French startup Kate has raised a round of financing of 7.6 million dollars (7 million euros) from a group of informal investors. as i wrote in my previous article on Kate, the company has ambitious goals when it comes to daily mobility. He plans to use the funds to develop an alternative to regular cars (electric or not) by making something smaller, cheaper and easier to maintain.
Investors in the startup include Julien Lemoine (Co-Founder and CTO of Algolia), Emmanuelle Brizay (AC8 INVEST), Christophe Maurissen (CEO of Alcogroup), Romain Afflelou (CEO of Cosmo Connected), Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle (CEO of Cosmo Connected). de Theodo) and Antoine Leconte (founder of Cheerz).
And Kate isn’t starting from scratch. The company acquired NoSmoke, a small electric vehicle maker inspired by the minimum. In this way, Kate is able to reuse some parts and borrow some manufacturing processes that have been used to produce the leisure cars.
But Kate’s next car, currently called the K1, will be designed for everyday use and not just for her vacation home. In Europe, people traveling from A to B use a large vehicle, such as a regular car, for 84% of their trips. It represents 11% of CO2 emissions. And yet, 98% of trips are less than 80 kilometers (ie 50 miles).
Image Credits: Kate
The Kate K1 will be a lightweight car that can reach a top speed of 90 km/h (56 mph). It is not designed for your long distance trips. In that case, you’d better rent a normal car. It’s also not designed for big cities, as public transportation, bikes, and carpooling work best in this environment.
But Kate K1 would work well for people who live in the suburbs or in the country. It would work well to drop her son at school, go to work and stop by the supermarket. It will have four seats and the entry level should offer a battery range of 200 kilometers (124 miles).
Kate has an aggressive timeline, as she wants to unveil the K1 in Q3 2023. Aside from the mystery renderings, here’s what the Original looks like, the leisure car that’s currently available:
Image Credits: Kate