Motiv Poised to Profit as Demand Grows for Electric Trucks, Buses

For a first-grade project on solving community issues, Motiv Power Systems founder Jim Castelaz chose pollution as his topic. He sketched his prophetic solution onto a poster board. It read, “make electric cars.”

Castelaz did make an electric car, using scrap lumber and 12-volt batteries. But that was when he was still in elementary school. Nowadays he’s tackling bigger projects.

Motiv, headquartered in a modest light industrial and commercial park in Foster City, Calif., a few miles south of San Francisco, develops and builds electric powertrains and supplies complete zero-emissions electric chassis for medium-duty trucks and buses.