Best-selling author, motivational speaker, mass marketer and the mind beyond the “Law of Attraction,” Dr. Joe Vitale is a man who lives big, bold and without regrets. He’s also one of the most environmentally-conscious people you’ll ever meet. Once homeless, Vitale is now a well-known entrepreneur who travels the world teaching people how to attract love, relationships and even money into their own lives. We could all use a little more “green” in our lives these days, and Vitale may just have the secret to finding it.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

So you and the Scorpion are both pretty environmentally-conscious. How exactly did you find out about this exotic “green” supercar?
Actually, it was in the Dupont Registry. I opened up a two-page spread about this hydrogen car. I called up the manufacturer, Ronn Motors, and found out they were located in Marble Falls, which was only 40 minutes away from my house in Wimberley.
Of course I wanted to know how the car worked [for more on this, see page 21] and how exactly they get the hydrogen. My fear was having to find hydrogen stations — there’s none in Texas that I’m aware of. The folks at Ronn Motors said, “No, we invented this system and it’s onboard.”

Basically, you put water in a three-gallon tank, and it makes hydrogen as soon as you start the car. I drove down to meet them, and before I left I knew I wanted the first car. I became an investor, stockholder and I promote it every time I get a chance.

With this car, it’s obviously a marriage of a lot of things. For you, what’s the most compelling piece? Is it the eco-friendly aspect or the fact that it’s a super sports car?
Well frankly, it’s both. This truly is an environmentally-friendly super hotrod and one of the only ones on the planet. When I was at the Panoz factory (which made my Esperante), I told them, “If you make me an environmentally-friendly muscle car, I will buy it.” I love the company, and I figured they would make a good car, but they never got around to it. Then I found Ronn Motors and the Scorpion. The fact is, this car is more environmentally-friendly than battery cars. First of all, you have to rape the earth to make a battery, and then sooner or later you dump that battery back into the earth. It’s a very short-term, short-sighted solution.

So do you think the Scorpion represents the future of what a “green” car can be? Do you think there will be more cars emerging like this?
You’re going to see more cars with this system in them. Ronn Motors has created a way to put the hydrogen system that’s in the Scorpion into any car. And that’s where you’re going if you want to make something environmentally-friendly — take the car you already love and drop the emissions. In many ways this car is just a way to get attention for the system.

How many cars do you own?
I think I have seven. Sorry, I had to stop and count.
Are there any other environmental projects you’re involved in?
It’s not necessarily environmental, but it’s worth mentioning. I have a project called “Operation YES.” It’s essentially my plan to end homelessness in this country. YES stands for “Your Economic Salvation.”
I know how to end foreclosures and end homelessness in one day. The first thing is education and inspiration. I want people like myself, who were homeless at one point, to be able to say, “I was there. I know what it’s like. If I can get out of it, you can get out of it.” I want to give them hope.
There’s another thing I want to teach them: how to rid themselves of the trauma, anger and fear they have about their future. Anyone who is homeless or about to lose their home is terrified. They feel like victims, and they have no hope at all. There are techniques like EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), which allow you to tap different parts of your body and release these kinds of tension.
The third part is to think like an entrepreneur. I have to do this last, because their mindset won’t be ready unless they do the others first. All the stuff you’re complaining about can be turned into a business. As long as they think they need a job, and are looking to corporations, they are still a victim. All of this is designed to give people back their power. It’s definitely about self-reliance.

Other than “Operation YES,” what have you been up to lately?
I keep producing products that help people do well in their lives. “The Secret to Attracting Money” is the most recent one. Right before that was “The Awakening” course, and before that was “The Missing Secret.” I have a long line of books, with the most recent one being “Expect Miracles.” My best-seller is “The Attractor Factor.” Because of movies like “The Secret,” I’m continually asked to appear in other movies. In fact, I’ll be speaking in Peru in April to a stadium of 30,000 people about things like the law of attraction.

What’s the common theme across all these projects?
That’s kind of tough, because I have a foot in the spiritual world and a foot in the marketing world. I’d say I’m a spiritual marketer, and people want to know how to use spirituality in business. That’s when they call me. What’s the truth about money? How is money spiritual? Most people don’t think it is. I’m coming at it from a different view — teaching people how to have material wealth from a spiritual, holistic mindset.

