CHAIRMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER & CO-FOUNDER
Vehicle background: Hays’ electric vehicle industry experience dates to his 1996 founding participation in Calstart, the State of California’s Zero Emission Vehicle incubator which at its zenith included GM, Michelin, Pirelli, AC Propulsion, AeroVironment, PIVCO (acquired by Ford Motor Co) and 200 others.
Innovation: Between 1996 and 2015, Hays collaborated with former Chrysler Chairman, Lee Iacocca, Dr. Paul MacCready, former Chairman of AeroVironment, Bob Boucher (“Father of Electric Flight”) and Schiller Waterbikes, contributing innovation to seven electric vehicle development efforts, each requiring unique drivetrains that Hays also wrote patents for.
Recognition: Hays has been a guest lecturer at the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley; Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University; was named “Inventor of the Month” by Autodesk, was recently recognized by the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry for the PiCycle electric bicycle which is currently on display in the museum’s Art of the Bicycle permanent collection. Hays coauthored 9 currently pending ORBIS patents while he’s currently authoring another 20.
Of interest: Hays also owns two land-speed records for electric motorcycles set at the famed Bonneville Salt Flats in 2006 and 2007, was a Transportation Studies Major at the prestigious Art Center College of Design Pasadena before dropping out in his junior year to join the Calstart incubator and prior to that, was an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Navy.
