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French startup Kate has raised $7.6 million (€7 million) in funding from several business angels. As I wrote in my previous article on KT, the company has big goals in terms of daily activities. He plans to use the money to develop an alternative to conventional cars (both electric and off-road) by making something smaller, cheaper and easier to maintain.
Investors in the startup include Julien Lemoine (co-founder and CTO of Algolia), Emmanuel Brizai (AC8 INVEST), Christophe Maurisson (Managing Director at Alcogroup), Romain Afflelou (CEO of Cosmo Connect), Benoit Charles-Lavauzelle (CEO of Theodo). . ) and Antoine LeConte (Church founder).
And Kate isn’t starting from scratch. The company acquired NoSmoke, a maker of small electric vehicles inspired by the Mini Moc. In this way, Kate can reuse some parts and borrow some of the manufacturing processes used to produce recreational vehicles.
But Kate’s next car, now called the K1, is designed not just for everyday use, but for your vacation home. In Europe, people moving from A to B use a large vehicle for 84% of their journeys – such as a regular car. It represents 11 percent of CO2 emissions. And yet, 98% of trips are less than 80 kilometers (that’s 50 miles).
The Kate K1 is a lightweight car that can reach a top speed of 90 km/h (56 mph). Not designed for your long distance journeys. In this case, it is better to rent a regular car. It’s also not designed for big cities, as public transport, bicycles and shared cars work best in this area.
But Kate K1 works well for people living in suburbs or rural areas. Dropping your child off at school, going to work and swinging by the supermarket works well. It will have four seats and should offer an entry-level battery range of 200 kilometers (124 miles).
Kate has an aggressive timeline as she wants to unveil the K1 in the third quarter of 2023. In addition to the secret rendering, here’s what the original, current-day recreation car looks like:
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