Wrightspeed CEO Ian Wright was part of the founding team of Silicon Valley-based electric car maker Tesla Motors.
"In California alone, there are over 686,000 medium duty fleet vehicles and they burn more than a billion gallons of fuel a year if we convert them to our drive system. The one we're building here, we can more than double the fuel efficiency of those vehicles," he said.
In addition to private funding, Wrightspeed was awarded a nearly $2 million grant from the California Energy Commission, under the alternative and renewable fuel and vehicle technology program.
