“After the tax credit, an AMP EV buyer can drive an all-electric SUV for as little as $49,900, a very competitive price for an EV,” said Dana Hackney, owner of AMP of Cincinnati dealership. “When our buyers compare AMP’s SUVs to other smaller EV offerings they will be very impressed.”

Read the press release.

The combination of the near perfect weather conditions of the Caribbean Islands, the high cost of gasoline, the inherent short commutes of an island community and the desire to reduce dependence on foreign oil makes for an outstanding scenario for our EV’s.

Read the press release.

The Tesla Model X will have a similar range as the SUVs from AMP.

Read the full article

Sure, a short video of an SUV frolicking in the snow might seem like a simple thing to the untrained eye, but if you know the long road Amp traversed to put those wheels in motion, you would have a deep appreciation for what the company does. When people talk about the American Dream, this is the kind of endeavor to which they refer, a small group of professionals who begin with an ambitious idea and turn it into reality.

Read the full article

Read the press release.

AMP Founder and President Steve Burns (left) and AMP CEO Jim Taylor (right)	US Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio
US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and AMP CEO Jim Taylor	AMP Founder and President Steve Burns (left) and US Senator Sherrod Brown (right)
From left to right: Dana Hackney of AMP of Cincinnati, AMP Founder and President Steve Burns, and AMP CEO Jim Taylor

“The company announced on Wednesday that it would bring a converted Grand Cherokee to the Detroit auto show in January, where it expected to release final pricing and introduce its first dealer. Steve Burns, president of Amp, said in a telephone interview that the converted Jeep would be price-competitive with the Tesla Model S, an electric sedan that in base form is priced from $57,400 before a $7,500 federal tax credit. The Amp Jeep, with a 37-kilowatt-hour battery pack, will have range of approximately 100 miles, Mr. Burns said.”

The all-electric SUV will be available for test drives during the show, and guests are invited to take one for a spin. Visit the Amp booth and talk to one of our representatives for your chance for a live test drive of the Amp Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Read the full article

Without exception, the world’s automotive manufacturing scene is dominated by very large companies that reap their profits from the building of vehicles based on the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE).  Most of these companies are decades or centuries old and all building slight variations on a 100 year old theme.  In 1908 the Model T got about 25mpg and had a tailpipe to spew the poison out the rear of the vehicle to avoid the occupant from having to breath the fumes.  In America, in 2011, after many billions in development and countless engineering manhours, the average vehicle gets 23mpg and has the same tailpipe, maybe even two.

The extremely high barrier to entry is such that there has not been a successful new car company in the U.S. for 70 years (Willy’s Jeep in 1942).  But now a crack in that history has opened.  Because the market for EVs is currently less than 1 percent of vehicles, the major automotive OEMs continue to focus on ICE based vehicles.  A few are beginning to experiment with small EV programs, but by definition these large OEMs can’t state publically that ICE is bad and EV good.  They are conflicted.  And the demand for next quarter’s profits will keep them from fully embracing EVs for quite some time.  In the meantime, they are missing the dramatic developments that are being made on the technology and infrastructure that will enable EVs to overtake the ICE based vehicles in the next couple of decades.

AMP’s goal is to build a brand now while the giants sleep.  Our methodology to leap frog the high barrier to entry is to incorporate as many mass produced components as possible into our vehicles and only create the technology that is not readily available.  A century of car making has produced extremely reliable, sleek, quiet and safe machines for the transport of humans from one place to another.   We literally have decided not to reinvent the wheel (or the windshield, or the navigation system, or the airbags, or the…).  Our methodology is to start with mass produced, best-of-breed ICE based vehicles and then add off the shelf automotive hybrid components coupled with our custom software and electronics.  We then re-certify and validate the vehicles to ensure that the transformation did not compromise any of the original safety or reliability of the vehicle.  The result is that we arrive at the marketplace with a fully validated EV for under 10 million dollars in development.  Contrast this approach to that of our peers that are building EVs from the ground up and it becomes clear that it takes north of a billion dollars to arrive at the same marketplace with a ground up vehicle.  And I would argue that our converted, mass production vehicles, are of better quality than that of any first time builder of vehicles.

