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We are currently building Roadsters one at a time while we await the arrival of funding to build our production line. The line has been designed by Gene Garvin, a Production Engineer, who has done a time and motion study, storage study, and has worked determined the work flow and the parts kits that will be needed to keep the flow of vehicles coming off of the line. Once the money is in place it will take about 3 months to get the line into production because of the necessity of the construction needed in our building as well as the ordering and delivery and cataloguing of parts and the training of employees.
We attended the Orange County Auto Show at the Annaheim Convention Center, Anahein, CA on October 4-7, 2007. Although it was a short show, we had very good results and new orders. We also generated a good number of interested persons in investment opportunities.
We also appeared in the LA Auto Show at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on November 16-25, 2007. This show originally was in January, and last year they moved it into the pre-Christmas season during December and from all appearances and rumor, the attendance dropped over 50%. This year of course, it has moved again. We sold as many reservations this year as we did last year, adding to the number of people waiting for us to make substantial inroads in our waiting list.
We have completed the gasoline powered Roadster, which has a different VIN numbering system. If you would like to sign up for a low number VIN for a gasoline powered Roadster you will be on a much shorter waiting list. This version of the Roadster has a lot of snap, and is undergoing mileage testing right now.
We have decided to manufacture our own engines designed specifically to meet the needs of operating on CNG. Because CNG has an octane of up to 138 (as opposed to 87 for gasoline) we need a higher compression ratio to be able to use all of the energy locked up in CNG as a fuel. The new engine will begin to be tested in January, 2008.
The annual shareholders meeting was held on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at the Valley River Inn in Eugene, OR. We had an excellent turnout, and after the completion of the meeting, most of those attending went to the factory and were given the opportunity to participate in test drives.
We were invited to go to Kentucky to meet with the head of an investment group headed by a gentleman who has apparent ties with Toyota. He arranged a private tour of the Toyota plant in Lexington. We also met the ex-head of Toyota North America, Gary Dodd. Gary headed the first USA plant for Toyota and ran it for 16 years. He then retired and was financed by Toyota to become a supplier and a mentor to other suppliers, teaching them the "Toyota Method" of production. After another large number of years he retired again, and started up three stores for Orvis as franchisee for the state of Kentucky. He has that up and running smoothly, and was introduced to us as a possible head of our company to get the factory up and running and the production line designed.
Toyota uses a high speed method of production which is unlike anything we have seen. Before the money people can commit to money, they are having Gary design a high speed production line for the roadster. This line will be using equipment we had not even contemplated, so it is essential that the line be designed to fit the Toyota production method. The difference between the line that Gene designed for us and the high speed Toyota design is that our line would produce 3 roadsters a day at our Seneca facility whereas a Boeing engineer estimated that we could produce 25 roadsters a day using the Toyota method - a more that 8 times increase in volume.
John, Jerry and Dave Couch traveled to Salt Lake City for May 1, 2 and 3 meetings with potential investors. The meetings were held at the Rocky Mountain Raceway in Salt Lake City, and we had a chance to drive the quarter mile oval. We came back with some footage of both the white roadster and Dave's maroon and black Roadster going around the track with a pace car.
The track Safety Officer also took the white roadster for a drive on the track, and he said that in his opinion it drove as well as any race car he has ever driven on the track. He wanted to drive the roadster as the pace car for the races on Saturday, May 3, but his boss said we needed more track time before he would allow it as a pace car.