Alpha Motor Corporation: Putting the EV in Evasive
The Alpha Motor Corporation’s unusual PR strategy is either a cautionary tale or a visionary move—only time will tell.
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Starting a company is a delicate business, especially when you’re a fledgling electric vehicle maker in the year 2022.
The industry that was once the domain of Prius and a brash newcomer called
Tesla
now has hundreds of companies
fighting for the attention of the market. Capturing this attention has its tried and true methods, but some firms like to test the edges. Jerry
, the car ownership super app
, takes a look at Alpha Motor Corporation, an EV company that’s trying a little too hard to not act weird.Alpha: A good bet?
The designs from the Alpha Motor Corporation, which was founded in 2020 in Irvine, California, are really stunning.
Its collection includes Ace, a sleek sedan, almost like a cross between Porsche and a Mustang; Rex, a chic Jeep-ish vehicle bedecked in a trendy blue invented by a Southern California lifestyle company; and Jax, a funky crossover SUV.
Each offering on its site comes with a tasteful looping pan over the vehicle, making sure to emphasize any cool headlights or unusual roof racks. The view from the browser window is quite magnificent.
And any visitors to the Petersen Automotive museum in Los Angeles in late 2021 were in for a life-size treat as well. Wolf, an eye-catching pickup from the Alpha family, was displayed there for several months.
And while people were fawning over the Wolf, Alpha’s Ace was winning an award at the LA Auto Show: best electric coupe. At barely a year old, the young EV company was getting some great exposure, and a few accolades along the way.
An unusual strategy
But it must be said: this company might be taking one too many notes at the Musk school of odd behavior.
For starters, the firm has a vanishingly small internet footprint, with only a few employees listed on LinkedIn, a Twitter feed that doesn’t seem to have much in the way of updates (it’s a hype festival), and more than a few articles raising eyebrows about its media interactions.
In a bizarre interview with
The Verge
, two company employees evaded question after question from the reporter, who wanted to know things like who works for Alpha and how funding is going. Sean O’Kane, who conducted the interview, also pointed out that Alpha Motor Corporation appears to share a founder with a Chinese EV company called Neuron, which the two representatives denied. In another strange twist, the two interviewees had recently been seen working as baristas for Volvo at the New York Auto Show, reports
The Drive
.Despite these peculiarities, the interview does reveal that Alpha does not have anything currently drivable, but whoever in fact works there is “excited about what we’re doing.” Partnerships with UHI, a Detroit-based manufacturer, and India-based Hinduja Tech point in the direction of production, and Alpha estimates three to five years until we see the Wolf prowling in the wild. That’s not wholly unreasonable.
Luck might favor the mysterious
Of course, we shouldn’t be too hard on Alpha. The digital renderings and the collabs with trendy Venice brands are just part and parcel of an EV company’s soft launch.
After all, you don’t get Twitter followers if you don’t have any content, and these strange breadcrumbs might be exactly the trail they want to leave. Like other EV companies with big dreams, it’s not quite scaling yet, but it will be interesting to see how it does over the next few years. If, of course, anyone actually works there.
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