Rich Sajdak for Amp Electric VehiclesPictured on Wednesday, from left to right, Steve Burns, Amp Chairman and co-founder; Gisli Gislason, Northern Lights energy Chairman and chief executive; Jim Taylor, Amp chief executive; and Sturla Sighvatsson, Director of the Northern Lights energy.Like Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla Motors, learned during the filming of "Revenge of the Electric Car", is the development of a et seq. of the ground up a priceless exercise. Amp electric vehicles, an Ohio company that the guts of combustion engines passenger cars removes and replaces them with electric motors, says that it is a more feasible way to et seq. of on the road, even if the roads are almost an ocean away.
On Wednesday morning at his showroom and production complex in Cincinnati Amp executives handed the keys of an electric Mercedes-Benz ML 350 at the company's latest and greatest client, Gisli Gislason, President and chief executive of Northern Lights energy, a utility in Iceland. The luxury s.u.v. is the first vehicle to be produced in a five-year contract between the two companies, during which Amp expects to send 1000 et seq. of the island nation.
Amp has transposed only General Motors passenger cars, mainly depending on the Chevrolet Equinox crossover if the donor vehicle. Of the ML proportions are similar to that of the Equinox, which in the conversion, especially for the company 900-pound battery unit helped.
"We retain a split battery pack to keep the weight balance is roughly equal to the original manufacturer's specification," said Steve Burns, President and co-founder of Amp, in a telephone interview. "We can even the center of gravity a bit to give it better handling reduce."
The worldwide distribution of the ML was also a consideration for Amp. It is a car of the world, so it all European and American crash safety tests passed, "he said. "That's it for part of our approach; We should not worry about developing a defroster or a wiper. "
Amp is not committing exclusively to the ML as its future platform, nor to lock a contract with a battery supplier (Mr. Burns refused to the current supplier of the batteries). This is a benefit of the company business model, said Mr. Burns. "We have a five-year contract, so you can imagine what batteries during that time will do," he said. "We try to be battery agnostic."
Mr. Burns estimates that the ML 100 miles on a charge in pure highway driving, which compares favorably with the estimated range of the Nissan leaf, despite the ML with a weight of almost 2000 pounds must travel more than the pure electric Nissan.
Although mainly electricity provider of Northern Lights will function as a distribution channel of the Amp vehicles. Mr. Gislason works to secure orders from businesses, municipalities and individual buyers in Iceland, which, according to Mr. Gislason, easy to quarry.
"Gasoline is about $ 8 per gallon right now, and Iceland has low import duties on et seq. of," he said in a telephone interview. "A Mercedes s.u.v. would, in fact, to import the same price, plus you would have to purchase gas. For us it is a no brainer. "
Iceland also generates much of its electricity through hydro-electric and geothermal sources, thereby reducing the cost-benefit analysis of E.V. operation, he said.
The tool for the agreement with Amp is not exclusive, so that Northern Lights partners with other manufacturers E.V. conceivably could be. However, the Lord Gislason don't expect rapid action. "Amp can deliver our cars. Today, she gave us a real car. We are not told by a large manufacturer, ' Oh, there's a delay. We get them now. "
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