But its developers are betting that the car's power and range will generate renewed interest not only in their company' race car driver and an engineer. Cocconi founded AC Propulsion just over a decade ago after having worked for General Motors as a founding engineer on the company's Saturn EV1 electric car project. Cocconi said he decided to go out on his own after GM decided to build the car.
"I didn't want to be a part of the big GM machine," he said. "About a month afterward, I thought about upgraded chargers and what techniques were possible and I started AC Propulsion." With that, he ripped the engine and transmission out of a Honda CRX and set to work devising his own drive system. Today, 250,000km later, he said, that Honda is still humming.
Gage met Cocconi while working as an automotive industry consultant on electric vehicles in the early '90s. "When I interviewed Alan," Gage said, "it became obvious that not only did he clearly know what he was talking about, but he was doing something about it. I drove a prototype of his and was blown away." A year later, he said, the consulting work dried up and he joined AC Propulsion.
The company's early days coincided with California's Zero Emissions Vehicle or ZEV mandate. When it appeared that automakers would be required to sell a substantial number of ZEVs, manufacturers were a primary customer for AC Propulsion's systems for evaluation.
When the mandate was challenged by manufacturers in 2001, Cocconi said, sales dried up. Today the company sells its US$25,000 EV conversions to private enthusiasts and to bus companies. Gage said that the lithium-ion setup, and plans to offer a conversion system for Toyota's Scion xB, could chart a new course for a company that today has only 12 full-time employees. Gage said that he and Cocconi realized that they could never produce a car with the economies of scale of a Honda or a Toyota.
"That's how the Tzero was born; it's a niche," Gage said. "We knew it would be expensive because it was hand-built in-house, but it would justify its price because it would have outstanding performance."
RSS