Amory Lovins

Amory B. Lovins is research director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a diverse think tank founded in Snowmass, Colorado in 1982 that works with industry to pursue what it calls "soft" or sustainable energy paths. In a highly prescient 1995 article in The Atlantic Monthly, Lovins sketched out the auto industry's future before the industry itself knew what was coming. Writing with his wife and partner L. Hunter Lovins, he predicted, "Well before 2003, competition, not government mandates, may bring to market cars efficient enough to carry a family coast to coast on one tank of fuel, more safely and comfortably than they can travel now, and more cleanly than they would with a battery-electric car plus the power plants needed to recharge it."

The Lovinses were talking about what they call "hypercars," ultralight and super-aerodynamic vehicles made of composite material and powered by efficient hybrid electric drivetrains. Battery electrics, they noted derisively as GM was struggling to bring out its EV1, have to "haul a half ton of batteries down to the store to buy a six-pack."

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