George Parker has come to understand something about Canada. We’re not car people. Hockey, maybe. Curling, no doubt. Cars – beautiful, exotic high-performance models that stretch the bounds of technology – not so much.
Even if it’s an exotic, hybrid model that sips only .85 litres of gasoline for every 100 kilometres it rolls down the highway, and does zero to 100 kilometres an hour in five seconds, a model that almost won the Automotive X Prize competition for fuel efficiency and was developed by a bunch of Maple Ridge guys.
Future Vehicle Technologies has been in newspapers, in car shows, the subject of a Discovery channel documentary – and even got on the front page of Popular Mechanics.
But in the seven years since the eVaro moved from Parker’s childhood dream to a physical entity, no one has stepped up with a bag of money, about $10 million or so, to move it from prototype to production.
“Canada doesn’t have that many people who care to invest in cars,” Parker explains.
“If we were in the United States, we’d be well into production right now.
“Here, people have different thought processes. What I’ve noticed is that investors in Canada are more interested in how much and how long,” to wait for a return on investment.
So Parker and his crew have moved on. Actually, they have moved underground.
It’s now designing and building electric drive systems for mining vehicles.
The three eVaros are still in the shop but are now covered by with shop materials and tools and are now used as test vehicles for new technologies that FVT and its university partners develop.
“The car is kind of a learning tool,” said Brad Zimmerman, one of the technical team members who’s turning the research into reality.
“It’s what gave us the education and allows us to do what we’re doing now. We couldn’t have done it without the car.”
FVT is now fulfilling a major contract with a mining equipment company that has a deadline of the middle of next month. It’s a big contract, one that has that company supplying electric drive components to underground crew carriers and equipment vehicles that yields far more profit margin than the unforgiving automotive world.
“They haven’t been able to buy an electric vehicle that works underground yet,” says Parker.
“They just haven’t been able to deliver the battery packs for them, they even try using long extension cords to power vehicles but that doesn’t work,” Zimmerman said.
FVT is only one of a few companies in-depth knowledge of all the components needed to electrify vehicles.
“All they want to do is go to a company, and say ‘here’s our vehicle, make it electric, and take it back,’” said Zimmerman.
With changes in mine standards, FVT may have all the work it can handle. The World Health Organization recently categorized diesel emissions equivalent to asbestos as a cancer threat, Zimmerman said.
As a result, companies worldwide are trying to replace at least the smaller diesel vehicles with electrically powered ones.
“So there’s kind of a big push. Flat out.
“Were solving a huge problem for these guys.”
That doesn’t mean the crew of nine are planning their retirement homes on the French Riviera.
But as of last June, the company started turning a profit.
It’s not easy still. “Right now, it’s like treading water with a brick in your hand,” adds Parker.
“Are we printing money? No,” said Zimmerman.
“But we are surviving.”
That survival (the company recently relocated from Maple Meadows Business Park to two anonymous hangars in Pitt Meadows Regional Airport) hasn’t all been by wits and determination alone, although that figures large in FVT DNA.
Thanks to grants and incentives from the federal government’s National Research Council, FVT leveraged investment money and kept its doors open for seven years before money started rolling in.
Partnerships with UFV, SFU, UBC and UVic provide the research talent which FVT then develops in its shop.
Some of the company’s labour force comes from the grad students working on new technologies.
“It’s a brilliant program,” Zimmerman said.
“Government will give a lot of money to university, they won’t give it to us.”
Even when the company is in the position to ramp up its production and hire people, the government will help out by subsidizing wages for a period, all with the goal of creating jobs.
In the time it’s taken to grow to profitability, many other U.S. companies faltered.
“We couldn’t have done this in any other country.
“It’s the only reason we survived,” says a grateful Zimmerman.
Ian Hand, director of SFU’s Innovation Office, which tries to grow young companies, said Future Vehicles did the right thing by abandoning its automotive dream and seizing an opportunity elsewhere.
That’s called a pivot, he said.
“It’s an emerging success story,” said Hand. The company is extending its financing by leveraging private investment with government support. Hand said the Canadian government offers good federal support in the form of tax incentives for startup companies, that are needed in this country because there isn’t the amount of risk capital, compared to the U.S.
Canadian companies also have to focus on international markets because of the small size of the domestic market. “The good news is that Canadians are quite good at this.”
“It’s a good thing. It’s strategic policy in action.”
“It’s an excellent example of determination and pivoting.”
Meanwhile the cars sit, hidden in the sheds, covered and surrounded by a bunch of testing equipment, consigned to serve as lab rats for the latest ideas by the mad scientists forever tinkering with electric power.
And Parker, the founder of the company, finds himself increasingly watching from the sidelines, yet still with dreams for his eVaro that he designed on a napkin 30 years ago.
“In Italy and places like that, our car would be a top seller. They’re car people, in England and Europe.”
“The car will sell, I don’t need anybody to convince me.”
“The more time goes by, the more I realize we’re so far ahead of everybody.”