Darrell Smith, Connersville News-Examiner
Reporter
Not only is the Carbon Motors E7 law enforcement vehicle a new concept, the company itself has new concepts in how to do business.
While a business is typically tight-lipped about its site selection process when considering prospective communities, Carbon Motors has been up front since it announced the five final states in the running for the company on March 3.
Company co-founder and Sales Development Director Stacy Stephens said Wednesday at the Indiana Statehouse that the decision to go public was made in part so the public would know what was happening.
"Everyone is so used to companies going behind closed doors and not disclosing what was going on," he explained. "We wanted to do things differently. We're at a time in our country when everyone is clamoring for jobs, the economy is doom and gloom right now. This made it to where we could not only have a conversation with the government but also with the private sector to work together at the actual problems at hand.
"The public needs to know what's going on and you can't do that behind closed doors and really have an effective collaboration between all the different sectors that need to know what's going on."
Unlike other police cars, used E7 vehicles will not become available to civilians, Carbon Motors Chairman and CEO William Li assured Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Wednesday.
Li showed Daniels features of the vehicle, including the "Lee Hamilton Duct," named after the retired Indiana congressman who once served Fayette County. Hamilton was a member of the Sept. 11 Commission.
The duct takes in air and on-board equipment then analyzes it for biological, chemical and radiation contaminants with the results displayed both on the computer screen but by audio warning, he said.
The car itself had to be built from the ground up because there was no model to follow, according to Carbon Chief Production Manager Alan Bratt during Tuesday's Carbon Motors Day at the vacant Visteon plant.
He said the design process started with a digital concept that police officials loved.
When the clay model was built, it was "awful," he said. A number of changes were made, including a change in the door that likely will not be noticed, and to the windshield and grill, which made the whole car more attractive without changing the functionality of the car, he said.
The prototype vehicle was very expensive to construct - in the millions of dollars - because many pieces had to be hand-made, Bratt said. While the prototype was expensive, when the company starts purchasing parts for 50,000 vehicles, the cost will become competitive.
"If we're not competitive, we won't be in business," he said. "We'd be foolish to get this far and not be competitive."
The design includes emergency lights mounted in the body to make the car more slippery without having the "canoe" on top, Bratt said.
The car has been promoted as having a life expectancy of 250,000 miles, double or more of the current service life of "adapted" law enforcement vehicles.
There are a lot of innovations in the E7 that will allow the company to produce it competitively, officials say. The exterior will be thermal plastic that makes a lot of difference in terms of weight and "repairability," he said.
"We design it around the parameter of 250,000 miles, so we design it for longevity, and gain more out of suspension," he said. "We won't have the problem of rust with the plastics and aluminum. There will be parts that have to be replaced as part of normal service, brake pads for instance.
"The things that go wrong in cars are the things that get used regularly like hinges and locks. We make them much more robust."
He also explained that the life of the car is based on law enforcement usage, which is much more severe than the normal driver usage.
"Some are actually light duty," he said. "Boston is about 5 square miles with 5,000 miles a year driving around the block, but in California, with the car in use 24/7 and no take-home policy, they get used about 90,000 miles [a year]. It comes in, gets gassed and goes back out."
Idling, which police do quite often in the course of a shift, is very hard on vehicles, especially gasoline engines, Bratt said.
The new diesel engine being developed for the E7 will not only idle without damage to the engine, it will be much more fuel efficient at an idle, he said.
"In Europe, 60 percent [of cars] are diesel," he said. "The diesels we knew in America 20 or 30 years ago really gave diesels a bad name. You'd be amazed by the quality of performance of this engine and even the sound, you can hardly tell it's a diesel, and diesel gives more longevity."
On Feb. 17, two company officials arrived in Connersville to look at green space for a new factory building built to design but that plan changed after seeing a video of the former Visteon plant.
Bratt said the Visteon building would be a good place to set up shop, but that it is not the design the company officials had in mind.
"This was built in the '50s and designed around industrialized architecture of the time," he said. "It is an expensive building to maintain. I'm sure we can make it work, we're adaptable and flexible enough that even if we don't use it in the long term, certainly, if we were to start life in Connersville, we could use this. I've adapted plants all over the world in jobs I've had."
During Wednesday's visit to the Statehouse, Daniels reminded the Carbon officials of Connersville's proud manufacturing heritage, at one time the manufacturing capital of the world per capita, and said it will be again with a company like Carbon.
He said he had talked to former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, who serves on the company's advisory committee, about the project after reading about it.
"I told them, 'I know a great place, Indiana has a lot of places, but I sure know a great one,'" Daniels said. "I've been trying to mention Connersville and that part of Indiana to people for a long time."
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