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Aptera announces a $44M to design and build a solar electric vehicle

31 points by TeaVMFan 18d ago

TeaVMFan 18d ago
On August 20, Aptera announced a $44 Million partnership with Launch Design to design and build their first solar electric vehicle. This finally answers questions that have hounded the company for years about their plan for scaling and fulfilling the thousands of reservations.
geremiiah 18d ago
In a world where sedans have been replaced by SUVs, I don't see how the market would react positively to this. But then again, Lime scooters are paradoxically also a thing. I guess maybe it's a matter of marketing?
- xnx 18d ago
  What's paradoxical about Lime scooters? That they are small compared to SUVs?
  - singpolyma3 18d ago
    Yes
- pbkompasz 18d ago
  Market != USA
  - TeaVMFan 18d ago
    That's an especially important point to this new deal, Launch will give them easier access to additional markets beyond the US.
- richiebful1 18d ago
  Electric scooters are a walking enhancer in an urban area. Now you can go 20kph in a city and easily park your vehicle. They're also super cheap to own and operate (or borrow one when needed). That's a totally different animal than a $40k subcompact trike car that requires an actual paid parking spot
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
- elmomle 18d ago
  There are many cities in the US where renting a scooter to travel a couple miles is as fast as (often faster than) waiting for and riding in a car, and costs perhaps a third as much. But I can't speak for whether this solar car is anything other than hype; those are different matters.
- Grombobulous 18d ago
  The Aptera is the exact same height as the Toyota Camry, the #5 best-selling vehicle in the United States.
amazingamazing 18d ago
So dumb. Build bike lanes and use ebikes, many of which already go 30mph+. The only hurdle is a weatherproof cover so you have heating and cooling and stay dry which together with an ebike would be way cheaper than this. And as a bonus it will help with the obesity problem plaguing this planet which kills thousands yearly.
- IshKebab 18d ago
  I mean getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars in many situations. But anyway this is a crazy niche product. Don't worry it's not going to have any effect on e-bikes whatsoever.
  - moooo99 18d ago
    In Europe, the Fiat Topolino and his siblings are an increasingly common sight (while still being rare). Relatively cheap, can be charged with a regular 230V socket, tops out at 45kmph. Not as compact as a bike for obvious reasons, but still a substantially smaller footprint than any modern car - and comes with proper weather protection.
    - orwin 18d ago
      My mum will buy one to work (home nurse) while keeping her big car around for larger travel. Especially with gas prices, I think you will see those more and more.
  - jakintosh 18d ago
    > getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars I use an ebike as primary transportation 365 days a year in Vermont, and you'd be surprised how infrequently you have a day that is actually miserable to be out on a bike, even in a place with very cold winters and a lot of rain. By dressing properly (gloves/scarf when it's cold, rain jacket if the weather is not cooperating), you can eliminate 95% of the annoyances. Something I've learned as a year round cyclist is that most of the rain you experience from inside a car is actually not that heavy when you're out in it. There are maybe 10 days a year where I just have to suck it up (below 0F, heavy rain), and then I usually just skip a trip, take the bus if I can, or deal with it. I get stuck biking in real rain maybe 3x a year, and tbh I think it's probably good for people to encounter occasional friction like that. And so taking on all of the disadvantages of depreciation, insurance, traffic, inspections, parking, gas prices, parking bans, worrying if that car alarm in the middle of the night is mine, is actually a much worse deal to me than putting up with a few uncomfortable trips per year.
scotty79 18d ago
I'd love if the roof and the hood of my plugin hybrid could have solar panels built in. I drive it very rarely and short distance. lf it could be topped up over few days, before next grocery or restaurant trip, I'd be delighted. I know there's not much energy to be gathered but it would suffice me. Instead I have glass roof for no reason, as if there was anything interesting straight up. Car manufacturers somewhat lost the plot.
- tencentshill 18d ago
  The Hyundai Sonata had this feature on a production car.
  - scotty79 17d ago
    BYD Han and BYD Tang are supposed to have that option soon, for $1200. Others might follow because a company that makes glass roofs figured out how to manufacture them with solar cells embedded. Supposedly 720 W peak.
- ianm218 18d ago
  Why though? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just have solar panels at your home where the power can be routed to batteries/ home power/ sell to the grid and configured optimally?
  - gpm 18d ago
    To reduce hassle? To make it work when you live in a place where you park on the street and can't run wires to the car?
    - TeaVMFan 18d ago
      Yes to both, plus freedom to drive/camp anywhere, even far from a guaranteed plug.
    - orwin 18d ago
      From someone with a boat and solar panels: cheap solar panels needs cooling, so space between the panels and the stuff they are stuck one. This reduces aerodynamics a lot, which isn't an issue with something going 8 knots max, but I have a friend with a trimaran whose solar panels reduce his max speed of 20 knot to 18 (38kmh -> 33.5), which is why he decided to remove them from his amas and have movable solar panel instead (he put them when he beach or stay at a mooring). My next boat will be a tri too, I just have to find half a million somewhere.
kotaKat 18d ago
Is this so Aptera can pass the buck when it flops again (“it’s Launch’s fault, we swear”)? This really doesn’t answer any questions. $44 million (and worthless paper stock warrants) is also immensely low for new vehicle tooling as a whole. (I'll point out that an article about Slate's frugality[1] still shows some massive costs involved here. They scored a $200 million assembly line component originally from GM for $12 million. Uh, if that kind of seven/eight-figure investment is required for a single component of an assembly line, how far does this $44 million go for Aptera?) [1] https://www.autoline.tv/automotive-insight/slate-a-masterclass-in-automotive-frugality/ https://www.autoline.tv/automotive-insight/slate-a-mastercla...
