The race for electric car domination is still far from over.  While the US economy still reels from the COVID-19 pandemic, one area of surprising stability is electric cars. While the most well-known name is still Tesla, several other up-and-comers are looking to unseat Elon Musk’s brand as the leader in electric vehicles. Other established electric car companies like Nikola are demonstrating resilience on the stock market, while startups with their own technology chase a segment of the market share. 

One of those is Rivian, the Amazon and Ford-backed startup based out of Plymouth, Michigan. The company announced an additional $2.5 billion investment from T. Rowe Price, bringing total funding up to $6 billion. Rivian has plans to put an electric truck into production by 2021. 

Two Los Angeles EV based companies Karma Automotive and Fisker raised capital, Karma raised $100 million from outside investors to resell its EV platform. And Fisker raised $50 million in capital to focus on producing an all-electric luxury SUV. 

Startups are also making inroads in niche areas of the electric vehicle industry. TuSimple out of San Diego is a self-driving truck company. The startup reached “unicorn” status in 2019 with a $1 billion evaluation. All of these and more show off the innovation and energy in the electric vehicle industry.


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