Solved -PJ512- Electric Car Co. MI-6 Prototype

[Djetset]

EL1?

[Paul Jaray]

Not EL-1.

[Carnut]

Not Ecos.
The Company built at least 4 vehicles.
This one should be the last one.
The name consists in 2 letters and a number.

This is the last one?
According to what I can find out on the 'Net this is their latest car:

http://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/index.php?topic=10110.msg81524#msg81524

That one is apparently German-engineered but has been taken over for production as an electric car by the Electric Car Company of Springfield, Missouri.  Is that the same Electric Car Co as the puzzle car?

I have found 2 or 3 models they have made but on my UK-Google the puzzle car doesn't appear anywhere in connection with them.  Don't forget you get different Google results according to which country you're domiciled in..

[Paul Jaray]

It's a different Company, I think.
It shouldn't be from Missouri.
It's quite hard to find more about this Company but there are many pages about on the net.

[Carnut]

It's not called SP1 is it?

I've found 2 other companies in the USA called Electric Car Company - 1 in Midvale, Utah and 1 in Long Beach, California.
Neither of them seems to be the manufacturer of the puzzle car though..

[Paul Jaray]

Not SP1.
If you google that name you find a totally different result.
It's a quite known 'name'...but nothing to do with cars. (unless you consider a very specific car!).

[Carnut]

Was this car made by the Electric Car Co that calls itself ELCR?

[Paul Jaray]

It's quite hard to tell, since the name of the company was written on the white board in front of the car and in some webpages...ELCR was never mentioned.

[pnegyesi]

MI-6?

Year should be 1994-1995. Company was located in Everson, Washington

[Paul Jaray]

And you did it!
That's the only pic I found of the MI-6 electric car.
There were also a MI-5 prototype, a 1987 Suburban Truck a 1993 Pace Trailer.
Point for you!

[sixtee5cuda]

So is the light-colored car on the right side, a Peugeot hatch?

[Carnut]

And you did it!
That's the only pic I found of the MI-6 electric car.
There were also a MI-5 prototype, a 1987 Suburban Truck a 1993 Pace Trailer.
Point for you!

Well done Pal

But even with the answer I've been unable to find this car on the 'Net!
Googling MI-6, Electric MI-6, Electric Car Co of Everson produces only pictures of houses which I assume are in Everson. Googling everything I can think of produces nothing!
Would you mind PM'ing me the Website address so I can learn a bit about this car please PJ?

[Paul Jaray]

Unfortunately I couldn't find much more myself.
Googling "Ken Liebscher" mi-6 you will find several pages (no pics) about the company and you'll see why I wasn't that sure about nits location. It seems it got acquired by another at a certain point.
This car was shown at the 12th International Electric Vehicle Symposium in 1994.
I took that pic from an online magazine but there was only a single line about. Here's the unmodified pic:

[pnegyesi]

Here's a color pic. I'll try to find out more about this

[Paul Jaray]

So is the light-colored car on the right side, a Peugeot hatch?

I think you are right.

Ford those who are not willing to goolge:
The MI-6 Electric Automobile.

The MI-6 prototype automobile was designed under the direction of Mr. Ken Liebscher in Washington State in 1994. Production viability of the MI-6 had to await the impact of environmental legislation and a consumer education program that helps change the perception of what a commuter car should be. This hiatus allowed the MI-6 creator ample time to address specific pre-production issues and define a product specification with approximately 10% of the parts common to a traditional Detroit assembly line product.

The MI-6 model is based on a body configuration using twenty- two molded parts. The chassis meets auto industry standards and is supplied assembled by a major Michigan-based industry supplier (note: Specific names of suppliers and detailed component descriptions are excluded from this document for proprietary reasons). Power is supplied by sixteen multiribbed, lead-acid batteries featuring a "corrugated plate design" able to recharge and discharge power at the leading edge of lead-acid technology. The Company remains familiar with other battery options and will be able to move to a more exotic power source when reliability, improved output efficiency and recharge capabilities move beyond the experimental stage.

The MI-5 prototype engine has delivered 85,000 miles of trouble-free road time in the past ten years. A U.S. built, updated version of the original motor and controller powers the first production models of the MI-6.

Few, if any, electric car development projects have the performance track record of the MI-6 prototype. The development and marketing philosophy of the Company is a straight forward approach to minimize overhead and build a limited number of MI-6 cars in parallel with customer orders

[Carnut]

I tried Googling again but still can't find any mention of this car!

I did a Google search on Mr Liebscher however and there are quite a lot of entries about him; he has had his fingers in several pies.  Here's an extract from one site:

QUOTE
North America's top regulator has targeted Chicago-area tout and repeat securities violator Frank J. Custable Jr., for his promotion of seven penny stock companies, including veteran Howe Street promoter Kenneth (Ken) Liebscher's ThermoElastic Technologies Inc. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission civil prosecution coincides with the current unrelated criminal trial of Mr. Liebscher and his ThermoElastic associates in Miami, as part of Operation Bermuda Short.