Your message obviously attracts an international audience.
Yeah, I just heard from Poland this morning. I spoke in Warsaw and they want me to come back. In Italy, my book “The Key” is a best-seller. All of this is feeding a very hungry audience — especially now. There is a spiritual renaissance going on right now. It’s a spiritual kick in the butt. All the things we tried in the past aren’t working. You have to come to a more holistic mindset.

What’s the most exciting thing about what you do?
When I get to inspire someone and see the light in his or her eyes. That’s when the passion kicks in. Last week I had dinner with a guy who was a pilot. He loves flying, but he hates his job. He didn’t have any enthusiasm for what he was doing. He wasn’t even that eager to even go dinner with me — for which he’d paid $5,000. However, by the end of it, he saw a different way to make money from his passion. He was boyishly excited. That’s the kind of thing that really excites me: to see people come alive.

You also have a new product called the “Fit-a-Rita.” Tell us about that.
If you think like an entrepreneur, you see that problems are products; they’re opportunities. I was in a Bill Phillips bodybuilding contest a few years back, and when I’m in those, I’m very strict. I don’t take any cheat days. I was out with friends and they were all drinking margaritas while I was drinking ice water. I was thinking how much I wanted a margarita, and then I thought, “Somebody needs to make a bodybuilder’s margarita.”
So I met with a physician and nutritionist I knew and we created something called the “Fit-a-Rita,” which is the world’s first healthy margarita mix. There’s no sugar, no carbs and only six calories. The average margarita has 300 to 1,000 calories because of all the sugar. We still have a deal pending with one company that wants 11 million packets.

You mentioned you used to do bodybuilding. What else do you do to stay fit?
I lost 70 pounds in one year and completed 9 Body for Life fitness contests over a three year period, getting an honorable mention in one of them. I gained 20 pounds after an emergency appendectomy, but am back in the saddle and working out regularly.
These days I really like my ROM machine. It’s a range-of-movement machine, and its claim to fame is you can work out for four minutes a day and get a complete workout. It’s in a lot of science magazines. Tony Robbins has three of them.
There’s two parts to it. The front part is a little bit like rowing and bench-pressing at the same time. There’s a giant wheel with cables underneath resisting you as you’re trying to move. The back is like a stair-stepper; only it’s the most evil stair stepper you’ve ever seen. Instead of just going two or three steps, it stretches you to the point where you can’t do it the first time. Over time, you’re stretching your ligaments so you can do it.
If you work at full intensity, you’ll be panting at the end of the four minutes. You’ll break a sweat and be gasping for air. It helped break my inertia, because for the longest time I wasn’t working out at all. Today I use it as my warm up. Then I go on to free weights or the elliptical, which is good for my knees. I used to run, but I would get heel spurs. This is much gentler.

How many days a week do you currently work out?
I workout four days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and then Saturday my trainer Scott York comes out from Austin. He likes coming out because he gets a day off. He emails me the workouts the rest of the week. I write back “done” every time.

How do you find time to workout with all the traveling you do?
When I travel Scott sends me hotel workouts. Most of those are bodyweight type exercises and cross-training; things like 50 sit-ups, 50 push-ups and 50 bodyweight squats.


SPECS
Hydrogen Fuel Injection (HFI)
The new HFI fuel delivery system provides hydrogen on demand which is then directly injected into the motor. This increases fuel mileage up to 40 percent while reducing CO2 emissions to nearly zero. Hydrogen is produced through electrolysis of water using the car’s electrical system. A small amount of hydrogen added to the vehicle’s intake air/fuel mixture allows the engine to operate with less fossil fuel.

Technical Specs
289 horsepower, 450+ with twin turbo option
Six-speed transmission; 40 mpg
0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds and over 200 mph top end
Lightweight, hand-built carbon fiber body


QUESTION AND ANSWER WITH RONN MAXWELL (Creator of the Scorpion)

HOW DID YOU GET INTO THIS BUSINESS?
It’s really the only business I’ve ever done. When all the other boys were outside playing football, I was in my room building car models. Not so much engines; that’s the greasy work. I was more into the auto-body part of it, which is more creative.

