HOLLISTER
An electric car company took San Benito County leaders for a test drive this week.
Chairman Richard Groome said his Montreal-based firm T-Rex is looking to move. The company hasn’t settled on a location yet, but Groome said T-Rex’s corporate headquarters and assembly plant could bring in 50 to 75 jobs wherever it moves.
Company representatives are now touring potential locations for their new headquarters, Groome said. Although T-Rex vehicles have been sold in the United States since 1995, the company is in the midst of a major expansion, he said. T-Rex will soon offer between six and 10 different vehicles, including an enclosed commuter model that could sell for as low as $25,000, much less than T-Rex’s other products.
“What you’re seeing is phase one of a five- or six-stage plan,” Groome said.
Unfortunately, with the cold Canadian weather, investors didn’t believe in the open-air vehicles, he said.
“I said, ‘We have to start selling this in California,'” Groome said. “This product is made for California.”
On Tuesday, T-Rex representatives trucked in three vehicles to the California Recreation Mall, where County Supervisor Anthony Botelho, County Clerk Joe Paul Gonzalez and others were taken for high-speed rides down San Felipe Road.
“Oh, it was fun,” Botelho said.
The supervisor had to leave early, but others seemed eager to try out each of the three vehicles – both the gas-powered car and the two electric prototypes.
Recreation Mall owner Sally Hayden, who helped bring T-Rex to San Benito County, said a company with potential for growth could be a big boost to the local economy.
“The most exciting thing about this company is we’re getting in the grassroots,” Hayden said.
Now local leaders need to “step up to the plate,” she said, and offer the company some incentives to move here.
“We need to be creative in our negotiations and we need to think outside the box,” Hayden said. “Other towns do it all the time – that’s how they grow.”
Botelho said he definitely wants to attract T-Rex to San Benito County.
“We’re entering a new era of the industrial age, meaning green industries, and that’s something San Benito County really needs to tap in to for diversifying its economy,” he said.
Groome said was impressed with the area – but the cost of moving here might be out of the company’s price range. The company will make its decision by the end of February, he said.
“We love it,” he said. “The valley is absolutely stunning. The question is, can we afford it?”
