Miles EV Adds Former GM, Ford Electric Vehicle Program Leaders to its Team

California-based Miles Electric Vehicles , the low-speed EV manufacturer with plans to be among first to market with a highway-legal electric sedan, has named two EV industry heavyweights to its team.

----------
Prototype Miles EV sedan is being tested in California for 2010 retail launch.
----------

The company said that John R. Wallace, former director of environmental vehicles for Ford Motor Co., and Kenneth Baker, former electric vehicle division program manager and vice president of global research and development for General Motors Corp., will join Miles' advisory board.

Miles is testing several prototype models of its battery-electric sedan, designed to travel at least 100 miles on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery pack, with a top speed of 80 miles an hour. In addition, the company manufactures and sells several versions of a low-speed EV used largely in business and government fleets.

As part of its effort to increase in-house expertise in electric vehicle and  vehicle charging infrastructure development, Miles last month appointed recently retired Edison International chairman and president John E. Bryson to its board of directors.

Bryson, who championed development and use of renewable energy sources during his 24 years at Edison, is a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Adding Baker and Wallace to the advisory board, said Miles Chief Executive Kevin Czinger, will help the company meet its goal of launching retail sales of the high-speed EV sedan by late 2010.

Wallace's duties at Ford included overseeing all electric drive programs including development of the Escape hybrid system and operation of the short-lived Think city car EV program that the company abandoned in 2003.

He is an electrical engineer and served as chairman of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium and was a co-founder and first chairman of the California Fuel Cell Partnership.

Baker, a mechanical engineer, was instrumental in the EV1 development program at General Motors, is a founder of the U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium and was chairman of the Electric Transportation Coalition.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Posted by

John O'Dell December 11, 2008, 12:01 PM

Permalink

Categories:

Miles, Plug-ins and Electric

Technorati Tags:

John R. Wallace, Kenneth Baker, Miles Electric Vehicles, Miles EV