ALTe: Former Tesla Team Eyes Old Company Cars

While Tesla CEO Elon Musk is betting the farm on an electric vehicle for mainstream consumers, many other EV startups are finding company and public fleets a much safer gamble for the near term. Take ALTe, a startup founded by a trio of former Tesla execs in late 2008, which is taking old gas and diesel-guzzlers in public and private fleets and giving them new guts to run as extended range electric vehicles.

As ALTe sales and marketing chief Brian Polowniak explained in an interview with us last week, the startup plans to remove the engine, powertrain, exhaust system and gas tank from fleet vehicles after their warranty expires, and put in a new engine, electric motors, motor controls, a generator, inverter, lithium-ion battery pack and a very small gas tank. It’s a full makeover, EV-style.

While still developing demo vehicles at its facility in Auburn Hills, Mich. (a 185,000-square-foot plant formerly occupied by Lear Corp.), ALTe expects to begin commercial production in the last three months of 2011 and has the aggressive goal of cranking out 90,000 powertrains per year by 2013, said Polowniak.

Tesla University

ALTe’s three co-founders — CEO John Thomas, CTO Jeffrey DeFrank and VP of Programs Nam Thai-Tang — worked in Tesl...