Oct. 22--COURTESY OF an Upland reader, I got a ride in what may be the car of the future, a plug-in electric vehicle.

The BMW Mini E is in the testing phase and isn't for sale. But Lois Sicking was driving one. She's an air pollution engineer for the California Air Resources Board and is on the panel writing regulations for all-electric vehicles.

To see a plug-in electric vehicle, it helps to know someone with (ahem) connections.

Sicking e-mailed me that she and her power car would be at the Starbucks in downtown Claremont on Sunday afternoon if I wanted to see it. She had the vehicle on loan for a week.

"I was one of the first to get to work the day they asked for volunteers," she told me.

Sicking had commuted home with the car and was taking it on errands, including to church. It was due back Thursday.

The Mini -- like a Mini Cooper with an "E" on the hood -- has already been featured in this newspaper when Pomona City Hall got two on loan as part of BMW's testing program. Various council members have been tooling around town in one of them.

As it might be a long wait before one of them invites me for a ride in their electric car, or out to a power lunch, I was happy to take Sicking up on her offer.

She got in behind the wheel and I rode shotgun -- not that there were any other seats, what with the battery filling the back seat compartment.

"Press the button and it's on," Sicking said, pushing a button

on the dash.

The dash lights up, but the car makes no sound, because there's no engine.

Sicking took me for a spin up Indian Hill Boulevard, demonstrating how the car almost never needs braking. Once the driver's foot is off the accelerator, the car's "regenerative braking" system kicks in and it stops almost immediately, sending power back to the battery as it does.

Her husband of six weeks, Ralph Dieter, an economics professor, is one of those drivers who hunches over the wheel and both accelerates and brakes hard, she explained.

"He thinks this car validates his whole approach to driving," Sicking said.

Like the Mini E, Sicking is a dynamo herself, full of energy and good humor. The native Texan is on an Air Resources Board team in El Monte collaborating with automakers' engineers to solve various problems associated with an all-electric vehicle.

Those include lightening the batteries' weight, keeping them cool and extending their life.

"It's always been my dream to work in air pollution," Sicking said.

Then El Monte must be ideal.