CHELSEA SEXTON

Co-founder, Plug In America; Founder, Lightning Rod Foundation

Chosen because: Sexton, 35, says she fell in love with electric cars while working on the EV1 project at GM. She started her EV advocacy by co-founding dontcrushcars.com, a protest against the destruction of the early electric vehicles such as the EV1 and Toyota's RAV4 EV.

When Plug In America got too big, Sexton left to found the small nonprofit Lightning Rod Foundation. It works to educate consumers about electric cars and also gives Sexton a platform from which to advise utilities, automakers and others about electric cars. Her main goal is to get automakers to build more electric cars. The demand is there, she says, but "there is a huge amount of work to do."

Quote: "After we ran out of vehicles to not crush, we decided to change the focus to convincing automakers to produce electric cars."