Aptera News Update 22MAY2024

Links for todays news:
Elon musk rehires some of the charging team:
Aptera is locking in the accelerator slots on June 30 (also Aptera's most recent update):
Things I liked:
Sandy talks Cybertruck suspension:
Honda sticking to their EV guns:

[DemaGeek]

Jeff, your content is always high quality, thank you!

[davidmarlow]

The June 30th cut off may apply to all direct funding to Aptera so any other funding after that will have to go through US Capital, until the IPO. The June 6th announcement will include more details on the US Capital deal and some info on what was worked out in the UAE. With Chris and Steve being able to focus on production rather than funding.

[robinpettit]

I think Honda is doing it the right way by designing theirs from the ground up as you said.

[theresjer]

Sorry to be random here, but seeing the current yen to dollar reminded me in a in a big way how unusual Japan's economic situation is (I remember when it was about double today's)

[robinpettit]

I am guessing one of the likely outcomes from the UAE trip. My guess is they got some very definite investors which is what prompted Aptera to go with US Capital.I believe a number of investors in the UAE are comfortable working through US Capital. These are just educated guesses.

[deanmcmanis]

I have also been a long time fan of Honda, but it is frustrating to see their snail's pace in moving to BEVs. Honda did make a smart move in building a plug-in hybrid fuel cell CR-V, which is likely the only way that hydrogen could succeed, but they are late to that party as well, and growing price hikes in hydrogen make it a hard sell moving forward. Like Toyota, Honda committed billions to fuel cell technology, excluding building competitive battery-only EVs. this leaves them in a bad spot, with many countries (including Japan) mandating 100% EV adoption by 2030, and Honda making broad commitments for a weak 2040 goal. 😕 Surprisingly, there are 22 JLs on the Accelerator list.😎

[david.e.h.]

I thought these last few days of Aptera in investment, was only for accredited investors. I was going to invest an additional $2200.

[robertkirchner]

What I don't understand is why anyone who had been fired in such a callous and perfunctory manor would take their job back if it was offered.

[ddessert]

The devil is in the details... Per your statement in how US Capital Global is not handing Aptera a check, I am puzzled to where the funds are coming from to purchase the equipment though more details around the actual parts and such would be good. If they are purchasing parts for 2 PI builds, how is that different than was already expected? Hopefully June 6th will provide some very positive enlightenment. If Aptera is waiting for US Capital Global to secure the ~100M they will need to go into production with high volume production starting in 9 months, it looks like we are going to still be waiting. For every month that goes by, there is roughly another $5M that is needed. (Yes, I know their burn rate is not $5M today but it will soon eclipse that.) I want the Aptera LE in my driveway as bad as any other person but I have been following Aptera since their first attempt at making the vehicle and I know that it is not wise to count your chickens before they hatch. It is possible and even likely that US Capital Global has loaned Aptera some initial funds to keep the PI builds moving and that they have put milestones that need to be met before more money is available. This is very common in construction loans and this is not much different. If you look at Aptera's spreadsheet, without considerable new money they are going to be very challenged to keep going into September. I'm not being negative but realistic. US Capital Global might be the money to release the matching CA grant money but all of that money must be used within CA.

Currently Aptera has said that they will be building the solar panels for the vehicles but they don't have the ability to make enough panels for 40 vehicles per day. There is also something that has been overlooked and that is applying the wrap to the vehicle. Chris A has said that it takes roughly an hour for a team to apply the wrap though that seems to be a long time for an LE that has all of the solar panels. Regardless, if it is going to take more than 12 minutes, there will be a backlog. There will need to be a place to have the vehicles in a clean environment. The front wheel pants might be wrapped separately and you would not notice slight shading differences in the material between the pants and the body but if the doors were prewrapped, you would see a difference. Lots of details that need to be ironed out. Hopefully June 6 will really provide a great deal of enlightenment and not be more of a teaser.