the National Farmers Union was interested in seeing Miss Pegi, a bioelectric car that traveled across the country without using any gasoline. It was to be a big moment for Miss Pegi, but she had other ideas. She was demonstrating that unpredictability that we had come to know.

  When the time came for me to speak, Miss Pegi was still back at the hotel on the side of the road with Bruce, being uncooperative. She always seemed to miss the last chapter of the plan, her big moment. I had grown to accept her for the way she was.

  I spoke to the National Farmers Union about the clear choice between dirty fuel and clean fuel, but not from my notes. I shared my experience visiting Fort McMurray’s tar sands projects, referring to them as a wasteland similar to Hiroshima. There happened to be a Canadian minister of the environment in Washington that same day, touting how good the tar sands development was for the future. Our stories clashed and the oil interests began trying to discredit me and bury me any way they could. In Fort McMurray, radio stations banned my music. Conservative oil supporters broke out all of their anger. Although the name Fort McMurray is synonymous with tar sands development in the area, pictures of a beautiful Fort McMurray were shown on TV and in the press, intending to prove that it did not look like Hiroshima or a wasteland, but ultimately only proving that they did not understand a metaphor. A website, neilyounglies.ca, was started.

  The desperate moves of the oil interests were counterproductive to their goals. It made folks in Canada aware that there was a real issue with the tar sands and CO2, and it became a topic of conversation across Canada. That was just what the government and Big Oil didn’t want. The more they talked me down for not knowing what I was talking about, the more people read what I said, and it made it clear to a great many that some important facts were on our side.

  Right after the National Farmers Union event, Miss Pegi started to run perfectly again. Turning the key now started the car, just as it was supposed to. All good. Again behaving perfectly as she had all across America and up into Canada.

  It was foggy and drizzling a few days later when we arrived in New York City to stay at the Carlyle, a great old hotel in Manhattan with a parking garage below it. After a lot of maneuvering in close proximity to other cars, we parked Miss Pegi there, safely out of the rain and wind, ready to go in the morning to shoot her two last big scenes with media celebrities Bill O’Reilly and Stephen Colbert for the Lincvolt movie. We were all very excited about both Colbert and O’Reilly, knowing both of their strong personalities and viewpoints would add a lot to our story.

  Sleeping well, we were up with the sun. After a hearty “Larry Johnson breakfast” at our favorite nearby restaurant, it was time to go. The garage was quiet and the attendant was very impressed with Miss Pegi, having watched over her for quite a few hours. When we explained that she was an electric car, he was fascinated and could not wait to see her moving. We planned our routes carefully as we mounted a camera inside on the dashboard for the shoot. We had all the right permits to get to Wall Street.

  I got in the driver’s seat and turned the key. Click Click . . . CLICK. She was doing it again. It was uncanny. She was not cooperating, refusing to stay powered up. I remembered what Bruce, who had already returned to California, told me.

  “The car has sensed a condition that could cause problems. It is protecting us.”

  I tried rebooting. On the fourth try, she stayed on. I was very nervous about going out on the street, not wanting to get in trouble stalling in New York traffic, especially with all the pushback press we were getting about what I had said in Washington.

  Exposure had kept growing, and I had requests to do interviews and radio shows, which we turned down, waiting for when I went to Canada with the Honour the Treaties tour. We really didn’t want to have video taken of Miss Pegi in trouble in Manhattan appearing in the media at that time. That would have made some of the Big Oil interests very happy and would have been extremely damaging for our message. We didn’t want that. There was no choice. We had to cancel our big interviews. It was not a good day for us.

  Back in the garage a little later, I tried starting her again, and she was fine. Obviously we had to get Miss Pegi out of New York City somehow. We decided to drive her to New Jersey, load her onto her mobile gar
age truck, and transport her back to Bruce at AVL for a complete check to solve the issue once and for all. That was a risky thing to do, but she was now acting fine. We decided to go for it, but it turned out that there was something we had missed, a danger we had not considered.

  The trip through midtown New York was fine at first with the taxis and traffic all around us. We made our way down the avenues. What a great city. It was my first time with Miss Pegi Continental in New York and it was exhilarating. Once again the center of attention and enjoying it very much, Miss Pegi was in her element, right at home. Traffic gave her a lot of room on the avenues, seeming to appreciate the beautiful old Continental. We turned on a crosstown street, and less than halfway down the block, she clicked off and stalled. I coasted her to the side of the street and luckily we did not hold up traffic. My heart was racing. Turning her key off and waiting a half minute, I tried to reboot the computer again. It worked. She liked it.

  We were rolling again and I was a nervous wreck. Miss Pegi stalled two more times in heavy traffic on the way across town. We were on the edge. She seemed to not know whether she had a problem or not. Finally, she settled down and we went a long way with no more incidents. I was just starting to relax when I saw it. Something I had forgotten about completely and now was on my way directly into.

  Trapped, we were slowly moving toward the entrance in heavy traffic and we had to go in. There was no way out of the flow. It was a done deal. We had to go in. Miss Pegi was already committed. I thought about all of the things that could have gone wrong to this point and this was the worst thing I could imagine. What if we stalled in the tunnel? What could attract more attention than that? I am sure my knuckles were cold white as I held the wheel, and we finally entered, lights shining on the walls as we slowly passed by. With every bump I wondered if she would stop. I was almost praying for a miracle. Just let Miss Pegi get through this tunnel one time. Please avoid stalling and getting national press. That would be bad for everything we are doing. The tunnel went on and on. Traffic was slow. How could I have missed seeing this coming? I thought of scenarios to myself: What if I’m between two buses and I have to stop? That will be pretty safe with one big bus behind us. As I thought of many other worse scenarios, I looked ahead for a light, a reflection of sunlight on the wall, any sign that the tunnel was ending. By then I was just hanging on, actually praying for a miracle. I saw the light. Miss Pegi finally had made it, emerging out into the bright sunshine.