Powering up
By Brad Kadrich
May 1st, 2008

Mike and Rob Brunhild were looking for a business they could get started despite "an iffy" economy.

After doing some research, the Brunhilds are charged up about their newest venture: Batteries Plus in Plymouth Township. The store opened last week in the new retail center on Ann Arbor Road west of Haggerty.

It's their second location in Michigan - they opened a store in Farmington Hills in October 2006 - and they also bought a store in Las Vegas in December.

"This is a growing franchise and there were local opportunities available," Mike Brunhild said. "Batteries are a natural, because people always need them. In a down economy, it's a way of saving money."

When they were looking for a location, the Brunhilds eyed a vast area from I-94 up to Rochester and Auburn Hills, and from Telegraph to the Wayne County line on the west.

They finally settled on the Plymouth Township location.

"Of all the areas, this one seemed to have the right combination of people, commercial and industrial," Brunhild said. "It's a growing area where we saw things happening in the next few years."

While the store is largely a retail center, Brunhild said they also cater to a good deal of municipal and industrial entities, such as fire and police departments, alarm companies and hospitals.

Products include thousands of batteries for thousands of items, ranging from common items such as watches, cameras and cordless telephones to larynx batteries for electronic voice boxes, solar landscape lights, talking books for children and keyless entry door locks at major hotels.

The new location provides the equipment and expertise on-site to assemble, test, condition and re-build custom battery packs for rechargeable household and commercial products. They also offer custom in-house battery assembly, rebuild battery packs and recycle lead-based batteries.

Batteries Plus of Plymouth will also focus on serving the senior citizen community by offering home service calls to install batteries in medical equipment such as wheelchairs, Brunhild said.

"In an age of increased portability, our society is dependent on batteries," said Mike Brunhild, co-owner of the Plymouth Batteries Plus store. "We provide unmatched service and expertise, along with batteries of virtually every shape and size. We look forward to meeting the needs of the Plymouth community."

Batteries Plus, located at 41600 Ann Arbor Road, is open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. For more information, call (734) 254-9815.