Business Watch: American Lightning Motor Co.

Lightning in a vehicle
Rock musician is hoping to grow business converting gas-powered cars to electric. Council isn’t interested in providing seed money.
Burbank Leader: April 23, 2010 by Christopher Cadelago

Six years ago Danny Blitz bit through his tongue and cracked an industrial-strength office chair on his way to the floor.

Heralded as a “future icon” by a popular music magazine, the rock musician was selling well, appearing on television and getting radio ads across the country.

Suddenly, he couldn’t walk, could barely talk, and his left arm was out of its socket. Worse, his left hand was paralyzed.

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So began the second act in the life of a self-described “unlikely environmentalist.” Blitz grew up in Houston, the son and stepson of oil executives.

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That enthusiasm has led to American Lightning Motor Company, a fledgling gas-to-electric conversion company in search of seed money and a brick-and-mortar location. The search will have to continue after Burbank officials on Tuesday rebuffed his proposal, which sought $750,000 and up to 8,000 square feet of work space.

The Burbank City Council, acting as the Redevelopment Agency, panned the business plan, contending that the risk was too high and the plan not specific enough. The company in exchange had pledged to convert from gas to electric a city fleet, 1955 Chevy, lighting chopper and produce a feature-length documentary in the first 180 days.

City officials referred to the plan as “glaringly inconsistent,” maintaining that it would be unwise to commit taxpayer money and serve as an incubator for a company still in concept stage.

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The roughly $20,000 conversion starts with pulling out an engine, transmission and other parts and replacing them with lithium ion nanophosphate batteries, a large electric motor and a dimmer switch where the gas pedal was.

“We are told by the auto industry to throw away our cars. But can you imagine the environmental catastrophe?” he said. “We believe that the model of the electric-car industry is flawed. Junkyards themselves are an industrial-age artifact.” READ MORE !