Singaporean picks up US$1.34m in bookings for his yet-to-be-built vehicle
Christopher Tan, The Straits Times 12 Jan 09;
BUDDING entrepreneur Lim Kian Wee, 36, believes he can build a petrol-electric hybrid car that will travel 40km on each litre of petrol - a third of what an average family car needs for the distance.
He has found several strangers who believe he can do it.
With no factory, no funding - other than the US$250,000 (S$370,700) he raised - and no car in sight, the Malaysia-born Singapore citizen already has 16 bookings for his yet-to-be-built vehicle.
The US$1.34 million in orders, picked up at roadshows in the United States late last year, are for 14 cars and two trucks.
They will be plug-in hybrids which, besides running on petrol, have batteries that are recharged by running the engine or via a home electrical socket.
Mr Lim claims his vehicles will be able to cruise for about 100km on battery power alone - four times what current petrol-electric hybrids can offer.
On battery and petrol, he expects the vehicle to have a range of 960km, thrice the range of today's hybrid cars.
The industrial engineering graduate is confident of delivering the first cars from next year, and a fully electric model by 2012. He is so confident that he quit his $200,000 job with Chartered Semiconductor last January, sold his house and staked his savings on his dream.
He said: 'This may sound like Jamaicans taking part in the Winter Olympics, but I believe each of us has something important to do on earth - mine is to help build one of the best and most affordable electric cars in the world.'
With a business associate, he has set up AmpleMotion, which has offices here and in California. AmpleMotion has tied up with Efficient Dynamics Inc, a US firm founded by Mr Andrew Frank, a pioneer of hybrid technology.
Mr Lim claimed his cars will have better technologies than mass-produced hybrids, including a patented highly efficient transmission and a powerful lithium-ion battery pack.
Instead of taking the conventional route - setting up a plant and running up huge overheads - he will produce his cars by contract manufacturing, that is, sub-contracting the building to a third party, likely an established carmaker.
He said: 'There is no need to duplicate resources. During these difficult times, it is the best time to approach the car manufacturers.'
He became sold on contract manufacturing during his years in the electronics industry. At Chartered Semiconductor, he invented processes to improve efficiency and output and has three patents pending in that area.
AmpleMotion is now raising funds. Mr Lim's target is raise over US$40million in two years, but he is looking to get to the US$3 million mark first.
He said some individuals and South-east Asian firms have expressed in-principle interest in backing him.
To whip up interest, he has been conducting test drives in an electric Toyota RAV4.
He said: 'Singapore has a role to play here. We can easily become the global benchmark of transportation evolution. The electronics and semiconductor industries here were once new. Now, we are a benchmark to many.'
Others with electric dreams
Straits Times 12 Jan 09;
SINGAPORE'S quest to go electric dates back several years.
Government and government-linked entities such as the Economic Development Board, National Science and Technology Board, Singapore Power and the Ministry of Trade and Industry's International Advisory Panel have been exploring the feasibility of electric vehicles here since the early 1990s.
Private parties here have also tried to put electric vehicles on the road. They include local battery-maker GP Batteries, which tested a fleet of Suzukis modified to run on batteries in the 1990s, and home-grown Green Fuel Resources, which converted a 19-seater bus to run on batteries in 1998.
A few individuals also had electric dreams. Systems engineer John Kua, 53, left a job at ST Kinetics and sank $250,000 into a project to build a cheap and efficient electric motor in 2005. He has since put the venture on hold and joined the Agency for Science, Technology and Research as a researcher.
Last July, polytechnic graduate Clarence Tan (below), 25, announced he would make the 'world's cheapest electric car'. But he has slapped a price tag of $1.8million or more for the first cars, which will come with shares in his Green Car Co.
The dreams have, thus far, not taken off. Car giants General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor dabbled in electric cars a decade ago, but pulled the plug on their projects because of reliability issues and low demand.
But efforts to build such cars have picked up with new fervour, with oil prices hitting record levels last year. Companies like Nissan, Toyota, Honda and GM have announced that they will roll out electric models from as early as next year.
CHRISTOPHER TAN
