Sunrise is the company run by solar pioneer “Captain Sunshine,” aka Yosef Abramowitz, who was suspected of being interested in Better Place last month, and the Association for the Promotion of the Electric Car in Israel. Sunrise not only will pay ” at least NIS 18 million” ($4.9 million US) for Better Place Israel’s assets it will also spend NIS 25 million ($6.9 million) for Better Place Switzerland’s intellectual property. Sunrise beat out another bid for Better Place from a consortium made up of Success Parking and the Car Charging Group.
Part of the deal is that Sunrise will continue to operate at least 15 of Better Place’s EV charging stations in Israel, keep on most (50 of 85) employees and keep on trying to sell electric cars. Of course, that hardly seems like a negative. Why you’d want to buy Better Place just to shut everything down would be a mystery.
Since starting in 2007, Better Place lost roughly $823 million, according to Y Net News. It did sell around 950 EVs and, despite an attempt to keep going in the first part of this year, needed to lay off hundreds of employees before declaring bankruptcy.
