EV Innovations – Their logo looks like EVil doen’t it?

Back in June of 2008 I decided to purchase an electric car. I find new technology really exciting and I knew if I wanted to learn fully about the nuances of electric cars I had to purchase one. The Tesla was just coming out of the gate and my friend, Jay Adelson, purchased one but I thought it would be interesting to have a vehicle that’s more down-to-earth and something I could use as an every day car. I wrote this blog to protect other people from making the same bad decision I made. Please understand that this experience is not an epidemic with all electric vehicles, it just happens to be my experience with this particular company.

I found a company called EV Innovations (whom just changed their name to Li-Ion Motor Corporation and was formally known as Hybrid Technologies). They convert (or as they would say “build”) standard gas-powered PT Cruisers into fully electric vehicles. This made sense for my needs.

My wife at the time was driving a PT that we bought from my late grandmother, it’s a pretty gutless car which has no sex appeal whatsoever, but it worked for us. It reminded me of my grandmother and is also a car I could drive into San Francisco and not really worry about theft or vandalism.

EV Innovations advertised their converted PT Cruisers as getting a distance of 120+ miles per charge with a charging time of 8 hours. Based on those specifications I could drive to the Sierra Foothills and commute to the Bay Area carbon free.

I did some research and found out EV Innovations at the time was testing their PT conversion as an EV Taxi in New York (which later ended in failure). They sold two cars to a company in Sacramento and the company was also featured on the Discovery Channel’s program Modern Marvels.

I also liked the idea of supporting a startup, I myself enjoy starting companies. Purchasing a car from an American based startup felt right. I know that if something was wrong with one of my customers, I would do anything under my power to make it right. Naively I assumed this was also true for EV Innovations.

I spent time asking EV Innovations a lot of questions about charging, regenerative breaking, cell types, and their engineering philosophy. Their sales people Kelli Cerven and Mike Cerven were very helpful. I decided to move forward and paid the deposit for half of the car, which was used to purchase a new PT with my specification. The car was to be ready in 90 days. Unfortunately, it ended up shipping in 120+ days. But things started to go wrong much before the car was delivered. It turns out the “new car” I paid for was in fact a demo car that already had 4,000 miles on it. In addition, they told me the car was ready to ship a month before it was actually finished. They asked for the balance so they could ship the car. I wired the remaining balance of the car only to find out later the car was not ready.

My Electric Lemon being converted from ICE to EV.

My first moments with the Li-Ion Motors (formally EV Innovations) lemon.

After all was said and done, three months after the promised delivery date, the vehicle was finally shipped, and yes, it was dead on arrival. The truck driver that delivered it didn’t even have a ramp on his truck, so we used the loading dock at a local grocery store where I was visiting family for Christmas in the Sierra Foothills. The truck driver pushed the car off the truck and drove away. I had it towed back to the garage at my family’s home and plugged it in but it would not charge. I immediately contacted EV Innovations and they instructed me to plug it into a 220V outlet and informed me that it cannot charge from empty on a 110V outlet. That seemed obnoxious, but I did as instructed and found a 220V line and plugged it in. It slowly charged to full.

The first drive made it about 50 miles (downhill) before we had to have it towed the rest of the way home to the Bay Area. The car was to do 120+ miles and their sales people suggested the “+” would be impressive.

EV Innovations asked me to do a number of things with the car, which eventually resuted in the car’s charging connector to melt and nearly catching on fire (Later they had to install a relay to prevent some sort of voltage issue which caused the problem).

After I reported the smoking plug to EV Innovations, I received this email::

From: “Luc Pham”
Date: December 29, 2008 3:58:14 PM PST
Subject: Charging
Mr. Lyon,
Please stop charging the car for until we replace the bad cell.
Please open up the emergency switch (EPO).

From there, it sat in the garage inoperable for months while EV Innovations figured out what to do. Eventually they sent people to work on the car; they replaced the lithium cells, re-wired parts of the car, etc. I had them sign work orders to prove that they were there. In all fairness, Luc was a very nice guy and he wanted the car to work. He apologized for the awful things his management has done.

Luc Pham, EV Innovations intern working on the car.

I demanded a refund on the car but they ignored my requests. I followed up by sending their CEO and board of directors a certified letter demanding them to repurchase the car based on the Song Beverly Act (California Lemon Law), again they refused to respond.

Eventually, they asked me to ship the car back to North Carolina so they could attempt to jam more batteries into the vehicle, change the power steering system, and perform various upgrades to improve the issues I have been experiencing.

I contemplated this option but with all the bad experiences I had with the company, I did not fully trust them. So I suggested that if I were to send the car back, perhaps they could provide me with my deposit back as a gesture of good will and integrity on their part. They of course refused saying this was “warranty” work and in no way was the car being sent back due to any fault of the company. I was at a loss.

At this point the car would go about 70 miles on a 10 to 20 hour charge (depending on voltage/amperage).

I was able to drive it between my office and home for a month until the driver side wheel nearly fell off because the bearings were incorrectly packed. That was it for me.

