Wouk organized a company, Beta Electric, and in 1956, sold it only to form a new one, the Electronic Energy Conversion Corporation (EECC). In 1960, he designed smaller and higher-efficiency AC-to-DC converters. In 1962, Wouk was noticed by
Russell Feldmann, president of the National Union Electric Company and one of the founders of
Motorola, who had
Renault Dauphines converted to electric power (known as
Henney Kilowatt cars), and was in need of an efficient speed controller for them. In 1963, Wouk sold EECC to Gulton Industries and continued his work with them. Because the domestic
Big Three automakers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) had their own electric car programs, the much smaller
American Motors Corporation (AMC) partnered with Gulton to develop a new battery based car using
lithium and the advanced speed controller designed by Wouk. The running prototype was a 1969
Rambler American station wagon converted from AMC's gasoline
V8 engine, to an all-electric car. Power consisted of 160 Gulton nickel–cadmium batteries, each rated at 75
ampere hours, and controlled through Wouk designed electronics. It had good acceleration, but relying on batteries alone limited the car's range. The experiments with the Rambler American convinced Wouk that battery problems were not going to be solved easily to satisfy consumers. He started to design a system that would combine an internal combustion engine with an electric motor for motive power. Wouk began working on ideas for a hybrid for American Motors. The
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established a "Clean Car Incentive Program" that funded innovative designs from the auto industry and inventors. This was the first full-sized hybrid vehicle featuring a 20-kilowatt
direct-current electric motor and an RX-2
Mazda rotary engine. This vehicle was tested at EPA's emissions-testing laboratories in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, where it obtained more than twice the fuel economy of the vehicle before it was converted. Furthermore, the vehicle's emission rates were only about nine percent of those of a gasoline-powered car from that era. In 1974, the EPA awarded $33,000 to Wouk and Dr. Charles L. Rosen and began its own analysis of the car, but the agency did not make additional cars for the planned nationwide tests. The archives of Victor Wouk are kept at
Caltech. == Personal life ==