About Us

In the Beginning:
EV Performance started in the late '80s as a company named Nu-Kar Electric Vehicles, but I get ahead of myself. Let me back up to 1983 when Michael Stevens, president of Assembled Product, Inc., purchased a CitiCar from a fellow "Navy Buddy" who had an interesting philosophy on bringing up children. He had no problem purchasing one of these CitiCars for his daughter knowing that she would never be more than 30 miles from home and certainly wouldn't be out speeding! Well, she had grown up and he made Michael a deal he couldn't refuse so the little yellow CitiCar had a new home. It wasn't long and Michael was in touch with the builders of the car and he was asked to build circuit boards for the charger of a radical new battery charger, soon to used in the under development Tropica electric vehicle!

Well, as things often happen, when Sebring went out of business, Michael had the opportunity to bid on the remaining inventory. Seeing it as an opportunity to maintain his own car, Michael placed a "blind" bid and to his surprise purchased an assortment of the remaining inventory of parts. In the days before the internet he was taken by surprise at how fast word spread where those parts had ended up and how many people needed them also! In steps son Glen and a list of parts was added to the Assembled Products website along with rough schematics Mike had created for his own use.

The Next Level:
But here is where it gets interesting. Michael, never one to keep things simple, developed the concept for electric "station cars". Small electric vehicles available at points along mass transit stations. His theory was that mass transit was only good for people who needed transportation along mass transit sites. Small electric vehicles that could be rented at low cost one a commuter has taken advantage of mass transit would significantly improve the effectiveness of mass transit systems. Glen, being young and still enthusiastic, was confident that API could build these small vehicles and Nu-Kar Electric Vehicles was started! With the sole intent to develop a "New Electric Vehicle", Nu-Kar had the talent pool with the combined assets of Assembled Products to create the technology. (Remember, this was the early 90's)

It wasn't long before they realized that powerful forces were against them. After moving to Alabama, Michael was able to peak the interest of the governor of Alabama. It wasn't long before a very grumpy rep from the National Transportation Safety Board called explaining that he had been "ordered" to drop everything and "call those boys in Alabama". A conversation that Glen truly wishes had been recorded! After explaining what they wanted to do. the NTSB rep explained this it was his job to make sure that Nu-Kar did not succeed. Well, not really, but pretty close. He explained that no governmental organization certified that a car was safe. Rather, it was up to the manufacturer to certify the safety of the vehicle. It was his job to investigate accidents and failures and should a problem be found (or just suspected) seize all records, inventory, assets, financial accounts of the company, employees, family of employees, first born children and in some cases second born children until all liability issues had been resolved. Essentially he explained his job was to make sure we didn't succeed. A frighteningly similar story to famed car builder Preston Tucker! 

The Beginning of EV Performance:
So there ended Nu-Kar. What remained of Nu-Kar was not to be a total loss. After reflecting upon the technology that had already been created such as battery charging techniques, high performance electric motor controllers and drives, Michael and Glen created EV Performance. Now with the power of the internet, they continue to design new products, better motor controllers and further the technology in the do-it-yourself electric auto world.

This is an article still under construction. -GMS