What do you do when one of the pillars of your business and marketing plan suddenly disintegrates? Not because of anything you did, either. Just a function of how fast things can change in our revved-up world.

The Aurica Motors plan
Aurica Motors was originally going to convert the enormous NUMMI plant in Fremont to the manufacturing of its electric cars, proprietary components and charging stations. Toyota’s planned shutdown of NUMMI would put 4,700 employees out on the street, along with 50,000 people who worked for suppliers. Not fortuitous for the Bay Area economy. But fear not, Aurica Motors would save the day.

You’re going to what?
We were a little skeptical at first when the startup came to us. Pretty ambitious plan, we said. But they won us over with their vigor, ideas and a strong portfolio of inventions that solved key problems in the electric car space.

Aurica’s technologies create efficiencies that allow an electric car to go farther on one battery charge than possible before. Range is probably the single biggest obstacle to electric car adoption, so farther is good. Then there’s the issue of charging with “grid” energy, which is mainly generated by coal. Kind of defeats the green purpose, doesn’t it. Aurica’s option: in 3 minutes, you can exchange your spent battery for one recharged with off-peak renewable solar or wind power.

Putting Aurica on the map
Once we were on board, our first move was to put Aurica Motors on the map with a strategically positioned branding website and campaign that generated something like 2,800 Google search results in the first week (from blogs to TV and newspaper coverage). We used PRTechConnect a division my friend Tracy Williams’ PR firm Olmstead Williams. Their News Release Package for startup companies goes out to a customized list of editors and bloggers for only $999/month. It really works.

Quick, an infrastructure
Next mission: get our tech entrepreneurs some infrastructure support. They’d need help in many different areas, from business structure to securing government funding. I introduced them to a group I knew had what it takes: Morrison & Foerster San Francisco. Known affectionately as Mofo.

Susan MacCormack, known affectionately as Suz, is the head of Mofo’s cleantech practice. She and partner David Gold presented us with a world-beating team in every arena from Environmental to Transactions.

A new reality breaks in
One of the first steps was to line up NUMMI. A week before the plant was to be shut down, David Gold at Mofo found out for us that NUMMI in fact was not interested in pursuing a relationship with Aurica. Meanwhile the rumors buzzed: NUMMI would become a gigantic mall. Or a ballpark. Yikes.

This upended a cornerstone of Aurica’s business plan. To be honest we’d all suspected this outcome. There were rumors in the press, and the NUMMI people wouldn’t return calls. Now we knew for sure.

The good news: it was better to find out early than to waste time.

A 180 and a peel-out
The Aurica founders wasted no time at all on “if only” lamentations. They were able to switch gears overnight. This is what I mean by marketing (and business) maneuverability. We put our heads together on strategy and roughed out a new direction.

Suddenly on May 20, 2010 came a surprise announcement: Toyota would invest $50 million in Tesla Motors to help them buy NUMMI and build electric cars there. So that’s why NUMMI wouldn’t return our calls! Aurica was already moving forward with a new plan, but part of the marketing message had to shift, overnight, since Tesla planned to hire 1,000 of the 4,700 displaced NUMMI workers. The next day, the website was up to date.

Could you turn this fast?