Former GM Exec Lutz to Run Electric Car Firm VIA

Lutz is credited with the launch of GM’s all-electric Chevy Volt and is also the force behind another car company, VL Automotive, with a completely different line of business. VL is buying up Fisker Karmas, yanking out the hybrid parts, and replacing them with a gasoline-powered Corvette engine. When asked at the Detroit Auto Show earlier this year if VL would be doing a similar conversion on the Model S sedan from Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), Lutz simply answered, “Yes.”

VIA Motors does not actually build vehicles. Instead it buys a gasoline-powered vehicle like the Chevy Silverado pickup and replaces the transmission with its own power-train system, essentially converting the pickup to a plugin hybrid. The truck will run 40 miles on a full charge, and once battery pack power is down to 10% of capacity the gasoline motor comes on and recharges the battery up to 15% before shutting off. The gasoline engine never drives the truck, instead acting only as generator to charge up the batteries. The system increases the efficiency of the gasoline engine by about 50%.

There is nothing cheap about these vehicles however. A VIA-modified Silverado, dubbed a VTrux, costs about $80,000. That is cheap though compared to the cost of a modified Fisker Destino. If you want one of those, it’ll set you back $200,000.