Electric Car To Roll Off Lines In Fall

Robert Beaumont will see his 27-year-old dream become reality this September when the Tropica roadster rolls off the assembly lines at Renaissance Cars Inc., Palm Bay.

The Tropica is a sporty two-seater and will be the first mass-produced electric car to have a six- to nine-month backlog of orders.

Beaumont, 62, began his career as a Chrysler-Plymouth salesman in Kingston N.Y. When pumping gas one day he had some serious thoughts as he noticed the fumes floating away.

"We pump it out of the ground refine it pump it back into the ground and pump it back into a gas tank where promptly we waste 83 percent of it in gas fumes he said. So what you have is a tremendous waste of a natural resource that's finite. That's always bugged me."

It was in 1967 that he saw a newspaper article about a Detroit man converting Renault R1Os from using gasoline to batteries. He invested $30 000 in the company Electric Fuel Propulsion but admits that he was too anxious.

"About three or four months later I realized that trying to stuff a bunch of batteries into a conventional gas car was like trying to make bricks with wings," he said. "But I was hooked."

So for a few years he read everything he could about electric and battery-powered cars.

Then the 1970s began and many Americans hopped on the clean-air bandwagon. Although Beaumont was not one of them he did ask Club Car, a golf cart maker in Augusta Ga. to build some golf carts according to his specifications.

Gif image - 248 Kb Robert Beaumont's electric car, Tropica, will roll off the assembly lines in September.

Beaumont then teamed up with the now-deceased Lakeland industrialist Scott Linder to form Sebring Vanguard Inc. and out of that rolled 2,253 CitiCars the first mass-produced electric car. A Reader s Digest story about the car netted tons of publicity and thousands of people around the country sent letters to Beaumont.

After the Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973 and shipments of Arabian oil were embargoed people often lined up for gas at 6 a.m. and Beaumont was told "You're the next Henry Ford. But look out for Murphy's (Law)."

And finally Murphy reared his ugly head in November of 75 he said. "Consumer Reports damned the cars as unsafe at any speed."

Business slumped but Beaumont didn't give up. In 1989 he formed Renaissance Cars Inc. after speaking with academics and people in the know who believed the electric car's day had come.

Although Beaumont said it's doubtful the Big Three auto makers will surge ahead with electric cars General Motors introduction in 1990 of the Impact created a storm of media attention and convinced many people that the electric car was on its way.

Twenty dealers in the state will sell the Tropica exclusively.

"We have been reading about their cars and following along" said David Williamson of Lincoln of Vero Beach which is the Tropica dealer for Indian River County.

"We're excited about it we really are," Williamson said. He said Tropica should catch on because of the improvements made in the last few years in chargeable batteries, battery endurance, and plastics.

Beaumont sees the creation as a niche-filler and believes people will use it as a second car on short commutes to and from work as well as for shopping. He said the average trip is 30 miles or less and the range of power available in heavy-duty lead-based batteries is sufficient for that.

"It's intended to augment our transportation system (for short distances) and eliminate our total dependence on imported oil used to propel gas cars," Beaumont said.

"We're over 55 percent totally dependent on gasoline (refined) from imported oil," he said. "Until and unless there s an electric car in the market there is no alternative...unless you can see someone driving a bicycle to work 12 miles in traffic."

Beaumont thinks consumers will sign up in droves when gasoline reaches $5 a gallon.

"You ain't seen nothing yet when it comes to gas-taxes," he said.

As for cost, the Tropica will retail between $10,000 and $15,000.

But Beaumont said tests confirm the car is more cost-effective than gas cars. Tested recently at Daytona Beach the Tropica traveled 45 miles and used 10 kilowatt hours of electricity to the tune of 80 cents or three times less money than a gas car averaging 22 1/2 miles per gallon.

Beaumont is confident about the future of the car and soon will introduce other models. But don't treat him as an overnight success.

"After 27 years of this dream of mine I can see right now people coming up to me a year from now and saying Instant success."

"As old as I am, I'm going to smack them right in the mouth."