Guess we won't be seeing UEV at AltCar this year; Spyder up on eBay
During the last two years' Santa Monica Alt Car Expo, we talked with representatives of Universal Electric Vehicle about their Spyder EV. There were scant updates from the company outside of those events, and now we can see that there won't be much news in the future, either. The one vehicle that UEV produced, a non-street legal prototype all-electric sportster called the Electrum Spyder, was recently up on eBay (it ended with a bid of $25,600 that wasn't high enough to beat the reserve price). According to the item description, a "Business partners [sic] recent illness put a stop to moving ahead," but there could have been a lot of reasons for the attempted sale. UEV was never a major player in the industry, and we're certainly not surprised to see them fail - everyone knows this is a tough business - but it is a somewhat ignoble end for Diana and Greg Lane's EV business.
In any case, we'll be headed back to the Alt Car Expo next week, and we look forward to talking to people who haven't had their dreams crushed quite yet. Thanks to Ryan for the tip!
[Source: eBay]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sean 1:57PM (9/17/2008)
Yah, that and their website is down. Bummer. They seemed like nice people, of the couple of times I called a couple years ago.
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John Rowell 3:38PM (9/17/2008)
I remember visiting the UEV booth at the Alt Car Expo two short years ago, and I talked with the nice folks there. They had a good thing going but I'm sure it's a tough business. Too bad, I was hoping to hear some exciting developments from them. Instead, this. RIP, UEV.
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