Interpretation ID: nht95-1.64
TYPE: INTERPRETATION-NHTSA
DATE: February 13, 1995
FROM: Philip R. Recht -- Chief Counsel, NHTSA
TO: Ken Liebscher -- President/Director, Electric Car Company
TITLE: None
ATTACHMT: ATTACHED TO 1/16/95 LETTER FROM KEN LIEBSCHER TO NHTSA ADMINISTRATOR
TEXT: We have reviewed your application of January 16, 1995, for temporary exemption of the M1-6 electric passenger car from six Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards, on the basis that compliance would cause Electric Car Company ("Electric Car") substantial economic hardship. We need some additional information before we are able to consider the application further.
A hardship applicant must provide corporate balance sheets and income statements for the three fiscal years preceding the filing of the application. You have filed statements for E.T.C. Industries and only for two years, those ending December 31, 1992, and December 31, 1993. This is acceptable since your submission indicates that E.T.C. Industries (apparently a Canadian corporation) is the parent of Electric Car (a Nevada corporation incorporated on November 24, 1993), and that "the consolidated finan cial statements [that you have provided us] include the accounts of Electric Car . . . ." We would like to have balance sheets and income statements for Electric Car for the year ending December 31, 1994, but if these are not yet available, we would be w illing to accept statements for E.T.C. Industries (or its predecessor Bradsue Resources, Ltd.) for the year ending December 31, 1991. If the information reflected in the financial statements is given in Canadian dollars, please provide a key indicating the value in American dollars on December 31 of each year for which the information is provided.
In order to grant a hardship application, the Administrator must find that an applicant has tried to comply in good faith with each standard for which exemption is requested. Your application contains no information upon which the Administrator could ma ke such a finding with respect to any of the six standards for which you seek exemption. In spite of your confidence about the MI-6's performance in a 30 mph barrier impact, the fact that the MI-6 uses equipment installed in motor vehicles that are cert ified as meeting the Federal motor vehicle safety standards does not mean that the MI-6 will meet any of the six standards with the equipment installed. We therefore suggest that you supplement the application with information demonstrating that you hav e examined each of the six standards in some detail, and have made a study of possible compliance problems and possible solutions to them. It is permissible to ask to be excused from only a portion of a standard, and you may find, after studying your pr oblems, that you will be able to narrow your requests for exemption from Standards No. 201 and 208. We assume with respect to the latter that you are concerned with the airbag requirements. Although your letter speaks of "restraint systems", we would l ike your further identification of them as two-point (lap belt) or three-point (lap and shoulder belt) systems.
Although you appear to be a manufacturer in the start-up stage and one whose total motor vehicle production in the year preceding the filing of the application was far less than 10,000, you have omitted to provide the number of motor vehicles that you pr oduced in 1994 which is information that we require. Please do so in your response to this letter.
When we have received this information, we shall prepare a notice requesting public comment which will appear in the Federal Register. We shall notify you when the Administrator has made a decision. We expect this to be three to four months after we ha ve received your further submission. If you have any questions on our requirements, you may call Taylor Vinson of this Office (202-366-5263).