Burbank OKs $110,000 to Boost Electric Car Industry : Business: The loan is a crucial step for the firm seeking to turn aerospace resources into a new venture.
The Burbank City Council has approved a $110,000 loan to fix up an abandoned Lockheed building to serve as the headquarters of a consortium that hopes to found an electric car industry on the resources of the troubled aerospace business.
The council, sitting as the city’s Redevelopment Agency, on Tuesday unanimously approved the loan for Calstart, a group of private companies headed by Amerigon, a Monrovia electric vehicle firm that is coordinating efforts to build a prototype high-tech electric car.
The loan was seen as a pivotal step for Calstart, which is seeking $20 million to $25 million in federal and state funding to develop parts and prototypes for the ambitious project, officials said.
Mayor Michael R. Hastings had said earlier that without the initial financial support from local government, the dream of establishing an electric car industry in Burbank would collapse.
“I’m very pleased,” Hastings said Wednesday. “I think we will now become the magnet for advanced technology for alternative vehicles. This could be the start of the Silicon Valley for electric cars, with Burbank as the hub.”
City officials said the vacant 65,000-square-foot Lockheed building, at the northwest corner of Hollywood Way and Empire Avenue, is in need of significant structural and electrical repairs to comply with city building codes.
Lockheed has agreed to lease the building to Calstart rent-free for two years.
Under the loan agreement, the Redevelopment Agency will lend Calstart $110,000 to improve the building and set up the operation. It is due to be repaid by Aug. 1, 1996.
The agreement also stipulates that the loan will be forgiven at a rate of $30,000 for each year Calstart remains in Burbank as an “active promoter of electric vehicle technology.”
The agreement says that the city will not make the loan until Calstart secures additional funding from the Southern California Air Quality Management District and Southern California Edison, which are still considering loan requests.
Federal, state and local officials are hoping to use idle aerospace workers and plants, especially the big Lockheed factory, for the electric car effort. Such a project would be the first of its kind in the country, officials have said.
However, the Calstart proposal is still in its early stages and must compete with other projects for federal funds.
In addition, scientists, government planners and commercial firms have all cautioned in the past that an electric car industry would face obstacles. The battery-powered vehicles have serious drawbacks at the present level of technology, including limited range, slow acceleration and a high initial cost of converting gasoline-powered vehicles.
Calstart has won the endorsement of Southern California Edison and researchers from UCLA, and has been praised in the recommendations of the Los Angeles County Aerospace Task Force as a means of giving Southern California an edge in the budding alternative-power car industry.