- conorcleary 18d ago
  Warrants aren't worthless if there aren't any for sale.
standeven 18d ago
This is like building a gas powered car with a refinery attached to the roof. Batteries exist. Solar panels add weight and design constraints. Why is this a thing? What am I missing?
- TeaVMFan 18d ago
  Solar panel efficiency has increased and they have made an extremely slippery vehicle. 4kWh/day and 10 miles per kWh gives 40 miles per day of driving range, enough for many people without ever plugging in.
  - dymk 18d ago
    Solar panel efficiency hasn’t gone up that much. It’s not like solar panel cars were just barely not worth it - the economics weren’t close to making sense. 10 miles/kWh is also insanely efficient, unbelievably so (well over 2x your average EV), and I don’t see where they back that claim up.
  - qurren 18d ago
    > 4kWh/day That's over-optimistic and you will probably only get that in a small handful of places in the world like the southwestern US or the Middle East and even then only for part of the year. The hot, sunny, never-cloudy parts of the world also tend to be the ones where driving long distances is most necessary.
    - vlovich123 18d ago
      From some parts of SF to SJ is about 42 miles. Thats a very long distance that you’re likely to get completely on solar. For that long of a commute you probably need a bigger battery but you could easily have most of your costs met for free with minimal top ups. And that’s a very long daily commute. Also temperature doesn’t matter too much. You just need sun. I bet it’s enough for most of California year round with minor exceptions that you need to use infrastructure charging.
      - 18d ago
jansan 18d ago
In 1991 Audi presented the Quattro Spyder, which had a detachable solar roof. The idea was to run a fan to prevent overheating of the interior. And now they won't to power the entire car with energy from solar cells on the car? I have my doubts.
- TeaVMFan 18d ago
  On the "charging-from-the-sun" side of the equation, they recently had an independent German test organization measure the daily charge rate, and it exceeded the 4.0kWh/day goal. The test was conducted at their Southern California headquarters during July, however, so your mileage may (literally) vary.
- Liftyee 18d ago
  In case you didn't notice, today's solar panels are more efficient and much cheaper than the solar panels of 1991. Also, enough energy for some range ≠ enough power to drive constantly.
Animats 18d ago
So there's a company in China, Launch, to which you can outsource making cars. Like Flextronics for electronics. So you can have a "fabless" car company. The economics of that are interesting. Launch just makes cars. They don't take the market risk of having to sell them to consumers. As for Aptera, "We are committed to commencing production and delivery as soon as possible. However, the exact timing remains uncertain and is dependent on several key factors..." So it's a Kickstarter for cars. At this point you have to ask whether the product is the car or the next financing round. Also, it may have too much China content to be sold in the US. They may have to pay off Trump to get past that.
- speed_spread 18d ago
  Valmet in Finland does this too.
aetherspawn 18d ago
I work in this space. Took one look at Launch and instantly recognise the type of company they are (aftersales/paper pushing) and that this will probably fail due to lack of actual engineering experience with DfM, control software, etc.
- algo_trader 17d ago
  warning: total manufacturing newbie here But i would like to ask. How much effort/legal/heartache is involved in building an after market add-on for commercial vehicles? Some comforting assumptions - internal customers. no sales. - good software talent. can work around anything. - almost no moving parts - mostly electronics - can accept cost overrun on the components - each unit is >$10K - gradual scaling to 1000s units/annum - daily return to hubs if needed
  - aetherspawn 16d ago
    Not legal advice: If you don’t change steering or brakes then virtually no compliance is required. You are of course liable if your widget causes an accident.
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
roughly 18d ago
I am a big booster of both solar power and electric vehicles, but boy, Aptera’s trying to thread a needle I just don’t think we’ve got the technology to thread yet. The efficiency of solar panels isn’t high enough to consistently generate enough power to propel a vehicle made of currently practical materials that meets modern automotive safety standards far enough fast enough to be useful, and I suspect they’re going to have to get esoteric enough in the materials, electronics, and manufacturing that the price is going to be prohibitive at the scale of the market willing to make the sacrifices the vehicle will require. I don’t know if it’s theoretically possible to do what they want to do at some point - I don’t know if enough energy is present in the sunlight that falls on the space available on a normal car to power something that meets what the average person would consider their mobility needs - but I just can’t see it with the current state of the art, unless I’ve missed some big shifts in the last few years. I’d love to be wrong, I prefer to be an optimist, but my inner engineer is just sadly shaking his head no.
- servo_sausage 18d ago
  Have a look at the solar endurance cars; they are pretty interesting on their own, and have had some "functional" designs over the years. It's possible to make a sedan sized car that can be power positive at highway speeds in summer; even with modern safety and features. It's the rest of the year...
  - card_zero 18d ago
    The World Solar Challenge is now held in (Australian) winter, to make it harder.
steveBK123 17d ago
They've been designing this thing for 20 years now ..
- rickydroll 17d ago
  And they've been through significant financial and organizational chaos for probably 10 to 15 of those years. I really do hope they succeed and get a product out there. It would be a big win for a large group of people.
Gys 15d ago
I am surprised nobody here mentioned the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightyear_0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightyear_0

