Sun-Powered Scholar

CHEVY CHASE, Leslie Nielsen, Prince Philip of England, and Dartmouth English Professor Noel Perrin all have something in common: Each owns an electric car.

Why is Perrin in this elite group? "A student of mine asked how I could teach about the environment while I was polluting it at the same time," he explains. His new book, Solo (published by Norton), is about his adventures with his electric car. In it he tells how the car died on the Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevadas when he tried to drive it home from its maker in California. It had to be towed all the way to Illinois.

Perrin claims the heavy sticker price of $17,500 is a good investment; the retrofitted Ford Escort station wagon costs three cents a mile to operate, half the cost of a gasoline-powered car. Strapped to the hood and roof of Perrin's vehicle are two solar panels which produce about five percent of the energy needed.

As most graduates know all too well, however, Hanover is not always sunny. Which is why the car has 18 batteries.

"I see the Dartmouth community being totally electric no later than 2 5 years," Perrin predicts confidently. Keep a lookout for GM to introduce an electric car on the market by 1995.

Penin and cartake the sun.