The Austrian company that dropped a gas engine into a Tesla (TSLA) Model 3 has gone bankrupt. Obrist's HyperHybrid pitch drew plenty of attention for a decade, but it never produced a single car for customers, and three group companies are now insolvent with debts of roughly €31.8 million (around US$37 million).
Court papers show that the two Austrian units, Obrist Powertrain and Obrist Technologies, asked for bankruptcy themselves, and the Feldkirch regional court opened the cases on September 30. Both told the judges that carrying on or restructuring was out of the question, so they are closing at once. A German arm in Lindau is insolvent too, and the parent, Obrist Engineering, which makes climate-control parts, is not part of the filings.
Founder Frank Obrist pointed to heavy development costs, investor talks that went nowhere and a slump in Europe's car industry. The creditor group AKV added that carmakers moving toward fully electric models hurt the business as well.
Big promises that never reached a showroom
Electrek first wrote about Obrist in early 2020, when it showed a Model 3 with a smaller battery and a small two-cylinder generator, claiming 1,000 km (621 miles) of range. The company said production cars would follow by 2023 through an unnamed international partner. That partner never surfaced, and the date passed.
The claims kept growing. A methanol-fuelled Model Y came in 2022, and in 2024 Obrist talked up a huge investment for methanol plants, plus a plan for gigaplants. Those were the company's own statements, and the bankruptcy suggests the money never arrived.
Obrist also lobbied Brussels against the EU's 2035 combustion ban, arguing a HyperHybrid would emit far less CO2 than a comparable battery car. Policy did soften, but not soon enough to save it.
More than six years after Electrek first showed the Model 3 demo, Obrist's gas-engine hybrid never reached a customer, and the Feldkirch court cases are now the last chapter.
Sources
- 1.Company that put gas engines in Teslas goes bankrupt owing $37 million · Electrek
- 2.Obrist Powertrain GmbH & Obrist Technologies GmbH · AKV Europa
- 3.Doppel-Insolvenz in Vorarlberg · Heute
- 4.Obrist Gruppe im Konkurs: Schließung geplant · Weekend.at
Reported by the WattsUpNext desk from the sources linked below. Spot an error? Tell us at corrections@wattsupnext.com.
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