RICHMOND-NEWS.COM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016
COMMUNITYin Focus
BRETT TURNER
Hyde said Sharman knew most passengers by name. In the mornings there was often a double car service that would ferry children back and forth to Richmond High School. One of those regular riders was Coun. Harold Steves, who said he remembers riding up front with the driver to get a first-hand look at what it took to guide the tram. “That was the place to be, all the kids wanted to be up there and chat with the drivers, who were like family to us,” he said. “They got to know pretty much everyone who was on their tram.” There were even regular enquiries from the tram crews asking if the youngsters had managed to finish all of their homework. Steves said the tram link also made it possible for young, local hockey players to make the trip into Vancouver to practise and play games, since Richmond at the time had no rink. “We’d be up early to catch the 5 a.m. tram that would get us to Kerrisdale Arena and then take one back in
time for school at 9 a.m.,” he said. But it wasn’t just people the tram carried. Hyde said the route was an important link for local dairy farmers who wanted to get their milk to dairies in Marpole. “So, the milk cans were loaded onto the tram and sent to Vancouver, and they’d come back full of spring water,” Hyde said. “They did that because you couldn’t dig water wells in Richmond, and the famers needed the water for their livestock.” Mayor Malcolm Brodie said he met Sharman at numerous tram-related events over the years and marveled at his continued interest in having it preserved. “He followed the history of that tram. It was a very special item for him, and he always had time to tell people what it was like to be aboard way back in the day, and provide some guidance in getting it restored.” In mid-December, city council voted to spend around $400,000 to continue restoration efforts on the tram, including a new roof, leather seating and
brass finishing. Brodie said that for most people today in Richmond, the old tram service is only seen in glimpses. “And the reason we are finishing off the restoration this year is that it’s such an important artifact in our history,” Brodie said, adding while he favoured having it become a running tram once more, it would have been an expensive proposition. “It’s destined to be a static display. But there’s something special about the tram. It just runs away with your imagination,” Brodie said. Steves said he also would have liked to see the tram run again and believes there still is a possibility that, in the future, it could roll along a short line from Bayview Street to the Gulf of Georgia Cannery. If that time does come, it would likely bring an even broader smile to Vic Sharman’s face. A memorial service for Sharman is being held at 1 p.m. on Saturday (Jan. 9) at Trinity Baptist Church in Vancouver (1460 West 49th Ave.).
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Transit: Riders part of the family From page 10
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The Amazing Rise of Tesla Motors
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Cedric Hughes
T
Barrister & Solicitor
he New Year rollover usually sparks reflection involving both hindsight and foresight. This year—2016, the gaze ahead is perhaps the more riveting, especially in matters technological— as if this hasn’t become ‘the new norm’! Nevertheless we are, in this latter half of the second 21st-century-decade, finally seeing tangibles in endeavours sharing a common source engineer/inventor/investor and entrepreneur, namely Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, CEO and product architect of Tesla Motors, founder, chairman, and the largest shareholder of SolarCity, backer of the Hyperloop project, and the founder of OpenAl.
Empowering Smiles Everywhere
Mr. Musk is among the most famous technology ‘superstars’ of the late 20th/early 21st centuries and at only 44 years of age with ‘just’ these endeavours alone, possibly already on track to achieve Thomas Edison-like fame and fortune. A common thread in his current ventures is in creating and storing energy and using it to move: faster, and cleaner, and farther, and smarter. Mr. Musk, it would seem may just be getting started.
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Take Tesla Motors Inc., incorporated in 2003. The latest media reports indicate that in the fourth quarter of 2015, it delivered 17,400 vehicles, thereby exceeding its goal to sell at least 50,000 electrically powered vehicles for the year by the number 580.
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On a shared assembly line at its factory in Fremont, California, Tesla is now producing two all-electric
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vehicles, the Model S sedan, and its latest offering, the Model X SUV, launched on September 29, 2015 with 208 vehicles delivered by year-end. All the big auto manufacturers have been involved, one way or another, for decades in developing electric cars as one solution to the negative environmental impact of the internal combustion engine. All have struggled with battery technology development, price points, ride quality and the chicken-and-egg problem of charging infrastructure to permit some semblance of support for long distance travel. Only Tesla to date—albeit with help from government subsidization and the benefit of later phase innovation—has produced a top rated e-vehicle on its way to being an entrenched and popular status symbol. This in turn should help with the uptake of more affordable mass-market e-vehicles even if Tesla itself proves unable to move from its super-luxury niche, as it hopes to do with its Model 3, due for unveiling this coming spring with production to begin in 2017. One important component of the Model 3 development is Mr. Musk’s goal to produce more powerful, sleeker, and less expensive electric car batteries in the world’s largest and most advanced battery factory he is building in Carson City, Nevada. The latest predictions are for the $5 billion “gigafactory” to open in late 2016. Also included in this power source effort is the goal to produce a relatively inexpensive utility-scale battery that can store energy from renewable sources like solar and wind or from the existing grid for back up or for use where the price of electricity varies with usage rates. Since Tesla first announced its cheap utilityscale battery in the spring of 2015, it has been flooded with over 100,000 reservations, which, if translated into sales would amount to over $1 billion in 2016.
...by Cedric Hughes, Barrister & Solicitor with regular weekly contributions from Leslie McGuffin, LL.B