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Blogger extraordinaire Mickey Kaus recently spied the above SUV innocuously parked in Santa Monica and sent us the photos, wondering if we had any clue what it is. As luck would have it, we do. The truck is a SsangYong Actyon SUV, but it's also more than that. You see the Actyon, in both SUT and SUV body styles, is the basis for Phoenix Motorcars' electric SUT and SUV, which are scheduled to arrive in the U.S. in 2010. The white example Mickey snagged had been de-badged, which lends it an air of mystery, but we know SsangYong's not coming to the U.S. market.

As our esteemed colleague Sam Abuelsamid points out, Phoenix is based in Ontario, CA so it's basically a lock that this is one of their EV development mules. Using the SsangYong trucks as the basis for their electric utility vehicles has two distinct benefits for Phoenix. First, they offer proven, practical and usable packaging that'll work fine in the real world. Second, their front-end styling is bizarre enough that the unwritten rule which states that EVs have to look weird will surely be upheld. Obviously, those Tesla guys, with their sexy-spiffy Roadster, didn't get that memo.

You can check Mickey out every day at Kausfiles, and, on occassion, at Bloggingheads.tv as well. Thanks for the photos!

[Source: Mickey Kaus]

Altairnano's interim president Terry Copeland has moved up to president and CEO, the company announced today. Copeland has been the battery company's interim leader since March, just after previous CEO Alan Gotcher resigned. Copeland has been with Altair Nanotechnologies since November 2007 (when he was vice president of operations for Altair's Power and Energy Group). He also has a long history with the Duracell battery company. Copeland said that Altairnano, which is still in the game to supply batteries for the Phoenix SUT even after Phoenix Motorcars' recent shift to battery supply competitor Electrovaya, "has the people, technology and business plan to drive the commercialization of the company's power and energy products, as well as those in life sciences and performance materials."

[Source: Altair on CNNMoney]

Project Better Place has been making lots of headlines with their plan to create a battery swapping and charging infrastructure in different countries. At the recently held Alternative Fuels and Vehicles conference, a panel of representatives from some American electric car makers suggested they would prefer to see a slightly different scenario for the U.S. market. Nay to the whole battery swapping thing, yea to fast-charging stations.

Here are some quotes from the participants as reported by Jennifer Kho of greentechmedia:

• Bryon Bliss of Phoenix Motorcars: "With the ability to do rapid charge, we see that playing more of a role than stations to exchange them." "There are a lot of complications [in exchanging the batteries]."

• Richard Kasper of Chrysler's Global Electric Motorcars said the investment that battery-replacement stations would require would be "very significant."

• Jeff Boyd of Miles Electric Vehicles: "Fast charging is here; it's available. You can put a station at a Starbucks for a cost of $125,000. There's no reason to wait [for something else]."

During the question and answer session after the panel, Dean Taylor, a senior technical scientist at Southern California Edison, brought up a point often raised in debating fast-charging. Specifically, that daytime charging by drivers would add to peak demand as well as put strain on the grid. That was countered by Bryon Bliss who stated that charging stations could pull the electricity from batteries, like those made by Altairnano, which could also be a boon to utilities by helping them with grid stabilization. Click the "read" link to learn more of this interesting discussion. [NOTE: AutoblogGreen's Sebastian Blanco moderated the AFVI panel]

[Source: Greentechmedia]

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This week, at the AFVI Expo, I moderated a panel on the roll-out of electric vehicle products from Miles EV, Phoenix Motorcars and GEM. The representatives were Bryon Bliss, vice president of sales and marketing for Phoenix, Jeff Boyd, COO of Miles, and Richard Kaspar, GEM's president and COO. Oh, and our friend Ed Begley, Jr. was there as well, continuing his relationship with Phoenix.

The purpose of the panel was for each company to present their case not only for EVs but for their particular products. Since these companies all offer vehicles with quite different capabilities and styles, they're not really competitors, and it was a congenial event. Since I expect our readers to be pretty familiar with the vehicle line-ups of these three companies, I won't go into details about them. There were a few things said during the 90 minutes that caught my ear, though, that I think you'll want to hear about.

• The Miles EV offices are in Santa Monica, CA. To commute to work, Boyd drives a prototype of the XS500, Miles' upcoming highway-speed battery-powered sedan. The price target is still $35,000 and deliveries should start in the third quarter of 2009. The sedan will be followed by an electric SUV. I told Boyd that the next time I'm in town, I'll be knocking on the office door, begging for a ride. I mean, it worked for the Roadster.
• Phoenix expects deliveries of its all-electric SUT to start at the end of June (yes, in six weeks). Certification should be finished June 1, Bliss said and the company has orders for 600 vehicles to fill as of today.
• GEM's big news is the addition of new options to the back cargo space of its work trucks. Since GEM vehicles have been selling for over a decade, GEM has had plenty of time to listen to customers and find out what they want/need. New covers and door types are now available, and you can see a list of GEM vehicle options here.

