INDIANAPOLIS (March 14, 2013) — Echo Automotive Inc. has signed an agreement with Meineke Car Care Centers Inc. to serve as a national service center and installer for Echo's system of cost-effective conversion of existing fleet vehicles into fuel-efficient hybrids and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Jason Plotke, Echo Automotive chairman and president, said the company is "extremely pleased to have Meineke onboard as a strategic partner. Our relationship with Meineke greatly assists us in scaling our business through the support of this highly recognized and respected national service provider, and is a tangible advantage we are delighted to offer our customers."
Meineke operates approximately 900 franchise locations throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia and the Caribbean. The company said its franchisees have serviced more than 50 million vehicles since 1972.
Echo said it is focused on the importance of having key vendor relationships as part of its business plan. "We view collaboration and strategic partnering as a smarter way to go to market," said Dan Kennedy, Echo CEO. "We are an integrator and believe that having dedicated upstream and downstream partners is crucial to providing the very best solutions for our customers."
According to the company, the key to its strategy is the "bolt-on nature of its solution that introduces little or, in some cases, no additional points of failure, making it very low risk compared to competing solutions."
Echo claims by using its EchoDrive and other systems a fleet can reduce fuel usage by up to 50 percent. The company said EchoDrive "can be easily bolted onto new and existing vehicles cost-effectively, for the purpose of substantially reducing a vehicle's fuel consumption. For the first time, fleet operators have an option that allows them to significantly reduce their fuel expenses with a solution that makes both short term as well as long term economic sense."