The company is a merger between two electric vehicle companies, the original Electric Vehicle Enterprises, started by Lizardi (Inset, Left) and his son-in-law in Pasadena, and Electric Blue Motors, an Arizona company started by Bill Schlanger, who has a background in automotive engineering.

The company takes conventional cars and converts them to all-electric vehicles with a range of 75-100 miles, he said.

Lizardi commented: ‘Our feeling is why build a total electric car from scratch when you can convert and recycle 3,000 pounds of steel, plastic and glass. It's clean tech; it's an emerging business model. There's potential for local partnerships; there's potential for small to midsize manufacturing, so there's a larger economic potential.’

‘We think the No. 1 market for these cars is Southern California, so being close to the market, we won't have shipping (costs) – The future is electric,’ he added.