THE BOLWELL CAR COMPANY, makers of the mid-engined Bolwell Nagari sports car, has criticised the Federal Government for denying its request for a slice of the $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund.

Bolwell had been seeking access to the Fund to assist it with the engineering and production of an all-electric version of the Nagari.

Both Holden and Ford have benefited from the Green Car fund, the former receiving money for local production of the Cruze small car and the latter using its portion of the funds to develop the upcoming EcoBoost Falcon and diesel Territory.

However both the Federal Government and the CSIRO have knocked back Bolwell’s request for funding, leaving the independent boutique manufacturer to instead source cheaper components from South Korea to build its all-electric Nagari variant.

”I think it’s easier for them to give one of the majors a heap of money and say ‘build a hybrid’ than actually help the smaller, more innovative engineering side of things,” company co-founder Campbell Bolwell told The Age newspaper.

The $198,000 Nagari is currently designed around a carbon-fibre chassis and a Toyota-sourced 3.5 litre V6, which comes with 220kW as standard or 280kW when fitted with an optional supercharger.

It’s unclear at this stage what power output and pricetag Bolwell will apply to its battery-electric Nagari.