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Over a Million Dollars Raised by Two EV Startups in Just a Few Days

Crowdfunding is a wonderful thing. You come up with an idea, make a nice presentation, think about a target budget and then sit back and wait for people like you and me to endorse your project with their hard-earned cash.
Uniti IEV 8 photos
Photo: Uniti
Model SondorsModel SondorsUniti IEVUniti IEVUniti IEVUniti IEVModel Sondors
Some of these ideas belong to perfectly normal people but are absolutely ridiculous, while others sound quite nice, but their initiator is pretty weird. The SONDORS Electric Car (first revealed by Electrek) falls into the latter category. The premise sounds excellent: we get a three-wheeled electric car with a maximum range between 50 and 200 miles and a base price of just $10,000. That sounds perfect for urban commutes, and maybe even the occasional highway incursion.

The EV is called Model SONDORS (a clear stab at Tesla if there ever was one) and will be developed by the same man who came up with the $500 electric bike: Storm Sondors. Now, Sondors is the kind of guy you either like or dislike. He clearly likes to think of himself as being different, and he definitely is, but the video he put together to support his crowdfunding campaign pictures him as a bit of a madman. And not necessarily the good kind. Not exactly the type you'd want to do business with, not to mention hand out some money, no strings attached.

And yet, probably based on his current success with the bike, plenty of people have. 475, to be more exact, raising a total of $338,000 with 80 days left. The ultimate goal is to hit one million, but the campaign has already surpassed its minimum target, which was just $70,000.

Over in Europe, another startup wants your money, but even though the products are rather similar, the presentation couldn't be more different than Sondors'. Instead of the lonely questionable genius, the Swedes at Uniti portray themselves as a team of young people dedicated to turning an idea into reality.

They're also much further down the way than Sondors. Their vehicle has four wheels, but that doesn't mean it's anything like the rest of the cars - EVs included - that are currently out on the streets. The small city cruiser is home to a lot of new, revolutionary features, including a new steering method and an improved HUD that's much more complex that what we're used with right now.

The Uniti project has raised over 660,000 euros, which is 160,000 euros more than the initial target and with 39 days still to go. The team has a very carefully prepared schedule, and if everything goes to plan, they'll be ready to make the first deliveries in the third-quarter of 2019 or the start of 2020. That's a long time to go, but think about how long the development process of a new car takes for established automakers as well.

We're not here to pass judgment, but if we were to invest in just one of these two projects, we'd know very well which one to go for. They both have things going on for them, but at the end of the day, you just have to stop and see which one sounds more coherent. Watch the two clips below to get an idea.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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