Detroit Electric, an auto brand once favored by Thomas Edison, is mounting a 21st century comeback with electric cars aimed at U.S. soccer moms and Chinese city dwellers.
The company on Monday is expected to announce a partnership with Malaysian auto manufacturer Proton Holdings to introduce an all-electric sedan next year.
Detroit Electric will offer a compact four-door, based on an existing Proton model, with a range of 180 kilometers (110 miles), for between $24,000 and $26,000. An extended-range option will go 320 kilometers, or about 200 miles, and cost $4,000 to $5,000 more. The company also plans to make a hatchback.
The car will use lithium-polymer batteries supplied by a Korean manufacturer and run on an engine developed by Detroit Electric's Netherlands-based engineering team.
The company will market the cars in China, Europe, and the U.S. as an everyday vehicle, comparable in size and performance to popular gasoline cars, said Albert Lam, the CEO of Detroit Electric and the former CEO at British sports car designer Lotus Engineering.
"In 2007, we adopted the Detroit Electric name and revived it because it brings us in line with the vision and essence of electric driving they had," Lam said on Friday. "We want to produce an affordable, practical pure electric car."
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Detroit Electric's planned all-electric sedan will have a range of 110 miles and a top speed of 110 miles per hour.
(Credit: Detroit Electric)In early part of the 20th century, Detroit Electric was one of a number of electric car manufacturers. These cars drove only about 20 miles per hour and had limited range but were considered suitable for city use and, by some, easier to drive than gasoline cars, which required a manual start.
In 1900, 28 percent of all cars produced were electric, but 20 years later the industry was all but dead, according to Michael Brian Schiffer, author of a history of electric cars in the U.S. The original Detroit Electric went out of business in the 1930s.
A century later, nearly all automakers are developing all-electric or hybrid cars aimed at mainstream buyers, which will start coming out next year.
Detroit Electric, though, is taking a different route than established auto companies, choosing a business model that relies on contract manufacturing and a network of partnerships, according to Lam.
... Read moreIt was good enough for John D. Rockefeller Jr.
To promote itself, Detroit Electric--a new joint venture between Zap and China's Youngman Automotive Group--plan to release a limited number of cars based around the Detroit Electric, an electric car produced by the Anderson Electric Car Co. in the early part of the 20th century.
Anderson produced various models of the Detroit Electric from 1907 to 1939. Customers included Henry Ford and Rockefeller. It was also featured on a stamp. TV host Jay Leno has some of the cars in his collection.
Zap CEO Steve Schneider and Albert Lam, Detroit's CEO.
(Credit: Detroit)When the opportunity came up to buy the brand, Zap and Youngman decided to go for it, said Zap co-founder and CEO Steve Schneider. The reissued car will be based on a model from around 100 years ago.
"For the bride to be, or the bride of many Junes ago, a Detroit Electric," read a company advertisement from decades ago. "No other bridal present means so much, expresses so perfectly all you need to say."
The company advertised quite a bit in Cosmopolitan. During the 1910s, Anderson employed 1,100 people (and not a drunkard, scalawag or reprobate among them!).
Back in 1917, a Detroit Electric cost anywhere from $1,775 to $2,375--in other words, fit for the proletarian or plutocrat. The cars could go 65 miles to 100 miles on a battery charge, but only go at speeds ranging from 6 miles per hour to 25 mph.
Although the company was growing in the 1910s, prices continued to drop on combustion cars, which started to sap sales in the 1920s. The stock market crash of 1929 then took a toll on the company. It lingered through the 1930s before collapsing in 1939.
But it wasn't for lack of enthusiasm.
"The magnificent Detroit Electric is easily the enclosed car sensation of the year," read another ad. Huzzah!
Detroit, in its new incarnation, will start coming out with electric economy cars in 2010.
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