Aptera Loan Application Fuels Debate Over Whether Electric 3-Wheeler Is a Car
By Scott Doggett September 14, 2009
The maker of the all-electric three-wheeled vehicle called the 2e (right), which is slated to enter production in coming weeks, wants Washington will view the vehicle as an automobile for the purposes of federal funding.
However, Aptera also wants the federal government to continue to classify the 2e as a motorcycle for the purposes of crash testing. That's because the government does not require motorcycles to pass vigorous crash tests as it does vehicles classified as automobiles.
The 3-year-old closely held company located in Vista, California, wants to borrow $75 million from a Department of Energy program created by Congress in 2007 to speed development of fuel-efficient cars.
But the DOE ruled last year that the plug-in electric 2e didn't qualify under the $25 billion loan program. A three-wheeled vehicle doesn't meet the definition of an automobile under federal law as being "any 4-wheeled vehicle," according to a letter to Aptera last December from Lachlan Seward, the loan program's director.
"We were dismayed," Paul Wilbur, Aptera's chief executive, told The Wall Street Journal in an article published today. Wilbur said the absence of a fourth wheel was critical to maximizing the vehicle's aerodynamics.
Aptera's backers include some big-money donors to the Democratic Party, and its quest for help has received a boost from a group of mostly California lawmakers who want to help a home-state enterprise. Allies of Detroit's big automakers are lined up against them.
A provision in a spending bill approved by the House before its August recess would expand eligibility for the loan program to include any fully enclosed vehicle designed to carry two adults and that averages at least 75 miles a gallon. Those criteria would cover Aptera's vehicle, which company officials say will go 100 miles on an electrical charge.
An illustration on Aptera's Website plugs the 2e's road worthiness.

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The legislation, which must still be reconciled with a Senate bill and signed by President Obama, also stipulates that the DOE "shall reconsider applications for assistance" that were filed last year and rejected on the basis they didn't meet the definition of a qualifying vehicle.
"We need to think outside the box when developing new fuel-efficient vehicles," Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who led the push to attach the provision to the spending bill, told the Journal. "Obsolete bureaucratic definitions should not create roadblocks and stifle innovation."
Aptera's investors include Idealab Inc., a technology incubator in Schiff's Southern California district; the philanthropic arm of Google Inc.; the Quercus Trust, a Newport Beach, California, investment firm; and the family of James Simons, chairman of Renaissance Technologies, one of Wall Street's most successful hedge-fund firms.
Some Aptera investors are longtime contributors to the Democratic Party. Simons and his wife and children have given more than $850,000 to the party or its candidates for high office in the past 20 years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions. The Quercus Trust is run by David Gelbaum and his wife, Monica Chavez Gelbaum, who together have given more than $385,000 to the Democratic Party or Democratic candidates for federal office, according to the Center.
Through a spokeswoman, members of the Simons family declined to comment, the Journal reported. Gelbaum didn't respond to a request for comment. Schiff said he didn't know the Simons or Gelbaum families, and that they had nothing to do with his proposal, which he noted was based on legislation originally proposed by a Republican congressman, Brian Bilbray, whose district is home to Aptera.
Wilbur, Aptera's CEO, said Aptera didn't need a federal loan to start production, which is planned for later this year. But such assistance would help the company expand beyond California faster, he said. Aptera has taken $500 deposits from about 4,000 customers, he said, adding that the 2e would range in price from $25,000 to $40,000.
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