Sugar Grove man builds all-electric car that looks like floating pyramid
BY DAVID SHAROS For Sun-Times Media June 25, 2011 12:54AM
Greg Zanis, 60, of Sugar Grove has invested about $85,000 to build his proto-type “Zanis I,” an all-electric car that looks like a floating pyramid. Robin Perry, the CEO of the newly formed Zanis Corporation in Naperville, says the two want to raise $3 million in start up money to get production going on the car by sometime next year. | Submitted photo
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Before doubting whether anything is technologically possible, think about the innovations of the past 100 years. Then consider the vision of Sugar Grove resident Greg Zanis.
“I’ve had this idea to make an all-electric car since I was about six years old,” the 60-year-old father of five said. “I honestly think I was born to do this — it truly is my destiny.”
In the past five years, Zanis has devoted countless hours of time and invested about $85,000 to build his prototype, “Zanis I,” an all-electric car that looks like a floating pyramid. Zanis said he would have let his inventive mind romp a lot earlier in life if building 26 custom homes and 11 Chicago-area restaurants hadn’t gotten in the way.
“I finally decided about five years ago I was just going to finally do this, and I got some help from people that belong to the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association, which meets monthly,” Zanis said. “There are people there from Lucent and IIT and others that helped me with the technical expertise I needed. The car and the principles it uses are actually very simple.”
The prototype is a pyramid about 8 1/2 feet square that appears to float over the ground. It comes with bullet-proof glass, already inflated airbags, jell tires, solar panels in the glass to help recharge the 80 car batteries it uses, plus roll bars and a cage around the driver, making it, as Robin Perry, the CEO of the newly formed Zanis Corporation says, “the safest car on the road.”
“Its design is like the cars you see at the Indy race where someone gets smashed on the track, and they get up and walk away,” 64-year-old Perry said. “The idea is that if someone hits you in this car, they just push you sideways, but you won’t be injured.”
Perry said he and Zanis are looking for investors and hope to quickly secure about $3 million in start-up money to get production going on the car by sometime next year. The goal is to conservatively produce 34,025 vehicles, with 10 to be used for crash tests and the other 15 to be archived and used for promotional purposes around Chicago and the surrounding areas.
Perry said his partner went for a test run one night on the open road driving well past midnight and was stopped 30 times before he got home.
“The police never stopped him once, but people just kept flagging him down and asking him where he got the vehicle and where they could get one,” Perry said. “The Hewlett-Packard facility on Warrenville Road has already requested to conduct the crash tests once the vehicle is ready.”
Ted Lowe, 53, of Wheaton, a former president of the Fox Valley Electric Auto Association, says the task of producing the car and successfully marketing it may be daunting given the nature of American consumers.
“You can sell two and even three-wheeled vehicles pretty easily, but once you put four wheels on them, it’s another matter,” Lowe said. “The Chinese have been trying to do it in this country for years and haven’t been successful.”
Another Auto Association member Christopher Sharp, 51, of Yorkville said he drove the Zanis car once and says it is something with “a lot of ideas wrapped up in it.”
“When you talk about putting something like this out there for the public, it’s kind of a fringe idea,” Sharp said. “I personally think the vehicle is likely to become something of a collector’s item — a second car that people might use to run errands.
“I guess the success of this depends on the attitude of consumers.”
Zanis, however, remains convinced this idea will work and says all the pieces are lined up.
“I want Robin to run the company so I can continue to work in research and development, and explore other ideas I have,” he said. “We’ve produced 3D CAD drawings and done the research. We want to open up a dealership here in Naperville on Ogden Road where people can come and pay to do take a car for a 24-hour test drive.”
“We have a building plant site in Sugar Grove that will add 2,000 jobs, and a lot of the key production people all lined up ready to go once we get the investment money together and actually become a company,” Perry adds. “The Discovery Channel has told us they want to film this entire production process from start to finish, and Greg has a standing invitation to appear on ‘Good Morning America’ whenever he wants.
“This is a fabulous invention that will change the face of what people drive in this country.”
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