When custom electric car maker RBW unveiled its models of Roadster and GT models, the cars took away a lot of people's jaws at Monterey Car Week this year, CEO Peter Swain recently told TechCrunch.
"We had four 'wows,' where people would go: 'Wow, that's beautiful. Wow, look at the interior. Wow, is it really brand new?' And then they go: 'Wow, is that all that costs?' " he said.
That may sound like an odd response to cars starting at $139,000. But Swain maintains that the price is competitive with the countless EV conversions happening around the world. And because his company is building them from the ground up, he feels it is a steal by comparison to most any other custom build.
"We're not extortionate, for a hand-built vehicle," he said.
Now, Swain and his team at RBW are beginning something that has caused some individuals to say "wow" two years in a row.
Tomorrow, Thursday, they unveil an electric vehicle company called Spirit EV. This design, testing and manufacturing company describes itself more as an "EV-as-a-service" with a more artisanal approach.
The idea is to take everything they learned in making the RBW cars over the past few years and make that knowledge available to other companies wishing to build new, custom electric cars with classic styling. Dedicated sports or classic car builders who want to develop an EV can tap Spirit for help on specific components. Or if they want, they can outsource an entire design to Spirit.
It's a business, Swain said other companies have essentially been begging him to operate as he and his team developed the RBW cars. Swain said he's always had to say no, we're too busy bringing our product to market," he said, noting it took five years and 1,874 quality documents.
Now, he said, he can take the work RBW was doing and apply it at greater scale. "I've spent 18 million bucks to get where I am, not just because we love our little sports cars, but we know the systems business," he said.
It will build a factory in Danville, Virginia by February 2025, while its headquarters and the operation itself are based in the U.K. and will be overseen by Spirit, the company is filing to incorporate in the U.S. Meson Capital Partners backs the move with $6 million.
That is because the push toward electric has brought down the cost of batteries, motors, and other components, Meson Capital president (and RBW chairman) Ryan Morris told TechCrunch. That, combined with the engineering and sourcing work that RBW has done over the last few years, is why he believes Spirit would only need around $20 million in investment to reach profitability—something he expects could happen out the gate in 2025.
If you look at the classic car restoration shop that does a dozen cars a year and they're buying, like, a single part in the aftermarket for every build they do, our costs are going to be way lower than that because we're buying hundreds of components," he said.
Beyond cost, however, Morris said a key difference between Spirit's approach and classic conversions is that the latter still requires a lot of care and upkeep. Building a classic-style car from the ground up theoretically means an owner won't have to worry so much about maintenance — which in turn expands the market of potential buyers.
"I've got two kids, I work a lot, I'm busy," he said. "I don't have time to fix my car every third time I drive it." "It's like when people watch old movies, and they romanticize the past -- but then if you actually were in the past, it's like, 'oh the toilet paper was worse.' The cars broke down all the time. There are so many little things that we take for granted."
Spirit's approach also means these retro-parking-tow-car cars will have the best of modern safety and convenience features, including Apple CarPlay.
Swain believes because he's hired people who had been working on EVs before almost anyone else. In particular, he has a few workers leading the charge who spent time developing some of the earliest, most frustrating modern EVs, particularly.
For decades, car companies dragged their heels on seriously developing electric vehicles. If they developed them at all, they were often derided as "compliance cars" — good enough to please regulators, but restricted by the technology available and a depressing option for most consumers.
Neil Heslington, in charge of Spirit's development activities, previously worked on some of these cars himself, like he did with the Smart EV he developed for Daimler back in 2008. While the OEMs called them "painful exercises, he told TechCrunch those projects are informing directly the work at Spirit.
"We learned an awful lot of how we could do a small project to OEM standards, so that it was acceptable to go on the road, but with lower budgets and less time," Heslington tells TechCrunch in an interview.
Swain is optimistic about the concept, though he recognizes that his team is venturing further into the unknown than they have with RBW.
"We're in a new market, which we've created. It's pretty unique - brand new, classic EV cars," he said. "But where's it going to go? Let's be honest, we don't know exactly. We think we know, because we've got people who already want the system, and we've sold over 300 cars, and we've got a big waiting list. So the signs are good. We've just got to keep pushing forward."