Our first two vehicles to market will be based on the 2012 ML and the 2012 Jeep Cherokee. Notably these vehicles are both SUVs.  Our premise is that since SUVs represent the largest segment of vehicles sold in the U.S. that we should electrify what is already the proven sales leader.  Most of the early EVs are based on small vehicles under the belief that smaller vehicles require less energy to move.  While that fact is obviously true, it still does not change the fact that Americans generally do not like small vehicles.  So, we felt simply that if America loves SUVs, let’s bring electric SUVs to market.  To accomplish this feat we had to engineer and battery system and drive train that was efficient enough and powerful enough to move a 2 and a half ton vehicle.  From a branding point of view we want all of vehicles to have brisk acceleration and segment leading range.  For example, even though our vehicle weighs 2 thousand pounds more than a Nissan Leaf, we have better range and acceleration.

With all of the models that we use as base vehicles, we expect to negotiate volume discounts and possibly buying the vehicles without the engine and other ICE components.  We also intend to use existing car dealerships as our distribution model.  We are currently in discussions with a major OEM for all of these options.  Our business plan is designed to succeed even without negotiated items from the larger OEMs, however we get there faster and with less capital if we can negotiate attractive partnerships with the established leaders in the automotive OEM space.

We fully intend for our SUVs to be direct competitors to the Tesla Model S that is expected in 2012.  If we succeed on our planned capital raises we expect our first SUVs to be validated and available for purchase in mid 2012 at price points comparable to the early Tesla Model S pricing.  We use the Tesla Model S as comparison because it is the only luxury, full size EV, that we are aware of that will be on the market in 2012.  We have chosen the luxury market as our initial entry point due to the premium price that is typical of any new high technology.  As the technology matures and the pricing becomes more attractive, we will move ever closer to mainstream vehicle pricing.  In the end, EVs will be less expensive than their comparable ICE counterparts because EVs are inherently much simpler and have a fraction of the moving parts and service problems associated with ICE based vehicles.

Our management team consists of a healthy mixture of GM and Chrysler management and engineering executives coupled with leading industrial motion control experts and entrepreneurs that have successfully started several groundbreaking companies.  This powerful combination of the established and the new enables us to take advantage of 100 years of car making and yet stay nimble enough to incorporate the latest software and electronics into our vehicles.

One critically important part of our culture is that we must continue to innovate.  By the time the giants awake, we want to be well ahead of them with our expertise and technology.  One example of this innovation is that we are currently working on a 4 wheel drive version of our drive system for use in vehicles.  This innovation is being driven by the fact that most SUV buyers purchase the all wheel drive versions of those SUVs.  We intend to be the first commercially available AWD EV available for purchase in 2012.  Another innovation we are working on is an EV commercial van and pickup truck conversion that will be suitable for fleet operators.  We believe that many fleet vehicles are prime candidates for early EV adoption and their main vehicles of choice are generally vans and pickup trucks.

Thank you,

Steve Burns, Founder

AMP Electric Vehicles

“You’re still getting the Mercedes chassis, the suspension, the damping, the brakes, the stereo, the body, the leather — it’s a compelling package and it’s already proven,”
-Steve Burns, President and Founder

Read the article

“…we took a turn, hitting both the highway and some residential streets for around 20 minutes. It wasn’t enough to see what it’s like to live with one of these, but it was plenty of time to prove that anyone who is looking for an all-electric SUV that drives exactly as you’d expect such a beast to drive and has all of the amenities of an expensive German vehicle.”

Read the article

“DP&L is taking a leadership role in meeting the needs of owners of electric vehicles,” said Jim Taylor, AMP CEO. “The SUV market is very popular in America today. We are proud to have our AMP Electric Equinox SUV as part of DP&L’s study.”

Read the full press release