SONDORS’ abandoned 3-wheeled electric car just showed up for sale on eBay

This one is off-topic for home energy upgrades, but here's what it's about: an electric vehicle oddity, not a home energy story.

SONDORS, the company better known for its electric bikes, once tried to build a cheap three-wheeled electric car. Back in 2017, it showed off a prototype at the Los Angeles Auto Show and promised a production version starting at $10,000, with battery options offering 75, 150, or 200 miles of range and a 0-60 mph time as fast as 5 seconds. The car had an unusual layout, seating two people up front and a third passenger in the middle behind them. SONDORS took $100 reservations in 2018 and aimed for production in 2019, but the car never made it past the prototype stage.

Now that same prototype has turned up for sale on eBay, listed with just one mile on it, for $10,000 or best offer — the exact price SONDORS once promised for the finished car. The seller says the vehicle doesn't run, needs cosmetic work, and is being sold as-is, with no guarantee it can be easily fixed. It is also explicitly not street legal. The seller claims more than $1.5 million went into building it, a figure that roughly lines up with a 2018 report that called it a "$1 million prototype."

SONDORS eventually became known mainly for its e-bikes and later an electric motorcycle, before the company fell into financial trouble and bankruptcy. This oddball three-wheeler stands as the one physical reminder of its unrealized electric car ambitions.