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MESA, Ariz. - A company you’ve probably never heard of believes it can make electric vehicles cheaper and more efficient, and its main headquarters is in Mesa, Arizona.
The company, Exro Technologies, makes a part that can be used in any electric vehicle (EV), motorcycle, car, and bus. In fact, it just announced a new contract, providing its coil drivers in 2,500 city buses across America.
This is one of the types of business we were told would move to Arizona if EV makers opened up shop. Now, it's bringing over a hundred jobs to Mesa.
The under-construction facility could be easy to miss from the road as it's surrounded by all the infrastructure being built north of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, but the product developed by Exro Technologies can’t be missed.
"I think we’re actually starting to see Arizona be recognized as the epicenter of EV manufacturing in general," says Sue Ozdemir with Exro Technologies, CEO. "I like to call it the brain because it’s the smarts for how the system works."
She says the coil driver, a small metal box under a motor, can make any EV more efficient.
"It activates and responds to how you need your vehicle to be controlled and that really is the key in what we’re doing," Ozdemir explained. "Controlling the performance of your vehicle. With ours, the key is you need less other components, so less motors, you might need less gears, so that should mean lower sticker price so we can afford EV in the future."
The company picked Mesa for the number of people in the state trained to work in this industry. As of May 16, they still have 50 jobs to fill.
Being next door to EV maker Electra Meccanica's under construction facility is alluring, as is Lucid and Nikola to the south.
"It’s been a really great place to be, and we’ve been so welcome here we’re really glad we chose it," Ozdemir said.
It expects to finish construction of the facility in September, and it won’t just be cool drivers, they’ve developed a way to restart decade-old EV batteries and re-purpose them, saving them from the landfill.
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