EdisonFuture EV Prototype Shows Up At Auction, Raising Questions If Startup Still Exists

Over the last few years, there have been a great many startups vying to enter the electric vehicle space. Lordstown, Canoo, Fisker … you can rattle off a bunch of them at will, and their stories generally go the same way. Shiny renders and bold prototypes hit the news, then reality hits, and the company has to figure out how to actually build tens of thousands of vehicles to stay in business. Some make it; many don’t. Signs suggest EdisonFuture might be headed into the latter category.

Formed as an offshoot of a Chinese company called SPI Energy, EdisonFuture made a few waves in the press back in 2021, promising to build fully-electric vehicles in pickup truck (EF1-T) and van (EF1-V) configurations, both with onboard solar charging. The company began taking reservations and hoped to deliver the pickups and vans to market by 2025.

Now, it appears things may have gone off the rails, because the only EdisonFuture vehicle we’ve seen is a lonely example for sale at a clearance auction online.

The vehicle in question is listed as “PROTOTYPE; EDISON TRUCK” on BidSpotter. It’s being sold off by The Hamilton Group LLC as part of an auction that is liquidating equipment and inventory from a defunct solar production facility in Sacramento, California. Alongside old forklifts and unsold solar panels stands a relatively clean prototype of the EdisonFuture EF1-V.

The vehicle is listed as “No Running [sic] & No Title,” which means you have no hope of driving it away and a fight on your hands if you ever want to get this thing registered. The lack of a title is expected, given the vehicle is a prototype rather than a production model intended for on-road use.

It’s hard to know exactly what sort of prototype we’re looking at here. It could be a basic cosmetic mockup that the company used as a display at motor shows. It could also be a functional prototype that has fallen into a non-working state, or even just run out of charge in its onboard batteries. However, the latter case seems like a long shot. Even EdisonFuture’s dead YouTube channel doesn’t show any video of a real working prototype. If you do aim to buy the thing, you have to be ready to get a cosmetic shell and little else.

It’s a shame that we don’t know if this pickup is the real deal or not. According to early reports, the EF1-V was supposed to ship with either a single- or dual-motor drivetrain, good for 400 horsepower or 690 horsepower respectively. Towing specs were set at 7,500 and 8,000 pounds respectively, while the company planned to offer cargo capacities from 260 to 400 cubic feet. It also came with solar charging thanks to a bank of panels on the roof, which was a cool feature even if it wasn’t particularly practical for putting much range in the battery. EdisonFuture claimed you could get an extra 25 to 35 miles of range from a day in the sun – a figure perhaps on the optimistic side. Total range for the van was never released, but the EF1-T truck version was expected to offer 300 to 450 miles on a single charge depending on specification.

At the time of writing, the listing has 36 bids, topping out at $2,600. If you run a museum for obscure cars, this could be your opportunity to get something odd for cheap. Bidding ends on July 16 at 2:06 PM Pacific time. It’s worth noting that no shipping is available, so you’ll need to pick up the vehicle yourself.

It’s no surprise this EdisonFuture has ended up at this auction. The defunct solar company having its assets auctioned off is called Solar4America, and it doesn’t take much research to find out the firm was purchased by SPI Energy back in 2021. That perhaps explains how the company came to own a prototype vehicle that wasn’t released to the public.

Edison’s own YouTube channel shows off some atrocious renders.

What of EdisonFuture?

EdisonFuture had planned to release its vehicles to the public in 2025. Beyond this auction, we haven’t seen any evidence of that happening. The company’s website will still accept reservations via a simple webform and a payment of $200. However, there has been little to no activity on the site in the past several years, and no footage or reports of the vehicles being developed to a production stage.

Weirdly, though, there has been some activity around the EdisonFuture name in the last few years. In 2023, SPI Energy reported to the SEC that it was selling a majority stake in a company called Phoenix Motor Inc., while still retaining some interest. The $12.24 million in shares were specifically sold by SPI Energy’s “Edisonfuture subsidiary.” Fast forward to February 2025, and Phoenix Motor Inc. reports that it will establish “EdisonFuture International Co., Ltd.” as a wholly owned subsidiary in Hong Kong, with plans to have it focus on light-duty EVs.

Confused? Basically, it seems that SPI Energy divested somewhat from an EV company it owned called Phoenix Motor, which looks to produce buses and heavy-duty EVs. That company has then created a Hong Kong-based version of EdisonFuture. According to MorningStar, that company apparently has nascent plans to produce small EV hatchbacks and SUVs under the names EF2, EF3, and MEV1, MEV2, and MEV3. The company released a press release last month indicating it will produce these vehicles at a leased factory in Henan Province, China, while also making parts for EdisonFuture’s production facilities in the US. As per the release:

In addition to manufacturing vehicles destined for Latin America and other overseas markets, the facility will also serve as a production hub for selected EV components destined for Phoenix’s U.S. operations-supporting its facilities in Anaheim, California and Greenville, South Carolina.

This expansion is expected to significantly enhance Phoenix’s production capacity and operational efficiency while reducing time-to-market for key international offerings.

This indicates there might still be a glimmer of life in the EdisonFuture facilities in the US. The Autopian has reached out to the original EdisonFuture directly via its website. If the company provides any indication of its current status and future plans, we’ll update this article as soon as comment becomes available. In the absence of that, it seems likely that EdisonFuture is operating in a very limited capacity, if it’s operating at all.

The simple fact is that building one car is hard, but doable. Building lots of cars is exponentially harder, and requires money and equipment and skills on a whole different level. One suspects that if EdisonFuture was capable of achieving mass production, or even building a functional prototype of its solar charging vehicles, we might have seen a lot more of them over the last few years. Until we get more evidence, we’ll be asking questions as to whether the lights are on over there.

Image credits: BidSpotter, Phoenix Motor