The SEC notes that "federal criminal authorities," presumably the FBI, executed a search warrant and seized materials at the offices of Suburban Capital, one of Mr. Custable's companies, in connection with one of the schemes in the regulatory probe.

The SEC claims the overall scheme, which began in at least November, 2001, has generated at least $4.3-million in ill-gotten gains. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) "Custable and the other defendants illegally dumped massive quantities of the improperly registered shares on the general public," states the SEC.

The SEC hopes to trace where these funds ended up. The regulator claims that since at least 2002, Mr. Custable has taken steps to direct his ill-gotten gains beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. In the summer of 2002, he set up an offshore entity in Nevis, allegedly to protect his assets from any potential criminal or civil judgment.

In June 2002, Mr. Custable and Suburban Capital transferred over $110,000 into an account at a Costa Rican bank for the eventual credit of Pine Services, or Suburban Capital. The proceeds are then transferred to an account at Banco Nacional de Costa Rica.
UNQUOTE

But the above must be countered by this:

QUOTE
One should note that Ken Liebscher is the CEO of GRPH and a quick search on Google turns up the fact that Ken has a long history of dubious stock promotion and was convicted but not found guilty in the trials following "Operation Bermuda Short" Word is The Bedford Report is on GRPH so we should be in for a fairly explosive stock promotion here.
UNQUOTE

But there's a lot more out there about this guy!

[Carnut]

I just tried finding the puzzle photo by Google Search by Image but it comes up with nothing.
Trying Pal's picture does say it's on the National Graphite Corp website (wasn't Ken Liebscher CEO of that?) but the picture will only appear very fleetingly to be replaced every time by a picture of a Lotus Elise!

[Otto Puzzell]

The exact picture, with the same text, appears on two different sites. The lotus pic also appears on both sites, with the same caption. Difficult to discern if it has any connection to ol' Ken's electric car. Since they didn't even bother to change the Elise's license plate, I suspect they used pics of cars that were not well know to the common man. Smells vaguely like a scam to me...

Mr. Ken Liebscher President/Director Electric Car Company P.O. Box 618 Everson WA 98247;

Dear Mr. Liebscher: We have reviewed your application of January 16 1995, for temporary exemption of the M1-6 electric passenger car from six Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, on the basis that compliance would cause Electric Car Company ('Electric Car') substantial economic hardship. We need some additional information before we are able to consider the application further. A hardship applicant must provide corporate balance sheets and income statements for the three fiscal years preceding the filing of the application. You have filed statements for E.T.C. Industries and only for two years, those ending December 31, 1992, and December 31, 1993. This is acceptable since your submission indicates that E.T.C. Industries (apparently a Canadian corporation) is the parent of Electric Car (a Nevada corporation incorporated on November 24, 1993), and that 'the consolidated financial statements that you have provided us include the accounts of Electric Car . . . .'

We would like to have balance sheets and income statements for Electric Car for the year ending December 31, 1994, but if these are not yet available, we would be willing to accept statements for E.T.C. Industries (or its predecessor Bradsue Resources, Ltd.) for the year ending December 31, 1991. If the information reflected in the financial statements is given in Canadian dollars, please provide a key indicating the value in American dollars on December 31 of each year for which the information is provided. In order to grant a hardship application, the Administrator must find that an applicant has tried to comply in good faith with each standard for which exemption is requested. Your application contains no information upon which the Administrator could make such a finding with respect to any of the six standards for which you seek exemption.

In spite of your confidence about the MI-6's performance in a 30 mph barrier impact, the fact that the MI-6 uses equipment installed in motor vehicles that are certified as meeting the Federal motor vehicle safety standards does not mean that the MI-6 will meet any of the six standards with the equipment installed. We therefore suggest that you supplement the application with information demonstrating that you have examined each of the six standards in some detail, and have made a study of possible compliance problems and possible solutions to them. It is permissible to ask to be excused from only a portion of a standard, and you may find, after studying your problems, that you will be able to narrow your requests for exemption from Standards No. 201 and 208. We assume with respect to the latter that you are concerned with the airbag requirements. Although your letter speaks of 'restraint systems', we would like your further identification of them as two-point (lap belt) or three-point (lap and shoulder belt) systems.

Although you appear to be a manufacturer in the start-up stage and one whose total motor vehicle production in the year preceding the filing of the application was far less than 10,000, you have omitted to provide the number of motor vehicles that you produced in 1994 which is information that we require. Please do so in your response to this letter. When we have received this information, we shall prepare a notice requesting public comment which will appear in the Federal Register. We shall notify you when the Administrator has made a decision. We expect this to be three to four months after we have received your further submission. If you have any questions on our requirements, you may call Taylor Vinson of this Office (202- 366-5263). Sincerely, Philip R. Recht Chief Counsel;

[Otto Puzzell]

Another red herring?
[attachimg=1]

[Carnut]

I think I'd be inclined to give this gentleman a very wide berth...!

[Paul Jaray]

Time to move it.
Point to Pal, further info are wellcome!

[dzima1985]

+2