OTHER THAN THIS CAR, WHAT ELSE DOES RONN MOTORS PRODUCE?
This is the only car we produce right now, because we wanted a proof of concept. We went to the furthest extreme, a supercar class, to prove we could do it. We have visions of our second car being more user-friendly, something that the average American could buy — along the $30,000 price range. We want it to be a hybrid, perhaps half-electric with hydrogen. It will be like a parallel hybrid.

HOW DOES A CAR WITH HYDROGEN TECHNOLOGY, LIKE THE SCORPION, WORK?
It’s a gasoline car. We produce hydrogen in real time. It’s just enough to inject into the motor and act as a catalyst to the fuel.

WHAT MAKES IT EMISSION-FREE?
The hydrogen does, and you don’t have to inject massive quantities to make that happen. Hydrogen molecules are attracted to carbon molecules; they attach at the molecular level. When you inject that into the motor, hydrogen attaches itself to the carbon molecules that are normally not used in the burn cycle and are pitched out the tailpipe. So the residual is gone — not 100 percent, but a majority of it.

AND THE HYDROGEN COMES FROM WATER?
Yes. We split water molecules to make that happen. Our system is a lot different than anybody else’s on the market because we just use plain water. We don’t enhance it with chemicals. We’re not trying to create 10 or 25 liters a minute, because we don’t think we need that for our particular vehicle.

HOW MUCH WATER DOES IT TAKE?
The whole system together is pretty close to a gallon. We haven’t driven that many miles yet, but mathematically it will last you about 5,000 to 6,000 miles. We’re not trying to run the car on hydrogen, we’re just injecting it as an additive — kind of like you would nitrous oxide.

THEORETICALLY, COULD YOU TAKE THIS TECHNOLOGY AND PUT IT IN ANY CAR?
That’s correct. We want to make any system we develop available to the general public. Of course it would be a retrofit, so you won’t get maximum efficiency, but it will make a tremendous difference in your emissions and somewhat on fuel mileage. It does improve fuel mileage, but only by 10 or 25 percent. That’s not so much the hydrogen — it’s the car. Different cars have better engine and head designs, and that makes a difference.

WHAT WOULD THE PRICE RANGE BE?
The whole hydrogen system as an add-on is priced around $1,000 installed. In today’s market it’s not very expensive, but they’re really going to start cracking down on emissions. The Obama Administration is very much into “green” cars and energy. We’ve got to do something to make a change.

DID YOU HAVE SOME FORESIGHT ABOUT EMISSIONS?
In America, we have approximately 998 cars for every thousand people. In Europe it’s about 600 for every thousand people and in China, it’s 1.2 cars for every thousand people. For China to reach the saturation of Europe, they’re going to need six million cars. That’s not even counting India, who is going to surpass China in population. That’s another billion cars on the planet. We can not sustain that with fossil fuels, and there’s just not enough to power everything — so there has to be a change. We’ve got to go to hydrogen, electric cars or a combination.

SO DO YOU THINK ELECTRIC IS AS VIABLE AS HYDROGEN TECHNOLOGY?
We’re not saying we have the end-all solution. We consider this technology to be a bridge. Our belief is that electric technology still has some hurdles before it’s really viable in a big market. In the mean time, while we’re all working on the technology, we can do this and make a change today.

HOW MANY DO YOU THINK YOU’LL GET ON THE MARKET IN THE FIRST YEAR?
We can do as many as 200, but with the economy the way it is, we don’t know right now. It’s not that people won’t end up buying them, but they might think twice about it.

HAS THE BODY OF THE CAR CHANGED MUCH SINCE FIRST CONCEPT?
It hasn’t really changed. We went straight from computer model to the mold; bypassed clay altogether. Our surface data was so good that we took a chance and it worked.

HOW LONG DID THE SCORPION TAKE TO MAKE?
I had the idea around July of 2007 and we wrote the business plan that November. We physically started on the car, after I already drew the engineering, in March of 2008.

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE NAME?
All the good animal names were taken. We were down to porcupine and things like that. We moved to the Austin/Canyon Lake area, and it’s scorpion-saturated. That got us thinking: this car has the engine on the back and has twin turbos. It’s kind of like a scorpion. The name just stuck.