Greentech media was also in the room, and wrote up this account of what happened. Both Miles and GEM had vehicles on the show floor, and I've included galleries of their displays below. The Phoenix photos are from the 2007 AFVI Expo. For those of you keeping score, Zap and Dynasty were nowhere to be found at the Expo this year (unlike last year).

It appears that along with re-engineering the powertrain of their upcoming electric vehicles Phoenix Motor Cars has decided to hedge their battery bet. Phoenix was the first company to commit to using Altairnano's lithium titanate batteries in an automotive applications. However Canadian battery supplier Electrovaya announced the other day that they would be supplying battery packs to Phoenix. The obvious question is what becomes of Altairnano? According to Phoenix Marketing VP Bryon Bliss, the company will be offering packs from multiple suppliers. Both Altairnano and Electrovaya batteries will be sold for the upcoming SUV and sport utility truck. The Altairnano batteries have the advantage of being able to withstand 10 minute rapid charges. Unfortunately they only have about half the energy density of other lithium battery technologies and so far they are also much more expensive. We're still trying to get more clarification on timing and cost differences for the different battery packs and we'll keep you updated.

[Source: Green Car Congress]

In an interesting twist to the saga that is the development of the Phoenix Motorcars electric SUT & SUV program comes news that they are now partnering with a Canadian battery maker. In a press release from that company, Electrovaya says that they are now negotiating an arrangement with Phoenix and have already begun the work of integrating their proprietary Lithium Ion SuperPolymer® battery along with its intelligent battery management system ("iBMS").

Phoenix Motorcars President and CEO, Daniel J. Elliot is quoted by the release as saying, "We are pleased to have Electrovaya join forces with us, and we are excited to be working with their team and their advanced technologies. Electrovaya's innovative Lithium Ion SuperPolymer® battery technology stands apart from its peers as a platform, chemistry agnostic technology. Electrovaya's systems expertise and design experience provide what we need in terms of battery performance." Hmm. That strikes us as possibly being in conflict with a statement made by the CEO a couple months ago in a different press release which can still be found on the Phoenix Motorcars website. And we quote, "We wholeheartedly support Altairnano's technology and believe they provide the greatest product available on the market today." Altairnano being the company that has been trumpeted as the supplier of their battery of choice for some time now, we wonder if a similar fate has befallen them as has their original motor supplier, UQM. Or perhaps Phoenix plans on utilizing the power packs from both companies. We shall try to get the straight dope and let your enquiring minds know but in the mean time go ahead and read the available details in the press release after the break.

After making a pretty big splash in 2006 around the same time that Tesla launched, Phoenix Motorcars has not made all that much noise about their four-door electric pickup, based on a SsangYong design. We enjoyed our drive in the electric SUT last year, and sincerely hope that the company is able to make good use of the Altairnano lithium titanate batteries that seem so promising.


What's Number 11?

The Los Angeles Times has an article taking a look at the the four most prominent California-based electric vehicle start-ups and the difficulties they face. The article touches on Phoenix Motorcars, Zap, Fisker and, of course, Tesla. A lot of what the article covers has already been discussed around these parts on numerous occasions but for those playing catchup, it's a decent primer on the difficulties of creating a new car company. Building any new car that meets modern customer expectations, regulatory requirements and is reliable and durable is an extremely daunting task. All of that needs to happen before you even think about actually making money on the whole deal, which few car companies seem to be able to do. The technical issues of integrating all the powertrain electronics, safety, body and entertainment systems is extremely costly and time consuming but must be done if you expect people to actually big bucks for an electrically-driven car. If you don't accomplish all of that, you may sell a few cars to rich early adopters and enthusiasts, but you won't have a sustainable business. One correction to the article: the author states that Tesla plans to build 1,000 cars this year, that number is closer to 600 and even that may prove to be a stretch.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]

After losing a CEO and then more money than expected in FY07, there's finally a bit of potential good news from Altairnano. The battery company that should be powering the Phoenix SUVs by now has announced (release after the break) an expansion to Altairnano's facility in Anderson, Indiana from 30,000 square feet to 70,000. The reason is "a growing base of potential long-term clients including Phoenix Motorcars and the AES Corporation, among others." Potential? We're ready for some detailed vehicle testing reports, already. While we wait for those, anyone want to speculate about which companies Altairnano's Director of Operations, Dave Lynch, was talking about when he said, "We do have several other automotive companies that we're working with on some ideas for both hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all electric vehicles"?

