The Big Three have seen better days &mdash and so has America's Motor City. In recent years, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have endured record losses, layoffs, and grim predictions for their futures. But the lights haven't gone out in Detroit just yet. One tiny upstart is making a home &mdash and money &mdash in Michigan. The American Electric Vehicle Company, whose factory operations have recently moved from the suburban town of Ferndale to larger digs in nearby Wixom &mdash not far from the Ford Motor Company's recently idled assembly plant, is bucking an unfortunate trend in the domestic auto industry: Instead of scaling back, it's growing. American Electric's sole product at the moment, the adorably named Kurrent, is an Italian-designed two-seat plug-in electric car. Its specifications won't keep Tesla Motors engineers up at night &mdash a 45- to 50-mile range and a top speed of 35 mph &mdash but its edgy good looks and very attractive $9800 starting price are prompting a lot of would-be EV aficionados to take the plunge. The company expects to build 5000 electric vehicles during 2008, growing to 10,000 by 2010 and adding other variants along the way, including a four-passenger model, a cargo-hauler, and even a four-wheel-drive version.
Sources: The Detroit News and The Oakland Business Review.
Photos courtesy of The American Electric Vehicle Company.
