"Car projects are very capital-intensive, and the financial community hadn’t seen stellar volumes from electric cars from Nissan, GM and others.” -- Paul Wilbur, CEO, electric car manufacturer Aptera Motors.
Aptera Motors announced its dissolution Friday. The California-based electric-car company, founded in 2006, was best-known for its flashy 2e prototype, which looked like something off an old cover of Popular Science. The company threw in the towel last week, citing an inability to raise enough venture capital to stay afloat after a conditional $150 million loan offer from the Energy Department.
Aptera's failure comes at an odd time for the electric-car business. We're in the middle of a great transition, a shift away from the gasoline engine's dominance of the world's highways. Two major manufacturers -- General Motors and Nissan -- now offer a car that is either completely electric (Nissan Leaf) or so close to one that it makes little difference (Chevrolet Volt). And yet, both have significant drawbacks in terms of cost or practicality; both are suffering on the sales floor because of them. Some say it's because the time isn't right for alternative propulsion. Those same people will no doubt claim that Aptera died for the same reason.
Hindsight is always 20:20, but if you've really been paying attention, you probably saw Aptera's death coming. Here's why.
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