Several factors hurt Altair Nanotechnologies' fiscal results in FY07: warranty replacement costs and higher research and development expenses have made the company report a wider loss despite higher revenues. $6.78m worth of warranty expenses and inventory impairment were related to the first-generation battery packs that were sold to Phoenix Motor Cars. As for R&D, costs rose to $15.4m compared to $10.1m in 2006.

Altair has lost $31.5 million, which is more than the $17.2 million reported in 2006. On a per share basis, the loss was $0.45, compared to a loss of $0.29 last year.

[Source: RTT News]

Phoenix Motorcars, the company behind the much-anticipated electric SUT with the SsangYong body and Altairnano battery has given their website a fresh look in anticipation of increased traffic. Set to finally begin building their vehicles for fleet customers and take a few retail orders, the company from Ontario, California has rolled out the welcome map with a fresh set of pixels and features.

The feature I was just having fun with was the savings calculator. You tell them the cost of the vehicle you're thinking of buying, it's gas mileage, and a few other variables and POW!, they give you a graph that shows you how long it will take to get some serious return on your investment. If you like the results you can sign up to reserve one of these for yourself.

Bonus video: For a short video of their plant and a bit of a test drive, hit the jump.


[Source: Phoenix Motorcars / YouTube]

According to a press release on Altairnano's web site, Dr. Alan Gotcher has agreed to resign "as an officer of the company." Dr. Gotcher was appointed CEO back in August 2004 and President in March 2005. No reason was given in the release but the language makes it sound like it wasn't his decision. Dr. Terry Copeland, formerly of Millennium Cell, Inc., who was hired on as vice-president in November of last year, will step in as interim president.

For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past of couple years, Altairnano is a company which exploits nanotechnology to create disruptive products and is best known for their fast charging, umpteen-cycle-enduring lithium titanate battery.

Altairnano stock dropped sharply on this news but now appears to be rebounding nicely. Hopefully the company can put this transition behind them quickly and get on with the business of getting their product out of their doors and into our cars, Navy ships, and dragsters. Read the press release for yourself at the jump.

Related:

• AutoblogGreen Q&A: AltairNano CEO Alan Gotcher

One company we haven't been hearing too much from of late is Phoenix Motorcars. They made a pretty big splash in 2006 around the same time that Tesla launched and they've turned up at all the usual conferences and events with prototypes of their electric pickup truck. They grabbed a lot of attention for their plans to use Altairnano's lithium titanate batteries with their potential for 10-minute quick charges.

Subsequently, some doubts began to surface about the viability of the company's business plan due to the high cost of producing their vehicles and the reliance on selling clean air credits to fund operations. When the company launched they said that they would start off by supplying their trucks to fleet customers such as PG&E. We got word from a reader last week that he had received an e-mail from Phoenix indicating they were ready to start taking some orders from retail customers for their sport utility truck and SUV. We decided to call up Phoenix and get the full scoop which you can find after the jump.

There's some interesting financial activity going these days in the electric vehicle realm and it wouldn't be surprising to see some consolidation happen soon. In the past year Phoenix Motorcars and Zap have trailed only the Tesla Roadster and Chevy Volt in attention for battery-propelled vehicles. Unfortunately for both companies (and Tesla) revenues have not been in proportion to press coverage and as we all know building a complete vehicle is not a trivial challenge.

Phoenix has just topped up their bank account with $40 million courtesy of Dubai investor Al Yousuf. Only days earlier, Al Yousuf invested a similar quantity in Altairnano Technologies, the battery supplier to Phoenix and prior to that injected $5 million in Zap. We'll be watching the action here, but it's interesting to see a Middle Eastern Investor buying up chunks of electric vehicle and battery startups.

Update: I misread the original source. The amount invested by Al Yousuf in Phoenix has not been disclosed yet. The investment is in the form of convertible debt .

[Source: Green Car Congress, thanks to Domenick for the tip]

An online Mexican newspaper has announced that Phoenix MotorCars is building a manufacturing plant in the state of Puebla in México. The plant, which is made jointly with Pristine International, will create 1,500 jobs in the area. The plant will be built in a new industrial development area near Huejotzingo's airport. The companies are investing an initial $90 million, but a total of $250 million will be invested in the near future.

Ricardo Lorden, Phoenix's director for México and Latin America said that the plant would produce a car "able to run up to 200 km/h (130 mph), which can be recharged in 10 minutes." Mr. Lorden also envisioned a future network of fast recharging stations powered from different sources of energy, which could make gasoline redundant. We'll see if this plant can help us decipher at all the recent changes in Phoenix's motor of choice for their all-electric SUT.

[Source: Intolerancia Diario]