STILLWATER, USA - Stillwater Designs Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales Charlie Schultz recently addressed the annual gathering of the Society of Automotive Engineering (SAE) 2009 World Congress in Detroit. He spoke during a panel session on the subject of "Making Green Cool While Staying in the Black," and the overall importance of how green-powered vehicles must not only be efficient, but also fun. The theme of the SAE 2009 World Congress is "Racing to Green Mobility."

John Waraniak, Vice President of Vehicle Technology for SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association), opened the session by explaining how horsepower and green power can coexist. He then posed the question, "What's going to make ‘green' cool?"

Schultz offered some advice his daughter once gave him: "Things are either fun or they're boring.            

"Oftentimes we get so caught in the day-to-day activities of the product, the demands that are upon us, budgets, that we tend to forget that people really like to have fun, and they will pay to have fun," Schultz continued. "So if you're going to make green something that's cool, you've got to figure out (a way) to get people to say ‘I want that.'"

Stillwater Designs' latest example of cool and green is its new KICKER TCVT8 CompVT Sub Box. While pumping out significant bass, it's easily the smallest loaded subwoofer enclosures ever from KICKER Research and Development, with expecations that the size trend will continue toward that direction.

While green characteristics of a vehicle, like good fuel economy and low emissions, are certainly important, panelists agreed that consumers' desire for performance has not disappeared.

"You don't have to give up the cool factor," Waraniak said, referencing musician Neil Young's 1959 Lincoln that was converted to an electric vehicle.

The SAE 2009 World Congress is the world's largest powertrain and safety engineering conference, offering the global automotive industry's most comprehensive technical program, featuring technical papers, SAE seminars, and exhibits. SAE International is a global association of more than 121,000 engineers and related technical experts in the automotive, aerospace and commercial-vehicle industries.

KICKER performance audio systems and SoundGate^® auto integration products, divisions of Stillwater Designs and Audio, Inc.^®, are available for the mobile and home audio aftermarket at authorized dealers worldwide, and also through selected Original Equipment Manufacturers. Consumers needing more information on KICKER, SoundGate, or Livin' Loud^® may call the Consumer Information Line at 1-800-256-5425 or visit brand websites at http://www.kicker.com or www.soundgate.com.

#

CUTLINES
A_tcvtbox - The new TCVT8 CompVT Sub Box is KICKER's smallest subwoofer enclosure ever, increasing both the bass output and the fuel economy of any vehicle.

For more information:
Roger Demaree (rdemaree@kicker.com)

Ron Burnett (rburnett@kicker.com)
Chad Weaver (cweaver@kicker.com)
Lonna Mann (lmann@kicker.com)
800 256-0808
P.O. Box 459
Stillwater, OK 74076