Ben started tinkering with cars when he got into high school. When he enrolled at Georgia Tech for Mechanical Engineering (with a minor in Chemistry), his interest grafted towards electric cars. He participated in making a solar vehicle and modifying a Camaro to be a hybrid. Then he took it to the next level and made a tube-chassis hybrid car from scratch using a V-Twin engine, a forklift AC motor, a snowmobile CVT transmission, and batteries from a Smart Car.
Ben kept bumping into Kevin Patrick of Exomotive at car shows around Atlanta. They got to talking and decided to team up to produce the Electrocet. It’s an electric version of the Exocet using driveline components from a Tesla Model S. To get the company going, Ben applied to an incubator at Georgia Tech and they decided to invest in Eddy Motorworks. They have created a teaser video that you can watch here.
Their business model is to assemble the Electrocet’s and sell to customers as well as doing electric car conversions to conventional vehicles. They have been chosen as a semifinalist in the 2017 SEMA Launch Pad Competition. If they make it to the finals, they get to pitch their company and compete with 9 other business ideas for a chance at a free booth at SEMA in 2018 and lots of publicity.
Sasha started his automotive career by buying a small shop just to work on his own car. He started to help friends with their cars and then began charging for his service. He worked at it for several years but just couldn’t make it profitable. So he closed the shop and moved on. He worked a corporate job and realized very quickly that he just didn’t want that life, so he decided to go back to working on cars.
Sasha decided to start tuning cars and use a mobile dyno to travel to the customer and called it OnPoint Dyno. He also does vehicle setup and driver coaching on top of the mobile dyno business. He now has 1 employee and a small shop to store equipment and tune cars. His latest big project was to transforming a Lotus Evora into an electric car. Sasha used the motor from a Tesla Model S, batteries from the Chevy Volt, and a MOTEC for traction control. They recently finished the car and went 11.4 in the ¼ mile on their first time out.
The thinking behind this electric vehicle is preparation for the future. Sasha is betting that manufacturers and consumers are shifting towards electric cars and wants to be a leader in the performance market.