Local food is huge here, Brandon Hollinger points out.

Local baseball is a staple.

So "wouldn't it be cool to buy a car built in Lancaster?"

Enter Hollinger's new business, BH Electrics.

Not that the 37-year-old sole proprietor is planning to build autos from the chassis up.

Rather, he's taking conventional gasoline-powered vehicles and converting them to battery power.

He started in winter 2008-09 by outfitting his own 1970 Saab with 16 lead-acid batteries.

Next, he electrified a cherry red 1992 Mazda Miata that he's giving to his parents.

Last month, he quickly cranked out a second Miata conversion for a Bucks County Renewables workshop.

All of this has earned Hollinger the endorsement and support of Wolfeboro, N.H.-based Electric Vehicles of America, a major supplier of electric vehicle engineering and components.

Meanwhile, exposure a few months ago on Time.com and in the Philadelphia Inquirer has propelled him to near-celebrity status in the closeknit homemade electric car world.

So it only made sense to go into business –– albeit cautiously in his spare time.

BH Electrics received limited liability company status about a month ago.

Now serving as a consultant and component dealer, Hollinger has sold EVA conversion packages –– which he orders from the company at a discount — to a man in Sweden and two other do-it-yourselfers.

He said he has a waiting list of 10 customers who want him to convert their cars –– including a chap eager to wean his 1977 Lincoln Continental off fossil fuel.

Hollinger is looking for a downtown location where he can educate people about electrics and start doing conversions next year.

The field is not crowded. BH Electrics is one of about 30 EVA shops in the country.

"I have the luxury right now of easing into it," Hollinger said. "I do it because I want to."

Game changer
Hollinger was not a born car mechanic.

He's a professional woodwind instrument player for American Music Theatre.

He's also an environmentalist and a pacifist who got charged up over the 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"

"They ate their babies," Hollinger said, referring to the auto industry's creation-cum-destruction of its first electric vehicle fleet in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The electric car was "a disruptive technology" that Hollinger says was torpedoed because it threatened big oil.

And so, subversively, in 2009, he set up shop in his ivy-covered Lancaster garage and yanked the gas engine out of his Saab.

Three projects later, his proposed conversion of an impeccable 1972 Austin-Healey British taxi with a blown engine has earned him a shot at $20,000 in the EVTV Dream Build Giveaway Contest.

Hollinger recently was in second place among 10 national finalists in the competition, which ends Wednesday.

Voters (who can access the contest through Hollinger's website, ampREVOLT.com) have until then to cast their ballots.

The money would be a substantial shot in the arm for BH Electrics, which Hollinger is trying to launch without advertising or accruing debt.

So would a potential energy company sponsor that Hollinger declined to name.

But BH Electrics will roll forward with or without them, he said.

"This stuff speaks for itself," he said of electrics. It's time has come.

Again.

Thus the flurry of new electrics and hybrids from commercial automakers such as Nissan, Tesla and Chevrolet.

Interest ebbs and flows with gas prices, said Ollie Perry, president of the 31-year-old Eastern Electric Vehicle Club in Valley Forge.

Jenny Isaacs, owner of the nonprofit Bucks County Renewables, said she believes consumer awareness has reached a "tipping point.

"And with production electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf still not available for purchase here in Pennsylvania," she said, "recycling an existing gas car or truck into pure battery-electric is a much less expensive option that's available right now."

 Bob Batson, president and founder of Electric Vehicles of America, said the recession has tempered the latest homegrown EV growth spurt.

A typical conversion can cost $10,000 before labor and take 100-plus hours, Batson noted.

Substituting new-generation lithium batteries for the heavier lead-acid batteries can nearly double the price.

On the other hand, Batson said, people continue to find ways to obtain the cars, even if they don't know their way around a socket wrench.

He estimated that 40 percent of electric conversions are contracted out.

The beauty of it is that you can convert practically any vehicle, Batson added.

Such projects "allow someone to become a Henry Ford-type guy, an inventor of sorts."

It might not hurt to be an idealist who eschews wars over Middle East oil.

Hollinger fits the profile.

"He's doing a good job," Batson said. "He's helping a lot of people."

He hopes to eventually help more.

"I'd love to be able to provide a job or two," Hollinger said.

But testing of his prototype cars comes first, added Hollinger, who said he soon will replace his Saab's lead-acid batteries with lithium units.

"Lithium battery technology is a game changer" that will allow cars to go faster and farther, he said.

The sticker shock hurts a bit, he acknowledged, "but you get it back" because lithium batteries will withstand at least 10 years of daily use and don't have to be changed out periodically like lead-acid batteries.

Recharging for 10 hours each night costs "two bucks and change," according to Hollinger.

He said he plans to specialize in converting three disparate vehicle models, as yet unchosen.

"It cuts your labor down hugely" if you don't have to reinvent the wheel for each project, he noted.

He likely will focus on practical passenger and workhorse vehicles.

And something "fun," like the Miata convertible he took for a spin Wednesday near his home.

Thirty-six Voltronix USA lithium ion phosphate batteries can power the vehicle for 85 miles and activate its electric windows and air conditioner.

Last week, they made the rear wheels squeal slightly as Hollinger accelerated onto Walnut Street.

That's important, from a business standpoint.

Thanks to the torque of the electric motor, Hollinger said, "This thing should be able to outperform its gas counterpart."

It should help to shatter the perception of battery-driven cars as clunky and golf cart-like.

The sportscar hastened down the street, quietly but powerfully.

"There's so much room for a little guy to have a presence now," Hollinger said.

Contact Sunday News staff writer Jon Rutter at jrutter@lnpnews.com.