Electric Co-op Today

He’s not Henry Ford, but Kevin Smith is nevertheless an automotive visionary. And that vision could net Smith and his teammates $5 million.

Illuminati Motor Works’ electric car “Seven” on the track at the Michigan International Speedway. (Photo By: Jen Danzinger)

Smith is the founder of Illuminati Motor Works, one of the teams competing for the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. It’s a contest to design and build real cars that could be mass produced and that consumers will want. The focus is on safety, efficiency and affordability.

In the case of Illuminati, it’s also a co-op affair. Smith is a member of Rural Electric Convenience Cooperative, Auburn, Ill. His wife, Jen Danzinger, is a graphic designer for the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives, Springfield.

UNIQUE CAR

Illuminati’s entry, named “Seven,” is an electric car that Smith and his team have been working on since 2007 in his garage near Divernon, Ill. But it doesn’t look like the Chevrolet Volt or even a converted Toyota Prius; in fact, it’s anything but off an assembly line.

“We take a lot of different parts off of different cars,” Smith told ECT.coop in a phone interview. “We went to the boneyard and we got two front ends out of late 1990s [Dodge] Neons.” On eBay the team found a four-wheel steering system from a Honda Prelude.

The doors look like something off a DeLorean, opening up, rather than out. “We were going to have Lamborghini scissor doors—the back ones open back, the front ones open forward,” Smith said. “The problem is they didn’t look right and you couldn’t get in and out of the car.”

Ninety-six lithium iron phosphate batteries power the car, which takes 10 hours to fully charge in a standard 120-volt outlet. “It can go about 400 miles, based on our best information right now,” Smith said. “Our calculations come out closer to 500 but we’re real skeptical about that.”

At the moment Smith called the car a work in progress. “We take it out for a short trip and say, ‘OK, that works. Now let’s get it back in and keep working on the hood.’ Or, ‘OK, that didn’t work. We need to change the shocks.’”

A chemical engineer at the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Smith has been interested in alternative fuel vehicles since high school. His decision to attend the University of Illinois-Chicago some 20 years ago came in part because it had a solar car project at the time. Read more

Tags: Co-op News, Electric Vehicles