New rival for Holden's US cop car

The Holden Caprice won't have an easy ride into the lucrative North American police car market when it becomes ready for duty at the end of this year.

Ford, the market leader there for the last 15 years, showed its hand last week when it unveiled an upcoming police pack version of its Taurus sedan. Now this week, the little known Carbon Motors Corporation, which has displayed a purpose-built police car concept for the past two years, has announced a deal to buy 240,000 BMW turbodiesel engines and automatic transmissions to power its car, so far known only by its code name, E7.

BMW sales and marketing chief (and board member) Ian Robertson and William Santana Li, Chairman and CEO of Carbon Motors Corp (both pictured) signed the powertrain supply contract at a ceremony held in Washington, DC today.

It is the first sign that the Carbon Motors vehicle is poised to move beyond the concept stage and become a serious competitor. It also means that Holden faces a harder battle to earn a slice of the US police car market, said to be worth between 70,000 and 90,000 sales per year.

Ford doesn't want to give up the business, and Carbon Motors clearly has similar ideas to Holden: to take some of the business away from Ford. It will therefore be an interesting three-way battle, but Holden at least has a jump start on the others.

The Police Caprice (to wear a Chevrolet badge) should be on the beat by late 2010 or early 2011, but the police pack Ford Taurus is not due to be ready until late 2011, and the Carbon E7 is not due until 2012.

Perhaps to enhance the legitimacy of the whole deal, Carbon Motors got BMW to make the engine announcement on its behalf and then posted the press release on its own website.

The statement issued today by BMW said in part: "The BMW Group has received a major order from the American law enforcement vehicle manufacturer, Carbon Motors Corp, to supply more than 240,000 diesel engines.

"The agreement calls for delivery of inline six-cylinder diesel engines complete with cooling and exhaust gas system and automatic transmission."

Compared with the old V8-powered Ford Crown Victoria police cars, Carbon Motors and BMW claim the new powertrain will cut consumption and emissions by up to 40 per cent.

These are bold claims, and the Carbon Motors police car is a bold project.

Carbon Motors Corp. was founded in 2003 to become "the world's first manufacturer of purpose-built law enforcement vehicles". It has been gathering investors ever since then.

It plans to build between 10,000 and 80,000 cars per year but car factories typically need much higher volumes than this to remain viable and to keep the individual costs of cars down.

Under the FAQ section of Carbon's website, it addresses some of these issues. It says that Carbon executives and engineers are made up of people who previously have worked for major carmakers, "so Carbon Motors is well-versed in the challenges and opportunities of all aspects of vehicle design, manufacturing, finance, management, marketing and service", it says.

The website also said: "It does not make sense for us to team up with an existing automaker for a number of legal, political, legacy and business reasons. However, we do have friendly relations with several automakers and we will be purchasing the engine from an existing manufacturer."

About questions on profitability, the Carbon website states: "Starting with a clean slate, with a new business model, and no legacy issues (such as health care and pension benefits for generations of retired workers) affords us the unique opportunity to tailor the solution to the marketplace. We are building the entire company around mid-volume production (say 10,000 – 80,000 units per annum versus 400,000 units per year of a typical automaker). That requires new business processes, new technologies, and new legal structures."

Carbon is also heavily pushing the "American jobs" line. A tab on its homepage says "Demand New Jobs", and then points to a promise to create "10,000 new direct and indirect American jobs of national importance".

It's difficult to determine just how much a threat this start-up operation will be to the Holden export deal, but Carbon is certainly talking the talk: "Carbon Motors Corporation is a bold, new homeland security company on a critical mission to design, develop, manufacture, distribute, service, and recycle at end-of-life, the world's first purpose-built police car."

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