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"Venture capital firms are staking late stage electric\u00A0car startups with huge cash to help them scale up and IPO\n By Shelley DuBois, reporter\nThe age of the electric car is upon us, or so the numbers would suggest.\n\nCompanies in cleantech, especially those making cars, received over $400 million in funding in the second quarter of 2010, according to an Ernst &amp;amp; Young analysis based off of Dow Jones VentureSource data.\nA company called Better Place received the majority of this funding&amp;#8211; $350 million of it\u2014which is 23% of total financing doled out in the sector for the quarter.\nBetter Place is working on building an infrastructure to fuel electric cars. The infrastructure is based on stations, where drivers can switch out lithium-ion batteries in their cars, much like the way drivers pull into gas stations now.\nThis late stage burst of funding for Better Place could mean that investors are ready to see it push to close the gap between a startup and a company that can complete an IPO.\nOther cleantech car companies received a significant amount of money, though not on the scale of Better Place. Fisker Automotive, Inc., which makes plug-in hybrid cars, got $35 million. Eco Motors, a car maker that manufactures low-emission diesel engines, received $23.5 million.\nCleantech VC investment as a whole has exploded this quarter\nErnst and Young\u2019s statement said: \u201CHigh level funding directed to automotive deals reflects a cross-industry belief . . . the EV industry transformation is underway and the tipping point is not far off if significant collaboration takes place throughout the US and worldwide.\u201D\nMore funding for electric vehicles is part of a greater trend of cleantech getting more venture capital funding this quarter. In 2010, cleantech companies in the United States pulled in $1.5 billion, a 4.6% increase from the second quarter of 2009. The\u00A0Silicon Valley Business Journal reported on this and other aspects of the study yesterday.\n\nElectric car company Tesla \n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTSLA\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t recently completed an IPO. Toyota has invested $50 million dollars in Tesla so that the two companies could develop an electric car together.\nBut Tesla still has to find its footing. The company recently bought the NUMMI car factory in California for $42 million, and plans to work with Toyota on redeveloping the plant&amp;#8217;s capabilities for electric cars. Tesla claims the purchase explains its losses this quarter, which amounted to $38.5 million, compared to $29.5 million in the previous quarter.\nVenture capitalists are clearly shelling out for late stage electric car startup companies in the hopes that they\u2019ll start producing large quantities of game-changing vehicles and technology. They\u2019re getting in at the phase when business plans have been thought out and the what\u2019s needed most are huge amounts of capital to ramp up into becoming economically viable manufacturers. But as Tesla\u2019s numbers show, even once a private electric car company goes public, it doesn\u2019t mean that all its problems go away.\n\nDon&amp;#8217;t believe a word about electric cars and the coming lithium shortage\nHere comes the electric Nissan Leaf\nThe cleantech talent crunch"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://fortune.com/2010/08/05/electric-car-industry-hitting-the-tipping-point-for-investors/>