Venture Vehicles, maker of high-priced electric scooter, gets backing
(Update: The company’s supporters have orchestrated a campaign to criticize this article; see comments below)
Venture Vehicles, a Los Angeles company developing a three-wheeler car that you can plug into a electrical outlet, with a glass canopy roof that can reportedly out-accelerate a Porsche Boxster — and get 100 miles to the gallon — has just raised $6 million in a first round of funding.
NGEN Partners made the investment.
We’ve mentioned the company before. It is just one of several companies pushing new kinds of electric vehicles. Pasadena, Calif.’s Aptera Motors Inc., backed by Idealab, is also making a three-wheeler (see our coverage of that quiet project).
VentureWire (subscription required) carries more funding details today.
The challenge for this car, though, is that it costs $20,000, which is pricey for a three-wheeler that some would place in the glorified motor-scooter category. Indeed, the advantage of a three-wheeler, at least for manufacturers, is they don’t have to meet the same safety standards as four-wheelers, even if Venture Vehicles’ VentureOne will have things like a steel roll cage, collapsible steering columns, side impact rails, driver’s air bag and a rear bumper. The classification should lower the cost somewhat, but at $20,000, its still in the region where it competes with more standard hybrid-electric cars that will have more mass appeal. This is a long shot, in our view.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
