If you’ve ever wanted to own a genuine piece of electric vehicle vaporware history, now might be your chance. One of the most interesting artifacts from SONDORS’ more ambitious days has just surfaced for sale on eBay: the company’s three-wheeled electric car prototype.
And amusingly, the asking price is $10,000 – exactly what SONDORS originally hoped to charge for the finished car.
The strange vehicle is a three-seat, three-wheeled electric autocycle that was unveiled at the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show. At the time, Electrek’s own Jameson Dow saw the car in person at the show, though he noted that “while the final product is intended to be highway-capable, the prototype is currently limited to low speeds because, well, they don’t want to break anything on it.”
Back then, the company was riding high on the success of its affordable electric bicycles and hoped to repeat that formula with an EV that could dramatically undercut conventional electric cars.
SONDORS claimed the production version would start at just $10,000, with lithium-ion battery options offering 75, 150, or 200 miles (120, 240, or 320 km) of range. Depending on the configuration, the company was targeting a 0-60 mph time of 5-8 seconds. The unusual seating arrangement put two passengers up front and a third in the center behind them.
SONDORS even began accepting $100 reservations in early 2018 and was targeting production in 2019.
Spoiler alert: that didn’t happen.
But the prototype certainly did exist, and now it appears that very car is looking for a new home.
The eBay seller doesn’t elaborate on how the strange EV came to be in his possession, but he claims this is the only Model SONDORS concept built and says more than $1.5 million was invested in producing the vehicle. That figure should be treated as a seller claim, though contemporary reports do lend some support to the general ballpark: Engadget actually drove the prototype in 2018 and described it at the time as a “$1 million prototype.”
Today, the vehicle is considerably cheaper.
The seller is asking $10,000 or best offer and lists the mileage as a hilariously appropriate one mile. There are some rather large catches, however. According to the listing, the car currently does not run, needs cosmetic work, and is being sold strictly as-is with a bill of sale. The seller says it appears that everything is present and suggests it “may need minimal work” to run again, but there’s obviously no guarantee of that.
It’s worth noting that the prototype we usually saw carted around to shows was a deep maroon color, though it could have been repainted white at some point, which is common for prototype vehicles used in marketing roles to give the impression of multiple vehicles. There are also some cosmetic differences from the commonly seen maroon prototype, such as hood vents, lighting shape, and wheel rims, though these could have all been rolling changes made to one or more prototypes over the years. Without more information its hard to be sure of the exact provenance of the vehicle being auctioned off.
More importantly, this isn’t something you should expect to slap plates on and drive to Cars & Coffee next weekend. The seller specifically notes that the vehicle is not street legal and is a concept car.
That matches what we knew about the SODNORS three-wheeler when it was new. The prototype was always just an early development vehicle, even if it looked surprisingly polished. When Electrek went to drive it in late 2017, we didn’t get quite as lucky as Engadget later did – Dow’s scheduled drive was thwarted when the prototype was broken down.
Still, as a piece of EV history, this thing is fascinating.
SONDORS ultimately became much better known for its electric bicycles – and later the troubled Metacycle electric motorcycle that ultimately helped lead to the brand’s rocky fall from grave and ultimate bankruptcy. While SONDORS’ two-wheelers took the limelight, its electric car dreams never made the jump from prototype to production. But for a brief period, the company was seriously pitching the idea that it could put a stylish, highway-capable electric vehicle in Americans’ driveways for ten grand.
The fact that the apparent sole prototype can now be yours for that same $10,000 is a bizarrely circular ending to the story.
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