Earlier this week Google.org, the philanthropic arm of web technology company Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), announced its first two investments under its RechargeIT initiative, which aims to accelerate the adoption of plug-in electric vehicles.
Google.org’s official blog stated that RechargeIT, which released a request for proposals last September, invested a combined $2.75 million into ActaCell, an Austin, Texas-based battery developer, and Aptera Motors, a Carlsbad, California-based electric car maker.
Google didn’t disclose how much was invested in each company.
In the blog posting Karl Sun, an investment principal at Google.org, said, "Both of these innovative companies and their capable teams are working to develop technology that is crucial to helping us realize the RechargeIT vision: millions of plug-in vehicles on the road."
The ActaCell investment was part of a larger Series A funding round that raised $5.8 million for the company, which began at the University of Texas at Austin. Funders included DFJ Mercury, Good Energies and Applied Ventures, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials (Nasdaq: AMAT).
Aptera intends to begin production of a two-seat, three-wheeled electric vehicle in late 2009. The company raised about $20 million in funding last year from Idealab and another undisclosed investor.
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