Polaris investing in electric car technology

Polaris, which makes all-terrain vehicles and Victory cruiser motorcycles, has been busy this past year buying or investing in several companies which provide the American company with the technology to move into EVs.

They invested in Brammo electric motorcycles and bought Gaupil, a French electric truck maker, as well as Global Electric Motorcars (GEM) from Chrysler. 

Polaris spokesman and key player in the acquisitions, Mark Blackwell, says the move to acquire new powertrain providers came after years of relying on Subaru manufacturer Fuji Heavy Industries to provide their engines.

"To be too dependent on someone else for the heart of your vehicles was too risky," he says. So the company began making their own engines and is now expanding with new powertrain providers.
"Now we want to diversify beyond that," he says.

Polaris is a big company doing $2.7bn in business last year and spending $106m on research and development. In Australia, alone, sales were up 42 per cent last year and are expected to grow at least 16 per cent annually over the next five years. 

Sales vice-president Mike Dougherty also expects global sales to quadruple by 2016. He says the company's move into India and China in the next few years will drive growth. "Goupil will be big," Dougherty says. "It will be the next big thing in our business." 

But it is the acquisition of GEM from Chrysler that gives the company the greatest potential to move into EVs. At the moment, GEM is only making small volumes of people movers in Iowa that are basically big six-seater golf carts which can be legally driven in the US on roads with a 60km/h speed limit. 

Blackwell says their future in electric vehicles is "probably more niche market". "We won't go head to head with the major players but we will be in small urban vehicles," he says.