Ian Clifford wanted a dependable electric car to drive three miles to his office. He got his wish and then some.
Ian Clifford wanted a dependable electric car to drive three miles to his office. He got his wish and then some.

Ian Clifford

When Toronto-resident Ian Clifford tried to buy or lease an electric car from the large carmakers, their rebuff spurred him to find an alternative, which turned out to be nearly an antique: a 1959 Henny Kilowatt electric ca, based on the Renault Dauphine. A few months later when the aging car broke down, he had a revelation: there might be a business here in restoring and converting other aging Dauphines. That model would evolve into ZENN Motors, which takes French-built Microcars and converts them, instead, into neighborhood electric vehicles, or NEVs.

But like the Henny Kilowatt, ZENN Motors is destined to become a stepping stone to yet another EV business, providing the automotive equivalent of 'Intel Inside' in the form of a drive system powered by a revolutionary new energy storage system from EEStor, but that's a story for another chapter in the book.