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Mooresville company uses old idea, new technology to create new means of transportation: electric cars POWER TO GROW
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Published: May 10, 2008
MOORESVILLE
Cruise down Rolling Hill Road in Mooresville and you will find plenty of businesses devoted to making the perfect internal-combustion engine for high-performance cars.
Bobby Jones Racing. Cagnazzi Racing. Team Rensi Motorsports.
The Salisbury Post reports that it's a little surprising to discover Hybrid Technologies tucked among all the racing shops.
Vehicles are made here, but the smell of gasoline is absent. At Hybrid Technologies, petroleum is not king. It's not even a member of the royal court.
Although the word "hybrid" suggests the use of both gas and electric power, the vehicles made by Hybrid Technologies are electric, powered solely by lithium batteries.
And they are powerful, shattering the image many people have of a battery-powered car as little more than a humming, oversized toy for the green crowd.
"An electric car doesn't have to be three wheels and made of recycled trash-can plastic," said Ron Cerven, the project-development engineer and a frequent spokesman for the company.
That became abundantly clear when the Post got to check out Hybrid Technologies' The Reaper recently during the filming of a promotional video for the company.
It was a little strange to see The Reaper, which looks like a baby Hummer tearing over the terrain, kicking up grass and dirt, barreling up and down steep creek banks without the sound of a screaming engine accompanying it.
And if you don't think that an electric car can accelerate quickly enough for your stomach to lurch -- well, you're wrong.
Designed for military use, this concept vehicle was introduced in March at the New York International Auto Show. The benefits are obvious: The electric engine gives the vehicle a stealth factor in combat situations. It's also muscular and agile, capable of speeds up to 85 mph with a range of up to 185 miles.
The Reaper is only one of the electric vehicles the company makes from the ground up. They also build all-terrain vehicles, bicycles, wheelchairs, and a chopper that can reach speeds of more than 70 miles an hour. Their glamour vehicle is a high-performance sports car that can go up to 120 miles an hour and accelerate from zero to 60 in five seconds.
Much of the company's business, however, is in converting already popular production cars to run on electricity.
Walk into their immaculately clean shop and you may see a Mini Cooper, a Toyota Yaris, a Chrysler Crossfire or a PT Cruiser, only they are not the versions you might be familiar with.
Workers remove the factory-installed engines and install an electric motor, along with a lithium-ion battery, transforming the production cars to emission-free electric vehicles that can go about 120 miles between charges. Car owners simply plug the battery into a regular outlet overnight. A full charge takes six to eight hours.
These cars are not generally considered viable for making long trips; instead, they are marketed as driving-around-town cars, a commuter's eco-friendly workhorse.
Hybrid Technologies also produces an electric version of the SmartCar, the tiny snub-nosed car popular in Europe for its great gas mileage and parking ease.
Keith Branyon, a Fort Worth attorney, has a Hybrid Technologies electric SmartCar that he got through a Sam's Club promotion that offered one customer the chance to buy a car, which was paired with a trip to Kennedy Space Center to see a shuttle launch.
Branyon loves his electric car.
"I think the technology is amazingly good if you live in an urban area and do a lot of city driving," he says.
He commutes to work every day with his wife in his SmartCar. He keeps it plugged in when he's not driving it, and says he can't see any significant change in his electric bill.
His car is very peppy, he says, like "a golf cart on steroids." And he's impressed with its acceleration.
"It'll jerk your head back," he said.
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