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Electric car maker Aptera closes its doors
AP ^ | 12/03/2011 | Dee-Ann Durbin

Posted on 12/05/2011 7:42:35 AM PST by Abathar

Electric car maker Aptera Motors is closing after failing to woo enough investors to bring a new sedan to market.

Aptera CEO Paul Wilbur said the Carlsbad, Calif.-based company closed its doors Friday and laid off all 30 of its employees.

The company was hoping to get a $150 million loan from the Department of Energy but needed to raise matching funds, Wilbur said. He said Aptera had trouble drumming up interest from investors, who have been spooked by the difficulties other small electric car makers have had. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla Motors Inc., for example, has racked up millions of dollars in losses as it prepares to bring its electric Model S sedan to market in mid-2012.

(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aptera; auto; automobiles; doemoney; economy; green; greencars; greenenergy; pipedream; thegreenlie
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""concentrated on building a four-door electric sedan that would get the equivalent of 190 miles per gallon of gas. By comparison, the electric Nissan Leaf is rated at 99 mpg.""

Well, good luck with that...

1 posted on 12/05/2011 7:42:41 AM PST by Abathar
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To: Abathar

This was their 3-wheeled prototype vehicle. They better put a red flag on the back of that thing, a biker could put his eye out.

2 posted on 12/05/2011 7:47:39 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: Abathar

Why didn’t they call it the “Sperm”?


3 posted on 12/05/2011 7:50:20 AM PST by digger48
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To: Abathar; martin_fierro
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla Motors Inc., for example, has racked up millions of dollars in losses as it prepares to bring its electric Model S sedan to market in mid-2012.

The Tesla factory is right down I-880 from Solyndra.

4 posted on 12/05/2011 7:50:28 AM PST by SteveH (First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)
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To: Abathar

Dumb.


5 posted on 12/05/2011 7:50:28 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks
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To: Abathar
The company was hoping to get a $150 million loan from the Department of Energy

Correction. It was scheming to pilfer 150 million dollars from the American taxpayers.

6 posted on 12/05/2011 7:50:37 AM PST by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: Abathar
Speaking of the Leaf's range, one may wish to read this article.
7 posted on 12/05/2011 7:51:00 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Abathar
They are selling something that nobody wants. Once the prospect of endless Obama money dried up all these “green” companies will be going away.
8 posted on 12/05/2011 7:51:28 AM PST by GonzoGOP (There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)
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To: Texas Eagle
"Correction. It was scheming to pilfer 150 million dollars from the American taxpayers."

Precisely.

9 posted on 12/05/2011 7:53:14 AM PST by Abathar (Proudly posting without reading the article carefully since 2004)
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To: Abathar
Fuller Dymaxion Redux

Designer-genius R. Buckminster Fuller was one of the century's great nutjobs, a walking unorthodoxy who originally conceived of the Dymaxion as a flying automobile, or drivable plane, with jet engines and inflatable wings.

It would be one link in his vaguely totalitarian plan for the people to live in mass-produced houses deposited on the landscape by dirigibles.

Okayyyy...Deprived of wings, the Dymaxion was a three-wheel, ground-bound zeppelin, with a huge levered A-arm carrying the rear wheel, which swiveled like the tail wheel of an airplane. The first prototype had a wicked death wobble in the rear wheel.

The next two Dymaxions were bigger, heavier, and only marginally more drivable. The third car had a stabilizer fin on top, which did nothing to cure the Dymaxion's acute instability in crosswinds.

A fatal accident involving the car — cause unknown — doomed its public acceptance.

Though unworkable, this three-wheeled suppository was the boldest of a series of futuristic, rear-engined cars of the 1930s, including the Tatra, the Highway Aircraft Corporation's "Fascination" car and, everybody's favorite, the Nazi's KdF-wagen.

History Repeating

10 posted on 12/05/2011 7:54:46 AM PST by spokeshave (Cain....100% American, 100% Black and 100% for the Constitution...999 an added benefit.)
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To: Abathar

Aptera few months,
Green always turns Brown.


11 posted on 12/05/2011 7:55:10 AM PST by bunkerhill7
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To: Red Badger

Ping.


12 posted on 12/05/2011 7:55:56 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: digger48

Not just the looks.....the taxpayers were going to get screwed.


13 posted on 12/05/2011 7:57:20 AM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: GonzoGOP
Once the prospect of endless Obama money dried up all these “green” companies will be going away.

Yeah. and so will a lot of our "obamamoney".

14 posted on 12/05/2011 7:58:35 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: Abathar

But, but...........aren’t we supposed to be liberal? Aren’t we supposed to want clean green energy, and clean green cars? Isn’t Obama creating clean green jobs, by subsidizing clean green companies???????

Or look at another way, isn’t it evil capitalism which is causing this company to fail, and aren’t we supposed to hate evil capitalism? So aren’t we supposed to subsidize this company so they can give us what is good for us (tiny electric car) rather than a vehicle we really want???

Do they still have Trabants in the former East Germany? I wonder if those people loved that little proletarian car produced by their people’s republic??????????


15 posted on 12/05/2011 7:58:47 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Abathar

The classic Morgan three-wheeler is a much more handsome car than that pile of rubbish.


16 posted on 12/05/2011 7:58:52 AM PST by Army Air Corps (Four fried chickens and a coke)
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To: Abathar; Texas Eagle

The problem is not that they wanted to steal, the problem is that they didn’t want to steal.

Had they requested a billion and kicked half of it back there would be no problem.

They were non union to boot


17 posted on 12/05/2011 8:00:12 AM PST by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 ..... Crucifixion is coming)
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To: bert
Electric car maker Aptera closes its doors

Aptera, ha ha ha. It's wings have been clipped.
18 posted on 12/05/2011 8:03:39 AM PST by aruanan
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To: GonzoGOP

Obama’s green jobs scam was just to get money in the pockets of his friends, remember all those green jobs speeches, scam , scam ,scam


19 posted on 12/05/2011 8:09:56 AM PST by molson209
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To: Abathar
The company was hoping to get a $150 million loan from the Department of Energy but needed to raise matching funds, Wilbur said

Whew, the taxpayers squeaked past that one.

20 posted on 12/05/2011 8:10:17 AM PST by bgill (The Obama administration is staging a coup. Wake up, America, before it's too late.)
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