Zan Dubin and I met in Frogtown beside the LA River and quickly dove into her long history of activism, journalism, and life hear in LA. Born Alexandra, she was nicknamed after a character from The Little Foxes.

Zan arriving in Westwood in 1966 at age nine — and she’s remained committed to both the city and the causes close to her heart ever since.

Her dedication to electric vehicles began in 2002, when she and her then-husband bought a Toyota RAV4 EV. They became active in saving leased EVs from being crushed, founding Plug In America.

“We were able to save about 800 cars that would have been crushed,” she said, and her activism hasn’t stopped. Wearing a T-shirt that reads “Question Internal Combustion,” she embodies a lifetime of environmental commitment.

But what of the posterboy of modern EV vehicles: The notorious Elon Musk?

“I abhor Elon,” she said plainly. “I’m really sad and angry at everything that he’s doing. However, I think an even greater and more imminent threat is climate change.” While she criticizes Musk’s politics and behavior, she praises Tesla’s engineering and the ever-growing charging network’s reach.