Tony Fadell, who you may know as current CEO of Nest, owned by Google, appears to have another startup on his hands. According to a report out of Fortune, Fadell is a co-founder of Actev Motors. This is a startup that makes $600 electric go-karts for kids. But this isn’t just any old go-kart, as their parents can control the vehicle using a mobile app. Fadell’s go-kart is named the Arrow Smart-Kart and is aimed at kids that are between the ages of 5 and 9 years old. It can travel up to 12 miles per hour. But what makes it a smart go-kart is the app that parents can use to control it, the app also will let you track information about the go-kart. This includes things like the total distance and driving time. There is also an emergency stop button as well as geofencing capabilities. This is so that their child can have fun, but not travel too far from where their parent(s) want them to go.
There’s no word on if Fadell wants to make Actev Motors and his Arrow Smart-Kart a popular name, like Nest has become. However it is quite interesting to see that Nest’s CEO still has time to create things like the Arrow Smart-Kart, even with Nest being in turmoil, at least according to rumors in the past few months. Fadell was apparently inspired to create Actev Motors after building soap box derby cars with his grandfather back in the 1970s.
Fadell’s new company isn’t just making go-karts for children either. They have been asked about making go-karts for adults, so Actev Motors is definitely playing around with the idea of creating go-karts that would work well for adults. Although it’s unclear whether they would have the same smart features as the child-sized Arrow Smart-Kart.
As many of you know, Tony Fadell helped create the original iPod and iPhone, then left Apple to found Nest which creates smart thermostats and smoke detectors. Nest is currently owned by Google, so this could be part of his 20% project. Google allows employees to spend 20% of their time on projects that are outside of their normal job.