I demanded a refund, I demanded them to take care of this problem the way any decent company would. I called Tom Zgoda their “Plant Manager” and asked them to do this right. He said I was driving the car wrong and that it’s all my fault and hung-up on me. I then pressed him via email and he said said:

“It is our position that we have been diligent in addressing the warranty on your vehicle. I guess since you disagree with that, it will be up to the courts to make a final determination.”

I hired Mark Anderson, a lawyer who specializes in Lemon Law cases and set out to do exactly what he suggested. I filed suit.

My lawyer and I hired a superstar electrical engineering expert named Art MacCarley, Ph.D., PE., who happens to be the Department Chair of the Electrical Engineering department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Dr. MacCarley drove to my house and spent the entire day meticulously going through the car. Later he wrote:

“I determined that the converted vehicle may best be characterized as an engineering prototype or work-in-progress conversion, containing multiple deficiencies and defects introduced by the modification to battery-electric propulsion. These deficiencies and defects affect vehicle function, features and safety, and could be expected to limit reliability. Overall, the subject vehicle fails to meet the manufacturer’s representations and reasonable owner expectations of engineering quality.”

Art put it very politely, but basically he was saying that college students could have built this car better than EV Innovations. Attached to this article is the full report written by Dr. MacCarley.

There were spliced wires exposed to the undercarriage of the vehicle. In some cases it appeared that EV Innovations used the wrong gauge wire for high voltage lines and to top it off, and the power steering was powered by what looks to be a Briggs and Stratton electric lawn mower motor!

Excerpt from Dr. MacCarley’s report.

Excerpt from Dr. MacCarley’s report.

After we sent EV Innovations the report (I ended up paying to help EV Innovations understand why their cars are not safe) they asked to settle for less than I paid for the car. Minus the legal fees, I ended up with a loss. It was not the best outcome but at least the car would be out of my hair and I would never have to talk with the people at EV again. However, the “settlement” ended up being a delay tactic. They changed the terms of the settlement, never paid, never finalized the paperwork, did not return calls or emails as they promised, said we had been “overly aggressive” and said this is going into a “holding pattern”.

In their SEC filings from December 8th, 2009 they wrote:

“Barrett Lyon, an individual, has filed suit against the Company in the Superior Court of California, San Mateo County, for alleged breach of warranty for a vehicle he purchased from the Company seeking $68,222 in damages, plus attorney’s fees estimated in the range of $10,000 to $30,000. The Company has entered into a settlement agreement with Mr. Lyon.”

However, by December 8th, 2009 we did not have a settlement agreement and we were preparing to file a motion to continue the case and re-set a trial date. Prior to December 8th, they stopped responding to us and started to delay and break promises. Their statement in their SEC filings was very misleading to any shareholders of EV Innovations.

Today, the car sits in my garage. While very disappointing, I learned a lot during this year and a half long experience.

EV Innovations/Li-Ion Motors is in my opinion a criminal operation operated by people more interested in taking money from shareholders than building a real electric car.

There are plenty of amazing electric car companies out there such as Tesla, Fisker, and soon the big auto manufactures. Maybe in 3 to 5 years I will take another look at electric cars as a serious mode of transpiration but until then, hopefully morons like EV Innovations do not create a bad name for electric vehicles.

A detailed report on my car and the failure of EV Innovation’s design written by Art MacCarley.

Other EV Innovations a.k.a. Hybrid Technologies related links:

Hybrid Technologies is involved in illegal junk faxes

Hybrid Technologies And The Missing Fritos

Is Hybrid Technologies legitimate?

EV Innovations Stock Holders Screwed!

A hilarious CNET Review of EV Innovations.

UPDATE #1: Two days ago they changed their name from EV Innovations to Li-Ion Motor Corporation. I’m guessing this is to avoid bad press?

UPDATE #2: 1/4/2010 EV Innovations/Li-Ion Motors lawyer responds to my lawyer:

On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Scott Meehan wrote:
Dear Mr. Anderson:

My client was not amused by the false and defamatory comments made by your client. I hereby demand that your client take down the subject entry and CEASE AND DESIST any further dissemination of the blog entry. We will be filing libel actions against Mr. Lyon and Dr. MacCarley. Will you accept service on behalf of Mr. Lyon and/or Dr. MacCarley?

Scott Meehan

UPDATE #3: 2/16/2010 Li-Ion Motors lawyer responds and demands I take down the blog:

The letter accuses me of staying that EV Innovations/Li-Ion Motors has refused to do the repairs, which is not the case at all. Read the blog and you will see that I am stating the facts of the case and my opinion. I actually highlight the fact that they have offered to take the car back to rebuild it to the standards I was expecting over a year ago. However, adding more batteries so it can achieve the driving distance that it was to reach from day one coupled with my past experience with them, just seems like a losing proposition. Given the absolute nightmare and consistent problems I have experienced, not to mention the fraudulent sales representations, I think they should buy the car back. In my opinion, if they were good honest people, they should buy the car back and learn from this experience.

Here is the letter they just sent: