Electric Vehicle Maker Drives into Chatsworth

A Colorado electric vehicle manufacturer is transforming a Chatsworth industrial building into its West Coast assembly plant with the goal of beginning production early next year. Boulder Electric Vehicle spent about 18 months looking for a site and settled on a 30,000-square-foot space located in the 9600 block of Irondale Avenue. CEO Carter Brown said the company selected the San Fernando Valley location for its access to a talent pool of engineers and assemblers, proximity to airports and enterprise zone tax incentives. Founded in 2011, Boulder Electric develops and builds delivery vans and small trucks for corporate customers and municipalities. The vehicles have a range of 80 to 120 miles and reach a top speed of 70 mph. When production of the vehicles begins next year, the company will have about 30 employees in Chatsworth, Brown said. Boulder Electric will add more workers as production on the vehicles increases. “If the demand is there for the vehicles, we can go up to 150 employees,” Brown said. By pursuing corporate and municipal clients, the startup company and its short list of competitors aim to sell the potential long-term cost savings of using an electric vehicle, which can cost twice as much upfront as a comparable diesel vehicle. Room to grow Boulder Electric received a $3 million grant from the California Energy Commission to produce its DV-500 delivery vans, flatbeds and service trucks and the larger DV1000 models. It was among 11 companies that received state grants as part of the Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program. The company is investing $3 million of its own funds to help pay for the lease and other building improvements needed to get the Chatsworth facility ready for production. Boulder Electric Vehicle signs have gone up on the façade of the building, and workers have built interior conference rooms and installed the IT infrastructure, Brown said. A skeleton sales staff operates out of the building, he said. The company searched the greater Los Angeles area for a location with the assistance of Ben Stapleton, a vice president at the Los Angeles office of Jones Lang LaSalle, who specializes in industrial and clean tech properties. Boulder Electric currently operates from a new building in Lafayette, Colo., located outside of Boulder. Trying to find a similar space in L.A. is challenging because new industrial buildings are scarce, Stapleton said. The building in Chatsworth is comparable to what the company has in Colorado and the setting is suburban, Stapleton said. “When you look at other parts of the city — downtown, the 110 corridor — it is not something that someone from Colorado might be used to,” he added. Plus, Brown said, the landlord owns adjacent buildings that Boulder Electric can expand into in the future, if necessary. Corporate demand Analysts say while California leads the nation in the sale of hybrid (gas and battery) and electric vehicles, the market for electric powered vans and trucks is small because few companies produce such vehicles and those that do produce in low volume. Competitors to Boulder Electric include VIA Motors in Utah and Smith Electric Vehicles Corp. US, which has a manufacturing plant in Kansas City. “These are companies that are designing for the business market or taking existing vehicles and converting them,” said Alan Baum, of Baum & Associates, an automotive industry forecasting firm in Michigan. The upfront cost of an electric van or truck can be quite expensive — easily twice as much as a comparable diesel vehicle, according to Lisa Jerram, a senior research analyst with Pike Research, a consulting and research firm for the clean technology industry. Businesses that are considering adding an electric vehicle to their fleet must determine if the higher initial cost is worth the investment, Jerram said. National companies that are adopting electric vans and trucks into their fleet include FedEx, UPS and Frito-Lay, owned by PepsiCo. As corporate fleets grow, technological advances likely will make the vehicles more affordable, Jerram said. “You might see that demand drive innovation,” Jerram said. Boulder Electric’s Lafayette plant has five assembly lines and currently has a backorder of about 50 vehicles. The company anticipated its first deliveries this month of the flatbed and service body versions of the DV-500.