Start-Ups to Upstarts Rev Up New Industry

PHOENIX —  There were no engines for the gentlemen and ladies to start at APS Electrics, a four-day electric car race held here earlier this month. There was no deafening roar as hundreds of formula cars, stock cars and street cars--all powered by batteries, not gasoline--zoomed around the one-mile track, hitting speeds as high as 120 miles an hour on the straightaways.

And though there was plenty of competitive excitement, the main business of the weekend was happening off the track, where solo entrepreneurs and giant multinationals alike were showcasing the latest in electric vehicle (EV) technology and trying to jump-start a fledgling industry.

Roderick Wilde, racing daredevil and struggling electric car entrepreneur, did a little of everything. Friday, in a one-on-one drag race, he and his electrified 1979 Mazda RX-7 took on a General Motors Impact--a souped-up version of the sporty new electric car GM will release this fall--and won. Saturday, he triggered the only major crash of the weekend when he spun his Ford Taurus on a curve and took a head-on hit from former Indy 500 winner Tom Sneva.

On Sunday--his smashed-up Taurus patched together with duct tape--he finished a respectable fifth in a 50-mile stock car event. But more important than all this, he says, “we lined up two new products for our catalog”: a vacuum switch for power brakes and a “hydro eye,” a device that measures the water level in batteries.

Dozens of firms were on hand for the event, strutting an eclectic array of electric stuff ranging from electrified go-carts and bicycles to battery-changing systems, charging units and electronic motor controllers. Most were upstarts like Wilde, whose firm, Wilde EVolutions, does custom conversions for consumers and sells a range of parts, from DC motors to battery chargers.

And for the entrepreneurs, many of whom are scraping by on government grants, personal funds and a lot of unpaid labor while they wait for the market to develop, Wilde’s win over GM was a moment to relish--especially sweet in light of the big auto makers’ recent victory in a crucial political contest. The California Air Resources Board recently backed away from a requirement that by 1998, 2% of all vehicles sold in California give off no emissions. The board is expected this week to rule on a voluntary plan that critics say will dramatically slow the introduction of electric vehicles.

“The [electric car] industry got beat up pretty badly over the mandates fight,” says Don Karner, president of Electric Vehicle Technology Competitions, the organizer of the race. “But we’ll recover.”

Judging from the array of displayed products--and the confident talk of electric vehicle entrepreneurs--the recovery is underway. Ironically, one of the factors driving that recovery has been the GM Impact, now renamed the EV-1, whose scheduled commercial release in the fall has spurred public interest in electric cars.

Karl Thidemann, marketing director for Solectria Corp., a Massachusetts-based electric vehicle manufacturer, says his firm’s sales have jumped since the GM announcement.

“GM’s announcement has suddenly made EVs seem real to many people,” Thidemann says. He says there is now a three- to four-month backlog on orders for the Solectria Force, a converted Geo Metro that sells for about $34,000, and the E-10, a converted Chevy S-10 that sells for $47,000. With a total of more than 200 cars and trucks delivered, Solectria can now bill itself as the leading electric car maker.

That will change this fall when the EV-1 is released through Saturn dealers in Southern California and Arizona, sporting a list price somewhere in the mid-$30,000s.

The high cost of new electrics will be partly offset by a 10% tax credit from the federal government, along with additional credits and incentives from some states. In Arizona, for instance, proposed legislation would give a $10,000 cash rebate to any purchaser of a new electric car and lesser amounts to buyers of converted cars. Electric-car users would also save money on fuel and, theoretically, on maintenance: EVs have fewer moving parts, no carburetors and no need for tuneups.

Mary Ann Chapman, founder of Tucson-based EcoElectric, says her firm--which produces a $30,000 electric pickup truck that uses the chassis, drive train and body of the Chevy S-10--is in negotiations with a number of fleet customers who are interested in several vehicles each.

Electric vehicle component makers are also bullish. “The future of this industry?” mused Stan Obcamp of the Scottsdale firm Electric Vehicle Automotive Systems as he hustled around the racetrack, fielding calls on a cell phone and a walkie-talkie. “It’s vertical. Period. Within a short time, a lot of people are going to see [electric cars] as viable for them.”

Obcamp has been working on controllers--devices that regulate the supply of battery power to the motor--for two years, and all three vehicles using them did well in the race. But Obcamp says his controllers are designed with consumers in mind: They can be programmed, for instance, to keep the motor from engaging if the battery charger is still plugged in, a mistake a distracted driver could easily make.

Another controller maker, Lee Ackerson of Jefferson Program Power in Alameda--which received a $217,000 grant from the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency--has designed his microcomputer-based system to allow the driver to select from various performance styles that can be preprogrammed into switches on the dash.

“You push a switch and the vehicle takes on the personality you want,” Ackerson explains. “One could be for parking lot performance. Switch 2 could be for town driving where you’re optimizing distance and don’t need quick acceleration. The third could [give you] a muscle car--quick acceleration and higher top speed, but paid for in limited battery range. This would give drivers a great deal more vehicle control than you’d have on any gas car.”

While some companies are focusing on vehicles, others are addressing the infrastructure needs of increased electric car usage. Daniel Parmley, president of Diversified Technical Services of Phoenix, showed off his charging station, a large container unit filled with transformers and metered electric hookups that can recharge the batteries on 75 electric vehicles simultaneously.

Diversified also boasts a battery swap-out system that enabled one of the company’s converted pickup trucks to set a world record by traveling 2,500 miles coast to coast in six days, changing and recharging batteries as it went. This system is now in use, on a demonstration basis, by an electric bus in downtown Phoenix.

Of course, if they want a really fast battery change, they could hire the Ohio State University pit crew, which, one suspects, may double as the football team’s offensive line. It took them just 25 seconds, using what might be called a jerk-and-snatch technique, to change the batteries of their Formula Lightning, which powered to victory in an all-out battle of electric racers from 11 universities.