The final Nimbus update?

In dark days for the future of EVs, can Nimbus just pull the plug?

Image courtesy of Nimbus

It feels like it's about time for another Nimbus update don't you think?

For the uninitiated who haven't been following my journey with Nimbus, it is an electric vehicle that falls between an enclosed moped and a tiny car. It's basically what many people think the future of mobility will look like. There is just one problem, this vehicle is never going to be commercially available.

Yes, that's a bold statement, but I think the time has come to say it. I've been holding out hope of receiving a Nimbus after putting down my nominal deposit two years ago but communication has ceased from the company.

Every once in a while I just get the urge to go check out their website to see if there are any updates. I'd like to think I'd receive any info via email, but sometimes companies are more focused on the upkeep of their website than email communications.

Sadly, I do see one update on the Nimbus sales page. It says that their product is now "out of stock". Hmm, I'm not sure a product can really be out of stock if there was never any stock to be sold in the first place.

Image courtesy if Nimbus

The simple explanation is just that the company doesn't want to deal with receiving anymore pre-orders/deposits for a product that they seem likely to never ship. It's a shame though to just make this update on your website as if it's a popular product that they can't keep on the shelves. I suppose it's true that they can't keep Nimbuses on the proverbial shelves, but that's just because they haven't figured out a way to you know...actually make them!

Maybe this isn't much of an update really. It's not like the Nimbus folks have officially closed the door and pulled the plug on the company. Or at least they haven't said so publicly, but I'm about 99% sure that is the case. Would it be better if they posted an honest blog post about the company's struggles? Yes! Or maybe they could still allow for pre-orders but put a caveat in large font so people can acknowledge that this product will likely never be built. You're essentially offering up a donation for the growth of future small, innovative EVs like this. Maybe the Nimbus has to walk so that future tilting pod-like EVs can actually run?

I think I knew about the risks when I put down my $100 deposit. It's hard to think that a deposit so small actually reserves anything when the product is expected to sell for at least $10,000 but likely far more than that. And no, I haven't demanded that my deposit be returned to me. I suppose if I did it would really signify the end of my Nimbus journey, and it's been a fun ride despite the disappointment.

Maybe it's just a form of catharsis to write these updates every few months. I actually thought I'd be driving (or riding?) around in a Nimbus by now. I thought I'd be able to give regular updates on how my ownership was going. I didn't think it would be a perfect product that met all expectations, but I did think it would actually exist by now. Or we'd actually have photos of at least hundreds of them being built with a tentative shipping date on the calendar.

Instead, no one has actually seen one of these things (to my knowledge) in well over a year. No grainy assembly line photos. No closeups of a door handle or windshield to tease us into thinking fulfillment was just around the corner. There have been I believe two cryptic emails for those of us who put down deposits over the past two years. Those emails didn't really say a whole lot. It basically acknowledged the delays but gave no hope of receiving a Nimbus anytime soon. But they also fell short of officially saying the dream was over. It almost feels worse to just be strung along. We're all adults, just tell us that we're not getting our shiny new toy that symbolized the future of green transportation. Oh but at least they did wish us “Happy Holidays” in a Facebook post back in 2022! And there sadly hasn’t been much activity on their Facebook page since then.

Image courtesy of Nimbus

This story is about the Nimbus and not about politics. BUT. It is hard to ignore that the future of EVs in our country looks different than it did before the presidential election. Granted the Nimbus was a hard vehicle to classify that likely wouldn't have received any federal EV rebates, it is/was a US company based in Michigan. I think the initial goal was to produce these things domestically. I assume that any chance of actually producing a Nimbus for less than $10K would have involved some overseas operation, but this could have been a real American success story for the new green economy.

Now, I see even less hope of a company like this flourishing under a second Trump presidency. And most believe that despite the Trump/Musk bromance, federal EV incentives will vanish as soon as Trump takes office. This obviously isn't going to help adoption of vehicles that look like the Nimbus.

So is it all doom and gloom in the world of EVs right now? Well, it doesn't look great, but maybe there is a big push to take advantage of government incentives before January. There could be a flurry of pro-EV sentiment in the last days of the Biden presidency. And maybe the Nimbus folks can do us a solid and just send that email that says their dream is officially dead.

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