Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Interstate Batteries starts with one salesman and his truck. English Wikipedia says that in the spring of 1950 John Searcy began selling and delivering car batteries to wholesalers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area from the back of his red Studebaker pickup, and that two years later he founded his own company, Interstate Battery System. The company’s own “About” page opens its story the same way, with a Studebaker and a firm handshake.

The company dates its founding to 1952. On its history page, Interstate says the business was founded that year when Searcy began shipping batteries to accounts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

The visual identity took shape a decade later. The company says that in 1963 it decided to drop the “A” of IBSA from its advertising, and that the IBS Interstate Battery System shield logo was introduced the same year.

Leadership passed to the family that still runs the board. Interstate says that in 1978 Searcy retired and Norm Miller became president and chairman of the board; English Wikipedia gives the same year. Wikipedia adds that by the 1980s Interstate had distributorships in all fifty US states and Canada, and that in 1990 Norm Miller’s brother, Tommy Miller, became president and chief executive while Norm remained chairman. The company dates its first Canadian distributorship to 1989.

The leadership changed several more times. English Wikipedia says Carlos Sepulveda became president and chief executive in March 2004, and that Norm Miller’s son Scott Miller became president and chief executive in 2013, a date the company’s history page also gives. In February 2023, according to Wikipedia, the company announced Lain Hancock as chief executive, with Scott Miller as executive chairman. In October 2026 the company’s leadership page lists Norm Miller as chairman emeritus, Scott Miller as executive chairman of the board and Lain Hancock as president and chief executive officer.

A marketer, not a maker.

Interstate is, in its own description and in Wikipedia’s, a private company. English Wikipedia describes Interstate Battery System of America, Inc., known as Interstate Batteries, as a privately owned battery marketing and distribution company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and the company’s “About” page calls it a privately held corporation.

That description matters for anyone asking where the batteries are made. English Wikipedia says Interstate markets automotive batteries manufactured by Brookfield Business Partners, Exide Technologies and others, and sells them through independent distributors. Alongside car batteries it lists marine and RV, mobility, motorcycle, lawn and garden and other lines in the starting, lighting and ignition markets.

The network reaches beyond the United States. English Wikipedia lists distributors in Canada and in a group of countries across the Caribbean and Central and South America, including Bermuda, Bolivia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Panama, and says Interstate also operates corporate and franchise-owned retail stores. The company’s website offers Canadian, Latin American and Spanish- and French-language versions of its pages.

Retail and recycling came later. The company says its first Interstate All Battery Center franchise opened in 2000, to serve people looking for portable power of many kinds, from hearing-aid batteries to industrial equipment. In 2007, it says, its lead recycling subsidiary, Interstate Batteries Recycling, began as the Lead Management Team. In 2023 it opened a fulfilment centre in Dallas, according to its history page.

The company is open about its values. On its history page it says it codified its culture in 2014 by defining its purpose and values, and English Wikipedia quotes the company’s stated purpose: “to glorify God and enrich lives as we deliver the most trustworthy source of power to the world.” The history page also records that the company established the Interstate Chaplaincy Team in 1990.

Design and documentation.

The brands in this group all make or sell batteries, from the small cells that go into torches, remote controls and toys to the heavy batteries that start cars, boats and trucks. Battery brands in general sit at many different points in the trade: some names belong to the company that makes the cells, some are owned by retailers or parts chains, and some are licensed to different companies in different parts of the world.

A battery brand’s identity is usually carried less by the product itself than by its packaging, its colours, its slogans and sometimes a mascot, because one sealed case looks much like another. Behind the label, the company that owns the name and the factory that builds the battery may have changed several times. That makes the plain questions worth asking: who started the brand, who owns it now, and who actually makes the batteries.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its batteries are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Radio, a cross-country race and NASCAR.

Interstate built its name through broadcast and sponsorship. The company says its first advertising campaign launched in 1982 on the Paul Harvey radio show, linking a little-known brand with a well-known voice. In 1983, it says, it created The Great American Race, a two-week, cross-country race for vintage cars, which it sponsored until 1996. In 1985 it launched “Start”, which the company describes as its first national television advertisement.

Motor racing became the brand’s most visible stage. On its history page, Interstate says it became the founding sponsor of Joe Gibbs Racing in 1991; English Wikipedia says the company became title sponsor of the coach Joe Gibbs’s new Winston Cup team in 1992, and that the team won the Winston Cup championship in 2000. The company says Dale Jarrett, Joe Gibbs Racing and Interstate Batteries celebrated their first NASCAR Cup Series win together at the 1993 Daytona 500.

The colour of the car is part of the identity. On its sponsorships page in October 2026, the company describes “the iconic green Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry XSE” driven by Christopher Bell in the No. 20, and names Dale Jarrett, Bobby Labonte and Kyle Busch among the drivers who took Interstate Batteries to victory lane. English Wikipedia also lists Ty Gibbs among the drivers the company sponsors, and says that in 2010 it began sponsoring the NHRA Pro Stock driver Mike Edwards.

The words are protected as carefully as the colours. The company says that in 2008 it registered the trademark phrase “Outrageously Dependable”. Its sponsorships page also lists partnerships with Semper Fi & America’s Fund, which supports injured veterans, and with Universal Technical Institute, whose campuses use Interstate batteries in training, a partnership English Wikipedia dates to 2018.

For a design guide, Interstate Batteries shows how a distributor without its own factories can build a strong brand from a shield, a slogan and a single racing colour carried for decades. Compare Exide, one of the manufacturers English Wikipedia names as a supplier, and Optima Batteries, another American car-battery brand. For this guide we use a deep green, a highway yellow and a near-black with a condensed sans-serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Interstate Batteries’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.