Arlington startup Motor has raised a $7 million Series A round to expand its electric car leasing app to new markets.
The round was co-led by Arlington energy and utility company The AES Corp. (NYSE: AES) and Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corp., best known for its car manufacturing.
Motor sells its services to utility companies as an avenue to increase electric car adoption by making the process of leasing an electric car and setting it up as easy as possible for consumers. Electric car adoption, while decreasing a household's carbon footprint, still means as much as a 40% increase in electricity usage, according to Motor CEO Praveen Kathpal.
For individual car owners, Motor offers a $749 month-to-month lease package that for what it lacks in cost-savings it wants to make up for in convenience and low-risk commitment. It wraps up the whole process of leasing a car, getting insurance, installing a charging station and maintenance in one application and pricing model that can be canceled at anytime.
“What we’re doing is carrying the customer all the way through so that they’re a successful electric vehicle owner who is set up to charge at home,” Kathpal said. “If you think about [car-sharing company] Turo, plus an electrician, plus a car dealership, it’s a very fragmented experience. I think there’s a lot of folks in the early majority of the electric vehicle market that are willing to go through all of that effort to become an electric vehicle driver, but when you think about the next phase of the mass market getting into the early majority, the desire to expend effort to become something just is not there. It needs to be an easy and desirable experience.”
Motor, founded in 2020, currently operates in the Indianapolis and Dayton, Ohio, markets. In Indianapolis, it’s boasting a 20% increase in electric vehicle adoption in 2022 to the tune of between 100-200 subscribers for its service, according to the company.
Kathpal declined to discuss revenue. The company offers its services at three tiers: the $749-a-month comfort plan for a Chevy Bolt or Nissan Leaf; a $1,249-a-month advanced plan for a standard Tesla Model 3, Ford Mustang Mach-e or Volkswagen ID.4; and a $1,799-a-month luxury plan for a Tesla Model Y or Audi e-tron.
With the new funding, the company plans to grow the 10-person team by three to five people and fill roles like vice president of strategic finance and market growth associate to expand into new markets and sell to different utilities. Kathpal declined to say which markets are under consideration.
