Streetscooter parent company e.Volution files for insolvency

After last week's announcement that Streetscooter would discontinue production at the plant in Düren, parent company e.Volution GmbH has filed to open provisional insolvency proceedings. However, business operations will continue, and the company intends to restructure itself.

evolution max box streetscooter 2024 — Image: e.Volution GmbH

According to e.Volution, the Aachen Local Court confirmed the application by order dated 14 November 2024. Mark Boddenberg, lawyer and partner at Eckert Rechtsanwälte, was appointed provisional insolvency administrator. According to the company, the goal is to secure wages and salaries for employees via the insolvency substitute benefits.

e.Volution cites “high investment requirements as well as strong competition and the loss of order options’” as the reason for the step – going to insolvency court was “ultimately unavoidable” due to a sharp drop in sales.

At the beginning of the year, StreetScooter inventor Günther Schuh and his company e.Volution took over the rights to the electric transporter from B-ON GmbH, which went bankrupt in 2023. Production in Düren restarted but was put on ice again in the summer. It has been clear since last week that production in Düren will be discontinued – the StreetScooter will instead be built in Thailand from 2025. Production costs there are expected to fall by almost half.

It is not yet clear how things will continue in Düren or with e.Volution GmbH. “We will do everything in our power to restore e.Volution GmbH’s solvency,” the provisional insolvency administrator, Mark Boddenberg, is quoted as saying in the company’s press release. “We are pursuing this goal by drawing up a customised insolvency plan, which we will develop with the necessary speed in the next steps.”

“The step of transferring our company to insolvency proceedings was unavoidable due to the liquidity situation,” adds e.Volution Managing Director Günther Schuh. “We are saddened that the prevailing external circumstances have so severely hampered the plans for our future-oriented and sustainable mobility solution. Even during the insolvency process, I will continue to do everything I can to ensure that the production of our electric delivery vehicles can continue together with our employees under the guidance of the provisional insolvency administrator.”

Source: Information by e-mail; in German