ZAP's Alias electric car model for 2009 from www.zapworld.com.

By JOE BIESK
Associated Press Writer
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky is already home to bourbon and thoroughbred horse racing, now it’s aiming for electric cars too.
Gov. Steve Beshear said Monday that the state has authorized a tax incentive plan to bring an electric car plant to southern Kentucky. California-based Zero Air Pollution, or ZAP, is scheduled to begin production next year.
“They’ll have to build this facility, they’ll have to start hiring the people and building the cars and then those incentives kick in,” Beshear said after taking a three-wheel model for a test drive around the state Capitol.
Beshear signed an executive order earlier this month allowing low-speed three- and four-wheel electric cars to travel Kentucky’s roads with speed limits of 45 mph or less. Officials at the electric car manufacturer had said they would not consider locating the plant in Kentucky if the state did not allow the cars to travel its roads.
Officials said the plant was expected to eventually bring up to 4,000 new jobs within the next four years to the rural town of Franklin, about 135 miles southwest of Louisville. The planned 1 million square-foot plant is slated to be built on 225 acres in an industrial park.
State officials have authorized $48 million in tax credits, Beshear said.
Meanwhile, local city and Simpson County officials have offered about $80 million in investment revenue bonds as incentives for the plant, said Dennis Griffin, director of the Franklin-Simpson Industrial Authority.
Randall Waldman, CEO of Integrity Automotive, said his company’s “venture partnership” with ZAP was aimed at providing electric cars to many people — not just the rich. Waldman said his company’s cars are priced from $10,000 to about $63,000.
The cars can travel up to 40 mph. Waldman said the company had sold more than 100,000 vehicles in the last three years.

By Dana Ford

Reuters

LA MERCED - Teresa Rocha, a migrant worker who picks coffee on the steamy, lush, green farms near La Merced in central Peru, might not understand the mechanics of climate change, but she knows its effects.

Rising temperatures and erratic weather patterns are changing historic trends in the coffee season, growers say in Peru, a country closely tied to the impact of climate change because of its rapidly melting tropical glaciers.

Rocha, 16, who moves with the seasons in search of ripe plants, says warmer temperatures are responsible for her early start this year -- about a month earlier than last.

Farmers are also reporting high-altitude plants are maturing at times more typical of their low-land counterparts.

"The seasons are changing tremendously. You can no longer say winter is in November, December or March. It falls in other months sometimes," said Cesar Rivas, president of the national growers' group.

"This is generating complete productive disorder," he said.

Traditionally, Peruvian coffee growers start picking their crop in April, some six months before the global arabica harvest. Its flip season has given Peru, the world's sixth largest exporter of coffee, a unique comparative advantage.

If the season continues to move earlier, farmers worry they could lose their privileged position.