The Land
26/03/2009

Three-person Armidale company, Energetique, is about “energy mobility,” according to chief executive officer Phil Coop, and the ultimate embodiment of that is the company’s electric car, the evMe.
To the outsider, making a state-of-the-art electric car with specs that compare favourably with anything on the global market has been surprisingly simple.

In Energetique’s case it meant scouring the world for the best possible componentry, finding a suitable body to house it, and having the software knowledge to put it all together in the most effective way. There was a little more to it than that, Mr Coop explains, but as a principal it takes direct aim at the infrastructure-heavy automobile industry.

Electric vehicles have been around since the automobile was invented, and a flourishing hobbyist movement has existed since the oil crisis of the early 1970s. But the technology boom of the past 15 years, and the recent convergence of digital technologies into mutually useful applications, where a mobile phone can either drive your TV or serve as a TV itself, suddenly means only imagination will limit the role of the electric vehicle in an emissions-constrained society.

Thanks to the software talents of Energetique’s technical engineer, Norm Boessler, some early incarnations of that potential are already wired into Australia’s latest electric car.
For instance, a full diagnosis, servicing and upgrading of the evMe’s electrical and computer system can be done over the mobile phone network, without having to return the car to a garage.