There’s A Car Company Literally Called ‘VaporBrands’ Trying To Get Investors For Its Weird EVs

If you ever end up becoming an automotive journalist, your inbox will get violated by an unfathomable number of pitches for everything from studies about the windshield wiper market to, um, textiles. I’m even somehow on the mailing list of Gibson, the guitar people, which I’m certainly not mad about, but I do find amusing. The truth is, most press releases that hit our inboxes are of limited use, but when a press release from VaporBrands International promoting vehicles that don’t appear to exist landed in our inbox, an opportunity arose that was just too rich to pass up. I mean, seriously? VaporBrands International? Sure, it may be doing business as E-Cite, but what a name.

Keep in mind, this is a company that’s actively courting investors, and if you were trying to raise funding, you’d have certain standards for promises, media, decks, and all that, right? Now lower your expectations a touch.

Right off the rip, we’re greeted with the news that a proposed EV won’t just be an EV. As per the media release:

VaporBrands International, Inc. dba E-Cite Motors Group, (OTC:VAPR) reveals that it will offer gas powered versions of its “GT” and “C3” mid-engine sports car models previously only to be available as all electric.

Clumsy phrasing aside, let’s see what E-Cite managed to come up with. Obviously, these will be renderings, because it’s 2024 and flashy startups don’t require physical substance. We’re not living in the age of the Dale anymore.

Ah, the EV-GT is a rendering that looks like a Grand Theft Auto take on a Dino 246 GTS, and the EV-C3 looks like a Grand Theft Auto take on a C3 Corvette. E-Cite claims that the EV-C3 “utilizes more than 90% of the existing engineered E-Cite EV-GT sports car,” and you can tell. As for what gasoline-powered engine might come in the GT and C3, that’s not stated. Riiight.

In the company’s long-winded mantra of “Producing state of the art iconic EV vehicles as a Low Volume Vehicle Manufacturer that are affordable, stylish, fun to drive, scalable, and commercially viable,” it’s interesting to see what VaporBrands International thinks is affordable. Let’s take a look at claimed pricing for the company’s most affordable so-called model that, to be perfectly clear, is just a rendering for now.

Introducing the EV-GT (Base Price: $89,999) & GTS (Base Price: $149,999)

Sure, that’s more affordable than a real Dino 246 GTS, but come on now. You’d need to have an exceedingly loose definition of affordability for an $89,999 electric vehicle to fall into it. Also, think of how many cars you can buy right now for $89,999 that are more than just renders. That’s an entire week of Shitbox Showdown contenders.

So, assuming that millions of dollars fall from the sky directly onto this company’s headquarters to make competitive EVs that aren’t just Hyper9 motors stuffed into shells, how does it plan to bring any of these renderings into production? Well, here’s what E-Cite has to say on its website:

In 2015 Congress enacted a bill into law the “Low Volume Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015” directing the NHSTA [sic] to establish a program allowing low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to produce a limited number of vehicles annually within a regulatory system that addresses the unique safety and financial issues associated with limited production, and to direct the EPA to allow low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to install engines from vehicles that have been issued certificates of conformity. Although they were given one year to establish this new program it took until January 2021 until the NHSTA [sic] issued a final ruling to allow low volume vehicle manufacturing. Under the act car manufacturers are exempt from all the safety standards but they must meet current emissions standards.

You know, it’s extraordinarily confidence-inspiring that anything that may theoretically result from this E-Cite idea wouldn’t be required to pass vehicle safety standards. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the Low Volume Vehicle Manufacturers Act of 2015 specifically pertains to replica vehicles, permitting each low-volume manufacturer to build up to 325 per year. Oh, and that’s before we even get into the intellectual property argument of vehicles that look suspiciously like other vehicles.

Regardless of whether or not a company is as dubiously named as VaporBrands International, this should go without saying: don’t even consider investing in any EV startup until it produces an actual car. Not a render, not a flight of fancy, not a what-if, but an actual car. Furthermore, all startups are essentially vaporware until someone who isn’t an employee of the company drives said vehicle on public roads. We aren’t financial professionals, but as automotive journalists, we feel confident in that as a basic litmus test for any semblance of reality.

(Photo credits: E-Cite/VaporBrands International)

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