GreenTech AutomotiveThe MyCar, which is to be produced initially in Mississippi.If a start-up car company’s chances for success were correlated to the enthusiasm of its chief executive, then an electric-vehicle venture led by Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic National Committee chairman, would be a sure thing. It takes more than charisma to attract buyers, though, and while the enterprise in question enjoys support from prominent politicians in the Republican and Democratic parties, it also engenders skepticism from some analysts.
Mr. McAuliffe’s GreenTech Automotive will unveil the two-seat, low-speed, Smart-size MyCar on Friday at a new plant in Mississippi. The event, he said in a telephone interview, would feature a barbecue and an appearance by the former president Bill Clinton, Mr. McAuliffe’s longtime friend.
GreenTech AutomotiveTerry McAuliffe.Mr. McAuliffe is a possible candidate for the Virginia governorship in 2013 — he lost a three-way Democratic primary for the post in 2009 — but he says he has a good reason for choosing to manufacture the MyCar in Mississippi.
“Haley Barbour put the most aggressive package on the table for us,” he said, referencing the state’s former governor, a Republican. “No one else’s offer was even close to Governor Barbour’s. We can disagree on political issues, but this is two people from different parties coming together. He’s been very aggressive in bringing in the carmakers, so now he’s saying, ‘Let’s try an electric.’ It’s a win-win for everybody.”
Toyota and Nissan also operate plants in the state.
In a separate telephone interview, Mr. Barbour said he and Mr. McAuliffe had reached across the aisle before, since both were involved in the opening of the bipartisan Caucus Room restaurant in Washington in 2000. He said GreenTech received an “off-the-shelf package of incentives” to locate its plants in Mississippi. “It’s not about politics,” he said. “It’s about economic development and higher-paying, higher-skilled job creation in my state. We have not, by a long shot, given up on manufacturing in Mississippi.”
Mr. McAuliffe said the venture would employ 900 workers in Mississippi by the end of the year, as well as create many jobs indirectly. With an initial focus on fleet sales and the European market, he says he believes the company can produce 10,000 cars in 2013. GreenTech described its first Mississippi plant, a leased 400,000-square-foot former elevator factory in Horn Lake, as a pilot facility. A second plant, in Tunica, is expected to open in 2013.
Mr. McAuliffe quoted a price of $18,000 for a MyCar with an included lithium-ion battery pack, and $10,000 for the basic car, presuming a battery lease from the company. A version of the car with lead-acid batteries and 51 miles of range will sell in the mid-$15,000 range, according to Marianne McInerney, a GreenTech sales and marketing spokeswoman.
But prices and performance may vary. Chris Anthony, chief executive of Flux Power, said in a telephone interview that his California-based company had worked with GreenTech “for well over a year” on lithium batteries for the car and had developed 7-, 15- and 23-kilowatt-hour packs, the largest of which would give the car more than 100 miles of range. He also said several hundred packs had been delivered to GreenTech.
The MyCar is hardly a slam dunk for Western buyers. It is a neighborhood electric vehicle, or N.E.V., which means it is not allowed on interstates and is legally limited to 25 miles per hour in most states. In a majority of markets, statutes limit the cars to roads with posted top speeds of 35 m.p.h. or lower. Although it was designed by the noted Italian stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro, the MyCar was originally the product of a Hong Kong-based venture bought by Mr. McAuliffe and his partners for $20 million in 2010.
Mr. McAuliffe said in May that an early MyCar produced in Mississippi was delivered to Denmark, where the company has a relationship with an electric car distributor, Greenabout A/S. Last year, GreenTech said Greenabout would “purchase a sizeble percentage of production through 2014.”
GreenTech is also building a factory in China to produce cars for that market. According to Mr. McAuliffe, he negotiated a contract requiring that core components for those vehicles be built at the plants in Mississippi. “The powertrain and guts of the car will be made in the United States,” he said. “If we allow one more technology to escape overseas, shame on us.”
There’s some skepticism over the market for speed-limited cars. “It’s a niche vehicle, and historically niche vehicles haven’t done particularly well,” Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst at Edmunds.com, said in a telephone interview. She also noted that pricing for the soon-to-be-delivered Chevrolet Spark minicar would start at about $13,000, “and you can take it on the highway.”
But Jay Friedland, legislative director of the advocacy group Plug In America, was more supportive. “It makes sense in some ways,” he wrote in an e-mail. “The export market for these, as medium-speed vehicles, is pretty good. There is also a big market for neighborhood vehicles in Florida.” He described annual sales of 5,000 to 10,000 N.E.V.’s as “probably doable.” Anything beyond that, however, “is dreaming,” he said.