31 points by TeaVMFan 18d ago

On August 20, Aptera announced a $44 Million partnership with Launch Design to design and build their first solar electric vehicle. This finally answers questions that have hounded the company for years about their plan for scaling and fulfilling the thousands of reservations.

geremiiah 18d ago

In a world where sedans have been replaced by SUVs, I don't see how the market would react positively to this. But then again, Lime scooters are paradoxically also a thing. I guess maybe it's a matter of marketing?

xnx 18d ago
What's paradoxical about Lime scooters? That they are small compared to SUVs?
- singpolyma3 18d ago
  Yes
pbkompasz 18d ago
Market != USA
- TeaVMFan 18d ago
  That's an especially important point to this new deal, Launch will give them easier access to additional markets beyond the US.
richiebful1 18d ago
Electric scooters are a walking enhancer in an urban area. Now you can go 20kph in a city and easily park your vehicle. They're also super cheap to own and operate (or borrow one when needed). That's a totally different animal than a $40k subcompact trike car that requires an actual paid parking spot
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
elmomle 18d ago
There are many cities in the US where renting a scooter to travel a couple miles is as fast as (often faster than) waiting for and riding in a car, and costs perhaps a third as much. But I can't speak for whether this solar car is anything other than hype; those are different matters.
Grombobulous 18d ago
The Aptera is the exact same height as the Toyota Camry, the #5 best-selling vehicle in the United States.

amazingamazing 18d ago

So dumb. Build bike lanes and use ebikes, many of which already go 30mph+. The only hurdle is a weatherproof cover so you have heating and cooling and stay dry which together with an ebike would be way cheaper than this. And as a bonus it will help with the obesity problem plaguing this planet which kills thousands yearly.

