Southern California’s electric car connection
August 21st, 2007 by Benjamin KuoIt seems that Southern California has suddenly become the center of the electric/hybrid car craze, with two fundings this week of electric car startups. SoCal has long been the center of automobile design industry (BMW, Ford, Toyota, General Motors , Volkswagen, and other automobile manufacturers all have design centers in the Los Angeles area), but the interesting mix of cleantech, automotive design, and venture money is something new here.
Yesterday, Venture Vehicles scored $6M in funding from NGEN, and today, PEHub’s Dan Primack reports that Phoenix Motorcars in Rancho Cucamonga is in the midst of closing a round from Kleiner Perkins. Venture Vehicles and Phoenix Motorcars join Aptera Motors, Idealab’s electric/hybrid vehicle effort.
