A Manhattan-based big thinker has innovative ideas about the future of plug-in hybrid electric cars.
In a Duane Street office marked by Back-to-the- Futuresque logo- emblazoned pillars, Malcolm Bricklin, entrepreneur and car man, had four model cars displayed on a massive table (surrounded by giant chairs whose backs are famous New York skyscrapers, including the World Trade Center at the head): two small models of the Bricklin SV-1, a sports car with gull-wing doors -- think De Lorean -- manufactured in the 1970s in small numbers; and two 1/4-size models of the Bricklin EVX/LS Luxury Sedan (below).
The EVX/LS is the car he's entering for the Automotive X Prize, the contest that promises "major publicity and a big sack of cash" to anybody who can come up with a 100 mile per gallon car that can be mass-produced in a way that is financially viable. That's tough to do when, as Bricklin points out, the innards of electric cars change as frequently as new technology comes out.
That's also why he's struck a deal with Electrovaya, a Canadian battery company that he thinks can keep up with the changes. Furthermore, it's why he wants to open 250 electric car dealerships in a few years, selling cars he manufactures in addition to those manufactured by other forward thinkers willing to build their cars around his batteries. The idea is that if they all have the same guts, and if dealerships featuring those guts are simultaneously launched all around the country in large numbers, they can make electric cars viable and cheap.
Perhaps the most striking thing about hearing Bricklin talk at length about his plans for plug-in hybrid electric cars is that he doesn't talk about the environment until prompted. "Am I an environmentalist?" he asks rhetorically. "I have run my life as though I am, but it's not what drives me." He's a car man. Has been for some time.
