Electric Car Start-Up Companies

This is an alphabetical list of electric car start-ups. Due to the nature of this topic, it will never be a complete list, and if a business moves to another stock exchange/gets delisted, goes bankrupt, merges with another company, or relocates, it may be a while before our manually-adjusted database gets updated. The basic business name will link to our own page about the company when one is available.

What Counts as an Electric Vehicle Start-Up?

We are including any company formed after 1985 that has started with or shifted to a focus on electric powered vehicles. This does include hybrid power, as long as that is a considerable portion of the vehicle line-up. While a brand like Nissan or Ford making an electric car will not count, a newly formed division that can easily be spun off, sold, or shut down, that was founded by an established company will be included.

By The Numbers

Out of the 125 companies listed, 80 are active and 45 are defunct. That's about 36% of the companies out of the game! Of all of these companies, 29 have been public companies at some point, and 10 of those have become defunct. That's about 34.5% (so far) make sure you research EV stocks thoroughly before you invest!

Electric Car Technology Hubs

Economic incentives may drive technology to certain areas, particularly government subsidies. Here's some information about noteworthy hubs of electric car development.

California

Out of all these listed, 33 have/had a headquarters in California, USA, and of those, 12 are defunct, about 36.4%. California is an emissions regulation generating state that occasionally provides benefits to zero emission vehicle start-ups. Roughly 56.9% of the electric car start-ups in the United States have their headquarters in California.

China

Out of all these listed, 22 have/had a headquarters in China, and of those, 8 are defunct, about 36.4%. China runs a semi-centrally-planned economy, which means it has influence over what companies do well within the country. If a company is aiming to compete in an international market within a growing sector, the government of China (and/or more local governments relevant to the company) may decide to keep a company going at a loss just so it may be competitive and profitable one day when other companies have run out of funding while dealing with the state-funded competition China provides. This leads to the abnormally low failure rate of electric vehicle companies within the country.

Failure Isn't All Bad

Companies rising and falling within a given technology focus does come with the heartbreak of jobs and money lost, but it's the scientific method applied to economics. A healthy economy will have both success stories and the disappointment of failure.

Disclaimer

Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement of any company. Exclusion is not an intentional statement, and inclusion or exclusion may change at any time. Information may be out of date, since it is manually updated. We aim to keep this information accurate and up to date, but be aware that errors may be present.