James Brazell, an 84-year-old retired oil executive, is now the proud owner of Chevrolet’s new electric car—the Volt.

“I worked for Texico 40 years in exploration and production,” Brazell said from his home in Asheville, N.C. “I am very familiar with the fact that oil is a very finite resource and that it’s going to get real scarce.”

He was first introduced to the idea of the electric car when his daughter worked for Southern California Edison and got to sometimes drive the General Motors EV1.

Brazell decided when he got to test-drive that car that he would one day have an electric vehicle of his own.

“When I heard Chevy say they were going to release an electric car, back in 2008,” Brazell said, “I went and put a deposit down for the first Volt they’d get here in Ashville.”

Unfortunately, Ashville wasn’t one of the original release locations, so Brazell ended up being number 4 on the list at a dealership in Woodbridge, Va.

He just picked the cherry red car up last Sunday.

He’s been driving it for a week and said it’s great.

“I can go out for 20 or 30 miles in the morning, come back for lunch and charge it up,” he said. “It’s ready to go again by the afternoon.

He installed a 220-volt charger, so the car can be fully juiced up in four hours instead of 10.

He appreciates the car’s back-up gas engine, however.

“I’m retired, and I’m 84 years old,” he said. “So I don’t take a lot of long trips in the car, but I want to be able to if I want to.”

He hasn’t considered installing a solar array to provide the electricity his car needs. He’s pretty happy with the cost savings he’s getting as things are, he said.

He can go as far on a full charge which costs about $1.80 as he could on a gallon of gas, which costs $3.39 right now, he said.

“That’s not a bad deal,” Brazell said. “That’s pretty cool.”

But he admits that he believes one day the energy for electric cars will probably come from renewable sources.

"I believe electric vehicles like the Volt are an important step toward reducing our dependence on oil,” Brazell said, “while renewable sources of energy—like wind, solar, and hydrological power—will all play a role in producing clean energy for electric vehicles."

Pictured: Brazell, his car, and his alma mater.