IshKebab 18d ago
I mean getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars in many situations. But anyway this is a crazy niche product. Don't worry it's not going to have any effect on e-bikes whatsoever.
- moooo99 18d ago
  In Europe, the Fiat Topolino and his siblings are an increasingly common sight (while still being rare). Relatively cheap, can be charged with a regular 230V socket, tops out at 45kmph. Not as compact as a bike for obvious reasons, but still a substantially smaller footprint than any modern car - and comes with proper weather protection.
  - orwin 18d ago
    My mum will buy one to work (home nurse) while keeping her big car around for larger travel. Especially with gas prices, I think you will see those more and more.
- jakintosh 18d ago
  > getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars I use an ebike as primary transportation 365 days a year in Vermont, and you'd be surprised how infrequently you have a day that is actually miserable to be out on a bike, even in a place with very cold winters and a lot of rain. By dressing properly (gloves/scarf when it's cold, rain jacket if the weather is not cooperating), you can eliminate 95% of the annoyances. Something I've learned as a year round cyclist is that most of the rain you experience from inside a car is actually not that heavy when you're out in it. There are maybe 10 days a year where I just have to suck it up (below 0F, heavy rain), and then I usually just skip a trip, take the bus if I can, or deal with it. I get stuck biking in real rain maybe 3x a year, and tbh I think it's probably good for people to encounter occasional friction like that. And so taking on all of the disadvantages of depreciation, insurance, traffic, inspections, parking, gas prices, parking bans, worrying if that car alarm in the middle of the night is mine, is actually a much worse deal to me than putting up with a few uncomfortable trips per year.

scotty79 18d ago

I'd love if the roof and the hood of my plugin hybrid could have solar panels built in. I drive it very rarely and short distance. lf it could be topped up over few days, before next grocery or restaurant trip, I'd be delighted. I know there's not much energy to be gathered but it would suffice me. Instead I have glass roof for no reason, as if there was anything interesting straight up. Car manufacturers somewhat lost the plot.

tencentshill 18d ago
The Hyundai Sonata had this feature on a production car.
- scotty79 17d ago
  BYD Han and BYD Tang are supposed to have that option soon, for $1200. Others might follow because a company that makes glass roofs figured out how to manufacture them with solar cells embedded. Supposedly 720 W peak.
ianm218 18d ago
Why though? Wouldn’t it make more sense to just have solar panels at your home where the power can be routed to batteries/ home power/ sell to the grid and configured optimally?
- gpm 18d ago
  To reduce hassle? To make it work when you live in a place where you park on the street and can't run wires to the car?
  - TeaVMFan 18d ago
    Yes to both, plus freedom to drive/camp anywhere, even far from a guaranteed plug.
  - orwin 18d ago
    From someone with a boat and solar panels: cheap solar panels needs cooling, so space between the panels and the stuff they are stuck one. This reduces aerodynamics a lot, which isn't an issue with something going 8 knots max, but I have a friend with a trimaran whose solar panels reduce his max speed of 20 knot to 18 (38kmh -> 33.5), which is why he decided to remove them from his amas and have movable solar panel instead (he put them when he beach or stay at a mooring). My next boat will be a tri too, I just have to find half a million somewhere.

kotaKat 18d ago

Is this so Aptera can pass the buck when it flops again (“it’s Launch’s fault, we swear”)? This really doesn’t answer any questions. $44 million (and worthless paper stock warrants) is also immensely low for new vehicle tooling as a whole. (I'll point out that an article about Slate's frugality[1] still shows some massive costs involved here. They scored a $200 million assembly line component originally from GM for $12 million. Uh, if that kind of seven/eight-figure investment is required for a single component of an assembly line, how far does this $44 million go for Aptera?) [1] https://www.autoline.tv/automotive-insight/slate-a-masterclass-in-automotive-frugality/ https://www.autoline.tv/automotive-insight/slate-a-mastercla...

conorcleary 18d ago
Warrants aren't worthless if there aren't any for sale.

standeven 18d ago

This is like building a gas powered car with a refinery attached to the roof. Batteries exist. Solar panels add weight and design constraints. Why is this a thing? What am I missing?

