Insider Media Limited

Coventry-based Evida Power is aiming to reach a turnover of £100m within two years, the new executive chairman has told Insider. David Roberts, who held senior roles with Chrysler UK and Aston Martin, said the electric vehicle battery supplier had several major deals in the pipeline to push forward its growth ambitions.

Evida Power specialises in designing and manufacturing lithium-ion battery packs for electric vehicles. Roberts joined the company as chairman earlier this month (November).

He told Insider the company would be "one of the fastest growing UK companies" within the next two years, and added he envisaged the company turning over £100m in the same timeframe.

Evida was launched in 2009 and signed an US$250m agreement with German and French electric vehicle manufacturer Mia Electric at the end of last year (2010), to supply its 8kWh battery packs for three new vehicle models over the next five years.

It is set to achieve sales of between £5m-£10m in its first trading year.

"We have a very strong pipeline of deals, including two or three major projects," said Roberts. "One of these is with French company Mia Electrics and could be worth up to $550m. It's a very demanding industry; creativity and constant development is really key to the success of a company within it."

Roberts, who previously worked on the complete quality assurance strategy at Aston Martin, said Evida was already looking into other markets to break.

"We're looking toward the freight truck market, and ways of implementing our technology there," he said. "It's a huge and relatively untapped market, which I think we could become leaders in."

He added that Evida was working alongside several undisclosed partners to discuss the potential of joint ventures with other manufacturers. The company's chairman, who worked on the successful turnaround of Chrysler UK and its sale to the PSA Group, said he does not take on new roles lightly.

"I chose to come to Evida because it's a very exciting company – often many start-ups are hindered by an over enthusiastic management team with little or no experience of the sector," said Roberts. "Evida is very different and I hope I can put my experience into making it even more of a success."

He said that Evida's products had attracted attention from across the globe, in particular China.

"The Chinese market is growing very quickly for us, they have a huge commitment to electric vehicles. India and the EU are also responding well to the introduction of the vehicles.

"The US is not such a good growth region – it's much slower than the rest of the world in terms of picking up on electric vehicle technology."

Roberts admitted the sector did have issues – namely a lack of mainstream take-up – but said it was addressing the problems through technology development.

"We know the battery power is not what it potentially could be – but we have progressed enormously over the past few years. And the more people invest in the marker, the more time and energy we can dedicate to developing products which will suit all users.

"Each year the technology is getting better and more widely used – I think electric vehicles will be the norm in three years' time."