Lit Motors is a startup vehicle company based in Portland, OR / San Francisco, CA. We also have engineers in Arizona and a manufacturing partner in Ingolstadt, Germany.

This effort is being led by our CPO, Volker Kaese, who led commercialization efforts at Volkswagen for 2 decades. He brings an extreme depth of expertise in moving vehicles from concept all the way through production at scale.

Our plan is to start with a small production plant in Portland, Oregon that can handle our initial quantities. As we scale, we have plans for a second, larger manufacturing center just outside the city.

We hit an important milestone with our core technology - showcasing our control system with our sub-scale CMG model, built a full body chassis, and created a production-ready model. These are all important steps towards building our X-1 prototype.

Our research thus far has uncovered 3 initial audiences:

Enthusiasts & Early Adopters: These are the drivers that are always looking for the next new thing. They bought the original Tesla Roadsters when no one else had heard of EV’s, nevermind Tesla.

Eco Drivers: Eco meaning economical and ecological. They’re motivated by saving money and/or saving the planet. Our efficiency story will be the key driver here.

Savvy Commuters: ~36% of US households have 2 vehicles and more than 20% of US households have 3 or more vehicles. Many of these are anxious to find a better way to commute - and our vehicles’ ability to shave up to 20% off their commute will be a huge draw.

The next 5 years consists of 3 key activities:

- Productization and commercialization: We have a clear path to transform our concept into a fully realized, commercialized vehicle. It starts with the production of a small number of prototypes, which we are starting this year. That will allow us to go through tooling and testing required to launch commercially.

- Market Validation: As part of the commercialization process, we plan to conduct an in-depth study to help define all elements of our Go-to-Market, as well as help us define and refine the driver experience.

- Fundraising: Building a car company takes a large amount of capital, so we will be seeking investment from VC’s and other funds, as well as individuals.

We do have plans to conduct a roadshow to invite our investors to experience driving the X-1 prototype once it's completed. However, this will only be a test drive.

During our community equity crowd funding campaign on Wefunder, we had a variety of perks and benefits that included an automatic pre-order reservation with investments over $1000. Unfortunately, our Wefunder campaign ended on April 25, 2025.

Currently, access to early vehicles will only be available to pre-order reservations who have priority once we begin delivering the AEV.

At Lit Motors, we’re not just building the next electric vehicle, we’re building a category-defining technology that’s safer, smarter, and self-balancing…And how we get there is much more technological than what other EVs, past or present, have done. Truly solving transportation problems requires more than slapping a battery on a frame with wheels.

Developing our Core Technology, our Control Moment Gyroscopes and the Controls that go along with it required extensive testing and the genius minds of several of the best Engineers from Honeywell and Raytheon.

Following Founder & CEO Daniel Kim's motorcycle accident in 2015, it became necessary to scale back communications and operations as he went through a lengthy recovery that took over 4.5 years of recovery to be able to take on the reins full-time.

We made significant leaps forward during this period including three acquisition offers from OEMS and the recruitment of a world-class core engineering team.

Not only are these accomplishments incredible on their own, Daniel's story of recovery and perseverance is also a miracle in itself. We are thankful for the patience of our community—including our longest, most loyal followers—and the opportunity to bring you on this new chapter as we rise again.

• 2015-2019: intense recovery period following founder & CEO’s accident

• Assembled expert CMG team from Honeywell & Raytheon

• Assembled expert automotive team formerly from Audi/VW

• Filed 8 new control patents, building an enormous patent moat

• David Bailey and Daniel Kim solve integrated control model, significantly reducing technical risk in 2018 (and filed patent based on breakthrough)

• 3 major acquisition offers

• Formed production development partnership with Ideenion, in Ingolstadt, Germany.

Timeline & major wins during hiatus:

2015: Founder & CEO Daniel Kim’s debilitating motorcycle accident. Recovery period begins.

2016: Billionaire startup founder visits our lab in San Francisco, along with a "vegetable company" and another well known car company.

2017: Mason Peck, (former CTO of NASA) introduces Daniel to David Bailey (a world class expert in CMG based attitude control trajectories, 36 years of experience at Honeywell, one of five authorities in classical controls. David joins the team.

2018: Daniel and David Bailey solve integrated control model, and file a patent together. This process took 3.5 years, 800 hours, and 1 controls genius to figure out, as we had to create our own non-linear closed loop controls model, 2 different controllers for integrating drive-by-wire and CMG control (which was its own mess) and more. This was an enormous breakthrough that significantly reduced our technical risk.

2019: Daniel recovers and focuses on massive acquisition offer. Preparing for this new chapter.

2020: Pandemic begins, putting a significant wrench in our timeline.

2021: Major acquisition offer falls through in 2021 due to the pandemic and state of the economy.

2022: New team members/partners join our team: Gary Gisler (formerly Honeywell), Volker Kaese and Stefan Schaeper (formerly Audi), and Mirko Konta (Ideenion) forming an expert automotive team experienced in bringing show cars to life, from concept to production. Bill Webb (Huge Design) also joins, designing the most recent aesthetic direction of the AEV.

2023: Production development partnership with Ideenion established. Behind-the-scenes work in the Portland Vehicle Integration Lab: building up Portland office, preparing and launching equity crowdfunding campaign, and moving forward with prototype development, and more projects in the works we can’t disclose just yet!