Ample
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Ample was a San Francisco-based EV battery-swapping startup founded in 2014 by Khaled Hassounah and John de Souza. It built fully automated, modular battery-swapping stations resembling compact car washes, capable of swapping a depleted EV battery for a fully charged one in about five minutes using autonomous robotics and smart battery technology. The system was designed primarily for commercial fleets in logistics, ride-hailing, and last-mile delivery, with pilots involving Uber and Stellantis and deployments in San Francisco, Madrid, and Tokyo. The company raised more than $330 million from investors including Shell Ventures and Moore Strategic Ventures.
02 / Ample FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Ample could not turn a capital-intensive concept into a scalable business. Building and deploying swapping stations carried high deployment costs, while its proprietary modular battery design faced incompatibility and standardization challenges across different OEM vehicle designs. Commercial adoption was slower than expected, and financing became harder to secure as renewable-energy investment slowed, supply chain costs rose, and EV market pressures intensified. Cash shortages forced the company to shut down most operations and cut its staff to two employees before the bankruptcy filing.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Bankruptcy
Ample, Inc., the San Francisco/Brisbane, CA EV battery-swapping company (affiliate Ample Texas EV, LLC), filed a voluntary bankruptcy restructuring petition on 16 Dec 2025 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, case 25-90817, Judge Christopher M. Lopez.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
In the months before filing, Ample wound down most of its operations and reduced its workforce to two employees as capital ran dry.
- 02
On December 16, 2025, Ample, Inc. and its affiliate Ample Texas EV, LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (case 25-90817), reporting between $10 million and $50 million in assets against $50 million to $100 million in debts.
- 03
The company secured a $6 million debtor-in-possession loan from Twelve Bridge Capital to fund operations during the bankruptcy case.
- 04
Ample announced it would pursue a sale of its assets under Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code or a potential recapitalization through the court-supervised process.