Green Vehicles Stalled

Salinas' first electric cars to roll off assembly lines this summer...

Monday, April 19, 2010

That's the best hope of Green Vehicles' Mike Ryan, who says by January 2011, the company should be on pace to assemble 2,000 electric cars a year in Salinas.

The manufacturing is contingent on a major grant from the state's energy commission, which Ryan says is likely to come through in July. Ryan also hopes private investors will join the city of Salinas, which has thrown in $600,000 in federal grant funds. Mayor Dennis Donohue says he thinks it will prove to be money well spent.

"We think it's the right type of calculated risk. It's a chance for Monterey County to be connected to the fact that the future of the automotive industry might be in California, on the Central Coast," Donohue says, adding that automotive technology will bring other technical innovation to Salinas.

The company has hired four Salinas workers—all of whom are temporarily commuting to Gilroy until the grant comes through and manufacturing ramps up at the old Firestone plant in Salinas.

Mayor Donohue did a trial run in one of the company's cars, a three wheeled Triac, at a Monday April 19 news conference.

"I did a test drive and burned out the clutch," Donohue says. No, it wasn't that bad, says Ryan, rushing to the mayor's defense.