A new electric vehicle manufacturer is seeking early-model HP 3000 servers, hoping to locate systems that were built with a now-rare alloy crucial to the latest EV propulsion needs.

Voltene, which is building the first line of solar-powered food trucks, wants the HP 3000s manufactured prior to the year 2000. The systems were built with a set of gold-plated network interface cards and cages. When in service, this old hardware was a serious drain on power resources for customers who used servers like Series 900 systems.

But the very design of physics that needed all of that electricity makes those components a superior source of storage for the wattage the food trucks need to maintain cooking capabilities. Will Ubeserius, the CEO at Voltene, says the older the server, the more it's worth to the California-based competitor to Tesla.

"They don't make them like that anymore," Ubeserius said. "We'd like to get in front of our competition to get that classic iron's materials into our production lines. We're pretty sure that the value in those 900s is going to be a good match with our HotPlayte line."

A novel combination of solar arrays and grills converted from white gas kerosene, the HotPlayte trucks have been through hardware tests in Roseville, Calif. The testing field, a roundup corral with a dozen trucks, was built less than a mile from the last working HP 3000 manufacturing line in Roseville.

"We found a warehouse in the area with thousands of these servers, tucked away by what we're told was the HP FRD division when it took 3000s in for remarketing ploys," the CEO said. "It's a gold mine for what we need. But it's still a fraction of what we'd like to have."

The company is also researching the potential for the 7944 disk drives to contribute to the Voltene line. "Those drives moved on their own without wheels," said Stan Derddisc, chief engineer at the Roseville test site. "There's something in them that stores energy and releases it as kinetic propulsion. Those HP engineers were decades ahead of their time in making bytes move."

Companies with Series 900 servers are invited to send the systems FOB to the Voltene Energy Renewal Center at 8000 Foothills Blvd, Roseville, CA 95747. Freight On Board shipping ensures the systems will become property of Voltene once they leave the docks of the 3000 owners' companies.