Aptera's Management Mystery

Will Aptera Motors Inc. be the latest electric car startup to throw its founder under the bus? The Carlsbad company -- which is taking $500 deposits on an as-yet-unreleased, three-wheel electric car that it says will get 120 miles on a charge and cost less than $30,000 -- said today it had hired a new chief executive, auto industry vet Paul Wilbur. With experience at Ford, Chrysler, sports car maker Saleen and major industry suppliers, Wilbur seems like a competent choice.

The problem is that the company already had a CEO, Steve Fambro, who founded the company five years ago. According to an Aptera spokesman, Fambro will become chief technical officer, since "it is a much better role for him to concentrate on vehicle development."

If this sounds a bit like last year's soap opera at Tesla Motors, we hear you.

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To our eyes, it bore a striking resemblance to personnel moves at Tesla Motors and Phoenix Motorcars as the companies grew in size and capital -- moves that ultimately led to the ouster of their founders, Martin Eberhard and Daniel Riegert.

But today Fambro assured us that any similarities are purely coincidental. According to Fambro, the day-to-day running of a company that has about 50 employees and is growing fast was never in his plans. In March, he hired a headhunter, Heidrick & Struggles, to conduct the CEO search, during which time "I had top executives of top car companies in my office interviewing for the position." (Fambro won't name names.)

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