Aptera Gets Financial Boost From Google Investment Unit
By John O'Dell July 23, 2008
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
Well, somebody believes.
We hear a lot of doubt when the subject of Aptera Motors and its odd-looking, three-wheeled EV is raised around the office.
But the company and search engine giant Google has announced that Google's green tech investment arm has just pumped some of its money into Aptera.
The $2.75 million investment was made by RechargeIT, a unit Google.org started to "accelerate the commercialization of plug-in vehicles."
Google.org, if you are trying to keep score here, is Google's philanthropic arm.
"We've been looking for top entrepreneurs working to find innovative transportation solutions, and we're delighted to include Aptera Motors among those innovative companies we're supporting," said Karl Sun, a Google.org investments principal.
Steve Fambro, founder of San Diego-based Aptera, called the Google investment "a wonderful endorsement and great confidence-builder as we ready ourselves for production start-up later this year."
Aptera has been developing a two-seat, three-wheeled vehicle that looks like a small airplane sans wings and stabilizer fins and is classified as a motorcycle.
It comes in two flavors: a $27,000 battery-electric model and a $30,000 extended-range or gasoline-electric series hybrid (the gas engine makes juice for an electric motor) and, initially, will be available only in California.
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