By Sean Bailey / Staff Writer

“It’s not a golf cart with doors, this is a serious automobile,” Brooks Agnew said about an electric Geo Metro parked at the Corbin Speedway Tuesday morning.

And that automobile could bring 300 to 500 jobs to the Tri-County area.

Agnew is the Vice President of Engineering for Green Star Products, a company that specializes in environmentally friendly “green” solutions to the United State’s energy needs. Green Star is planning to open a production building in Williamsburg within the year to produce commercial electric trucks used to deliver goods within city settings. Eventually the company hopes to produce consumer vehicles for people to use to commute to and from work.

Agnew spent Tuesday morning and afternoon demonstrating the company’s battery-powered Geo Metro to local officials and citizens.

Among the officials taking the electric powered car for a spin around the quarter-mile speedway were Kentucky Representative Charlie Siler and Whitley County Judge-Executive Pat White Jr.

“It’ll really surprise you how much power it’s got,” White said after his test-drive. “I think it will serve the purpose as a commuter vehicle really really well and save people a lot of money.”

Throughout the morning, the electric car slipped almost silently around the Corbin Speedway’s track. The car handles no different than a regular vehicle, and though the Metro demonstrated on Tuesday was a manual, under normal conditions doesn’t need to be shifted out of second gear.

The car when fully charged has a range of around 80 miles, Agnew said — which is more than enough to get the average American to and from work.

“Seventy-five percent of the nation drives less than thirty miles one way to work,” Agnew said. “This is the perfect vehicle.”

The vehicle can be charged using a regular wall socket, and takes about eight hours to charge fully.

Agnew said Green Star started making electric vehicles in the early and mid 1990s. The company converted several Geo Metros and “several dozen” Ford Rangers to electric engines, but when California’s electric car mandate failed in 1998 the company stopped production.

But with the current economic downturn, and $4 a gallon gas prices last summer, Agnew said shareholders had renewed interest in green and electric automobiles. In March the federal government released a request for proposals for the production of electric vehicles, and Agnew said Green Star was ready to apply for the grant.

“We knew what our costs were, we had all our infrastructure in place, and within one day we went through three approval processes for a 200 million dollar grant from the federal government,” Agnew said. “I think they we’re excited about us getting back in the electric car business and we’re excited about it, it’s the right solution at the right time, and I think it’s at the right place here in Williamsburg.”

Depending on federal funding and approval of the Williamsburg site by the state, Agnew said the company will begin production as soon as possible — perhaps even by the end of 2009.

Green Star plans to begin production with commercial “intra-city” delivery trucks. The trucks are lightweight vehicles that weigh some 1,900 pounds and can carry nearly 1,500 pounds of cargo, Agnew said.

They are ideal for inner-city settings because they do not waste energy while stopped in traffic or at lights, unlike gas-powered vehicles which burn fuel while idling and contribute to pollution. The truck’s bed can be modified to fit just about any customer’s need, Agnew said, and battery and power needs can be adjust as well.

The vehicles will be far cheaper than competing electric vehicles, Agnew said, which can carry price tags as high as $140,000.

“So we saw our niche,” Agnew said. “Why not produce a pickup truck for around 20 to 25,000 dollars that will go 80 miles on a charge, and let the market determine if it is a good fit or not, and it was, so here we are.”

Getting vehicles ready for the consumer market takes a bit more government testing and approval than the commercial market, Agnew said, but producing consumer commuter vehicles is the next step. Agnew said it will take a few years to get the commuter vehicles approved for the road.

“We don’t want the market to wait a couple of years,” Agnew said. “So we are going to produce the truck so that the commercial market can vet all of the bugs out of it, really put it through its paces and when its ready and crash tested, and the government says the average consumer can drive it safely on the highways we will release it into mass production.”

Agnew, a Western Kentucky University alum, said Kentucky is the perfect place to produce electric cars. Green Star has looked at other states — including, most recently Utah — to start production, but with all the automotive parts suppliers in the eastern half of the country, the Utah location wasn’t cost effective.

“Kentucky happens to be smack dab in the middle of 73 percent of the population of the United States and is less than eight hours from every supplier we need,” Agnew said. “It makes sense to be in Kentucky.”

It was announced this week that a group of electric vehicle battery makers have expressed intrest in opening a factory in Hardin County, which Agnew said would be “wonderful” for Green Star.

The vehicles will be assembled in Kentucky, and virtually every part will be built in the United States, except for the the frames and bodies, which will be stamped in China.

“The nice thing about the small pickup when it is built here in Williamsburg it will be the most American made pickup in the country,” Agnew said.

“And it will have the highest payload of any small truck in the country.”