It is a two-year process to build a car from scratch, given that we already have a reliable electric drive system as our foundation.  It is most likely that deliveries will begin sometime in 2016. 

Your place in line to receive your cars depends of two variables:  the first variable is the size of the deposit; the second variable is the time of the deposit.  The larger the deposit, the more it will help us bring the car to market for everyone’s benefit and so we feel they should get the earlier slots.  In each deposit category, the earlier the date of their deposit, the earlier their delivery slot.  

We are also pursuing other avenues of funding – not just deposits.  Deposits will help us get that other funding, which could be in terms of grants, loans, JVs, or other sources of funds.   If after 12 months we do not have sufficient funding, we will automatically refund everyone’s deposits (less the PayPal, Credit Card or other processing fees that are not to exceed 5%).   We don’t see this as occurring.

Deposits over $25 will be housed at Dollar Bank. 

The first sales are the hardest sales and for the people who take that first step, we want to make sure they feel rewarded for being an early pioneer in this effort to revolutionize our transportation system.

Everyone before Roger Bannister who tried to break the 4-minute mile failed.  Everyone before Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay failed to climb Mt. Everest.  And, everyone before Elon Musk, failed to make a profit on building an electric car company from scratch.   Failures are just a prelude to success -- if we learn from them and keep at it.
 

We at Myers Motors believe we can succeed because we are at the happy intersection of many trends that make our success a high probability:

• Long-lived lithium batteries are now available,
• The high cost of this new battery technology is being borne by our Federal and many State governments (to help drive the adoption of EVs, which is helping to increase both volumes and research, which will result in EVs that don’t need subsidies to cost the same as gasoline-powered cars).
  
• Electric vehicle drive technology that was developed before the advent of lithium batteries has already been proven to be reliable and that just keeps getting better, and
•  21st Century technologies that are designed for small volume production (10,000 to 25,000 vehicles per year) and existing automotive suppliers make it possible to build a car to meet the safety regulations on an extremely capital efficient budget.

In addition to all this, Myers Motors is choosing to build its electric car after nine (9) years of learning the business with its three-wheel vehicle known as the NmG (No more Gas).   In addition to learning how to bring to market and produce 10,000+ cars per year on an extremely capital efficient budget, one of our other key learning experiences was developing what one U.S. Department of Energy manager said was, “the lowest cost lithium battery system I’ve ever seen.”   Coupling this with other technology Myers Motors has developed gives it the advantage of having the lowest cost electric drive system in this market. 

Our founder, Dana Myers, ran a family owned electrical transformer business for 15 years that topped out at about 470 employees with over $55 million in revenues – before a Fortune 5 company made him an offer he couldn’t refuse to buy the bulk of the business:  the remaining core business has flourished under the leadership of his brother, Scott, who took over when Dana left to devote his full-time to electric vehicles.  Having started up two divisions from scratch at S. D. Myers Inc., he has also has the start-up experience necessary to make a project like this succeed.  He also recognizes that he needs a team of experienced people in order to make the business a success.  The other key automotive people are only available to potential investors because the list of names reveals how Myers Motors can bring to market a car at a 97% discount to the $1 billion that we normally think it takes to put a car into production. 

One and two seat electric cars with a 60-mile daily range could handle 70% of all our daily driving in terms of range and occupancy.  We believe a mix of one and two seat electric cars that act as 2nd or 3rd household vehicles is what will enable our country to transition to where 40% to 60% of all new cars sold are fully electric cars that can be powered, eventually, solely by natural processes of the sun, wind and waves.   We do see ourselves building a two-occupant car, we just see ourselves building the single occupant car first. 

A Department of Energy study from a few years back stated that our nation’s electrical system could charge about 200 million electric cars to 40 miles range – without adding any electrical generation, transmission, or distribution infrastructure, if all 200 million of these car were charged, overnight, from 120-volt outlets.  Surprisingly, there are only 130 million cars in the U.S. – although there are an additional 100 million SUVs and light trucks.  By building electric cars to fit how we drive, we can drive down the costs of our electric cars and we can use the existing electrical infrastructure without spending $10s of billions.  And because everyone is already familiar with 120-volt outlets – the ones you use to charge your hairdryer or cell phone – charging from 120-volt outlets makes electric vehicles even easier to use.  Sometimes, the best solution is the simplest solution – and purpose-built electric vehicles that conveniently charge, overnight, from standard 120-volt outlets are, arguable, that simple solution that is the best solution in the world of electric vehicles. 

