Rare Toyota Rav4 Model Is The Latest Electric Car Museum Addition, Possibly The Last

Dec 01, 2016 04:05 AM EST | Sharee Ann Narciso-Tolentino

The Route 66 Electric Car Museum in Kingman just added a rare 2002 Toyota Rav4 to its collection, which was donated by a passionate supporter of EVs. Due to lack of funding, however, this addition might be the last to find solace in the exhibit.

Electric cars are practically still at the infantile stage in the motoring world. While there are many advocates that support its cause, there just are not enough. This story is current proof of this fact. The Route 66 museum is able to house 21 electric cars. With the addition of the donated Rav4, they are now at their limit.

It's sad to see that the curators and administration are not able to preserve more of the history of electric vehicles simply because they have no resources to do so. What may become the future of all transportation started somewhere - and the coming generations deserve to know about the very first EVs in existence.

The Rav4 was donated by Heidi Locke Simon in memory and honor of her late husband, Greg. He was a huge supporter of renewable energy and electric cars. This donation was particularly valuable, because there were only 328 of them in production.

"It's kind of cool because it's a turning point in (electric vehicle) history. It's getting a lot of interest. People are stopping by and looking at it," the tourism director of Kingman, Josh Noble, tells the Daily Miner.

The Route 66 Electric Car Museum was founded back in 2014. Roderick Wilde serves as the Historic Electric Vehicle Foundation executive director. He also feels strongly about the future of EVs in the country. He even talked about the movie "Who Killed the Electric Car?" which has its own website and frowns upon how General Motors created EV-1s, leased them, recalled them and ultimately destroyed them. Wilde says, "EVs are here to stay and will be a very significant part of our future transportation."

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