Electric car maker Aptera goes belly up

[JTD]

Aptera, once one of the most fascinating electric-car makers on the horizon with a wild egg-shaped, three-wheel prototype, is calling it quits.

The company only raised about $40 million of the $150 million it would have needed to get a federal matching grant for its first market-ready four-door electric sedan. But it's a bad climate right now for electric cars, says Marques McCammon, the chief marketing officer.

So he's ordering an orderly dissolution of the company, which has fewer than 30 employees based in Carlsbad, Calif. With a federal grant in hand, it had planned to make the sub-$30,000, advanced compact electric car out of composites at a former General Motors plant in Moraine, Ohio. It hoped to employ 1,400.

"We ran out of cash before we were able to get it done," McCammon said.