Aren’t you just dragging a coal-burning smokestack with you wherever you go instead of burning oil in an engine?  What’s the environmental difference?   The difference is that raw energy is turned into electric motive power about 3X more efficiently than petroleum is turned into motive power from gasoline.  If we are comparing burning coal to burning gasoline, this 3X greater efficiency of electric generation of power means that more of the energy is being used for power and less is available for use as a waste by-product:  pollution. 

Secondly, the less energy used to move your vehicle, the less waste there is.  Which means, that if you have a purpose-built single passenger electric commuter vehicle that has a smaller frontal area and lower weight, you actually produce less waste than one hybrid electric car.  The electric commuter vehicle in this example gets the equivalent of about 200 mpg while the hybrid gets about 50 mpg.

Thirdly, the above discussion centers around 100% coal derived electricity.  The U.S. doesn’t get 100% of its energy from coal.  The more that alternative sources of energy are used for powering your electric car, the more your EV will pull away from gasoline-powered cars in terms of environmental cleanliness.

If you think of the batteries as the gas tank, electricity as the fuel, an electric motor as the engine, and the controller as the starter/ carburetor, then you have a pretty good understanding of how simple an electric vehicle really is.  To explain a bit further:  when you step on the accelerator, a signal is sent to the device called the “controller” (some call it an “inverter”) telling it you want a certain amount of energy applied to the vehicles’ drive system.  The controller takes that energy out of the battery pack and sends it to the motor, which then applies power to the wheels through mechanical means.  Just like with a gasoline-powered car.

If you are driving a car/truck/SUV that gets 25 mpg, you would have to drive it with 7 people plus yourself in order for you to average 200 mpg per person.  Or, if you had a 50-mpg car, in order to average 200 mpg per person, you would need to always drive it with four people in the vehicle.   Or, you could keep driving like most of us are already driving, that is, with one person in the car:  if that car were a single seat, electric, Myers Motors commuter car, then you could always average around 200 mpg per person in your driving.  Because you fit your car to how you drive.

Another advantage of an electric vehicle is that when the vehicle is not moving, the “engine is not running” and so the only energy you are consuming is the energy to power the accessories (lights, heat, AC, radio, etc.).  This also applies to coasting – the joy from coasting ½ mile or even a mile without using any energy is to experience the ultimate freedom in driving! 

Because you are driving a pretty routine route, it is highly unlikely that you will experience this because you are only going to be driving your electric vehicle where it makes sense.  And if you ignore all the indicators in the vehicle that tell you that you are about to run out of electricity, and you do run out of juice ... try coasting in to someone’s drive and asking them to let you plug in.  Most people are kind enough to help you out – especially knowing that anything you pull out of a wall socket isn’t going to cost them much, even if you don’t offer to pay them $0.10 or $0.20 for their electricity.  

Robert Q. Riley, author, entrepreneur, and vehicle builder, wrote a book called, “Alternative Cars in the 21st Century: A New Personal Transportation Paradigm.”  In this book, page 45, he says,

“Overweight and oversize cars and chronic underutilization of vehicles are the two most wasteful habits affecting the world’s consumption of transportation energy, of which about 95 percent comes from petroleum.  Using vehicles that fit driving patterns would greatly improve vehicle utilization and significantly reduce the energy intensity of personal transportation.”   (emphasis ours)

And another favorite of ours (found on page 42 of the same book) from Bob: 
“On the simplest level, when a 1,600-kg (3,500-lb) machine transports an 80-kg (175-lb) occupant on a local trip to the market, the available energy pie is divided so approximately 95 percent gets the car to the market and the remaining 5 percent gets the occupant there.” 

Do you see a question you have that you need answered?  Feel free to send us an email at information@myersmotors.com. 

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