TeaVMFan 18d ago
Solar panel efficiency has increased and they have made an extremely slippery vehicle. 4kWh/day and 10 miles per kWh gives 40 miles per day of driving range, enough for many people without ever plugging in.
- dymk 18d ago
  Solar panel efficiency hasn’t gone up that much. It’s not like solar panel cars were just barely not worth it - the economics weren’t close to making sense. 10 miles/kWh is also insanely efficient, unbelievably so (well over 2x your average EV), and I don’t see where they back that claim up.
- qurren 18d ago
  > 4kWh/day That's over-optimistic and you will probably only get that in a small handful of places in the world like the southwestern US or the Middle East and even then only for part of the year. The hot, sunny, never-cloudy parts of the world also tend to be the ones where driving long distances is most necessary.
  - vlovich123 18d ago
    From some parts of SF to SJ is about 42 miles. Thats a very long distance that you’re likely to get completely on solar. For that long of a commute you probably need a bigger battery but you could easily have most of your costs met for free with minimal top ups. And that’s a very long daily commute. Also temperature doesn’t matter too much. You just need sun. I bet it’s enough for most of California year round with minor exceptions that you need to use infrastructure charging.
    - 18d ago

jansan 18d ago

In 1991 Audi presented the Quattro Spyder, which had a detachable solar roof. The idea was to run a fan to prevent overheating of the interior. And now they won't to power the entire car with energy from solar cells on the car? I have my doubts.

TeaVMFan 18d ago
On the "charging-from-the-sun" side of the equation, they recently had an independent German test organization measure the daily charge rate, and it exceeded the 4.0kWh/day goal. The test was conducted at their Southern California headquarters during July, however, so your mileage may (literally) vary.
Liftyee 18d ago
In case you didn't notice, today's solar panels are more efficient and much cheaper than the solar panels of 1991. Also, enough energy for some range ≠ enough power to drive constantly.

Animats 18d ago

So there's a company in China, Launch, to which you can outsource making cars. Like Flextronics for electronics. So you can have a "fabless" car company. The economics of that are interesting. Launch just makes cars. They don't take the market risk of having to sell them to consumers. As for Aptera, "We are committed to commencing production and delivery as soon as possible. However, the exact timing remains uncertain and is dependent on several key factors..." So it's a Kickstarter for cars. At this point you have to ask whether the product is the car or the next financing round. Also, it may have too much China content to be sold in the US. They may have to pay off Trump to get past that.

speed_spread 18d ago
Valmet in Finland does this too.

aetherspawn 18d ago

I work in this space. Took one look at Launch and instantly recognise the type of company they are (aftersales/paper pushing) and that this will probably fail due to lack of actual engineering experience with DfM, control software, etc.

algo_trader 17d ago
warning: total manufacturing newbie here But i would like to ask. How much effort/legal/heartache is involved in building an after market add-on for commercial vehicles? Some comforting assumptions - internal customers. no sales. - good software talent. can work around anything. - almost no moving parts - mostly electronics - can accept cost overrun on the components - each unit is >$10K - gradual scaling to 1000s units/annum - daily return to hubs if needed
- aetherspawn 16d ago
  Not legal advice: If you don’t change steering or brakes then virtually no compliance is required. You are of course liable if your widget causes an accident.

deleted 18d ago

[deleted]

roughly 18d ago

I am a big booster of both solar power and electric vehicles, but boy, Aptera’s trying to thread a needle I just don’t think we’ve got the technology to thread yet. The efficiency of solar panels isn’t high enough to consistently generate enough power to propel a vehicle made of currently practical materials that meets modern automotive safety standards far enough fast enough to be useful, and I suspect they’re going to have to get esoteric enough in the materials, electronics, and manufacturing that the price is going to be prohibitive at the scale of the market willing to make the sacrifices the vehicle will require. I don’t know if it’s theoretically possible to do what they want to do at some point - I don’t know if enough energy is present in the sunlight that falls on the space available on a normal car to power something that meets what the average person would consider their mobility needs - but I just can’t see it with the current state of the art, unless I’ve missed some big shifts in the last few years. I’d love to be wrong, I prefer to be an optimist, but my inner engineer is just sadly shaking his head no.

servo_sausage 18d ago
Have a look at the solar endurance cars; they are pretty interesting on their own, and have had some "functional" designs over the years. It's possible to make a sedan sized car that can be power positive at highway speeds in summer; even with modern safety and features. It's the rest of the year...
- card_zero 18d ago
  The World Solar Challenge is now held in (Australian) winter, to make it harder.

steveBK123 17d ago

They've been designing this thing for 20 years now ..

rickydroll 17d ago
And they've been through significant financial and organizational chaos for probably 10 to 15 of those years. I really do hope they succeed and get a product out there. It would be a big win for a large group of people.

Gys 15d ago

I am surprised nobody here mentioned the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightyear_0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightyear_0