Is interest in Aptera waning? 

Like you said in the recent interview, I think being able to show off a functioning PI builds with crash tests is good to be super important for showing the public that production will in fact happen. I'm super excited for it, but to be honest, I've been less interested in seeing every single small update now that I know a lot about it and their production process. Showing off a PI build will be huge. Additionally, on the topic of Aptera being a mass market vehicle, they were selling 20-30k Slingshots every year for a hot minute there, and those things don't even have a roof!

Need to get cars on the road. Once people see it, more orders will flow.

Ok enough with the false modesty! The popularity of this youtube channel has a lot do with the strength of your reporting and the insights that you bring. It is not strictly tied to the popularity of Aptera alone.

Another factor that slows reservations: Being at the end of a queue of 47,000 means putting out money for a car that you won't get for 3 or 4 years, if ever. From photos taken at CPC, 17 of each body panet were made from each pair of molds. One set went to the Ennegi company which left 16 sets for Aptera.

Most people still have not heard of Aptera. I try to bring Aptera up in most conversations I have with people that are talking about anything related to EVs, “saving the planet”, gasoline costs, etc. This morning I had all the wheels rebalanced on my suv and I took the 20 year old mechanic fora ride in the interstate to see if the vibration problem was fixed. I mentioned that this was the last gas car I planned to buy, but told him “don’t jump to conclusions about me and electric cars”. When we stopped I wet to the Aptera website to show in what I was talking about. He was excited and said he’d never heard of it. The lesson: We need Aptera on the road! If even young mechanics haven’t hear of it the word still has to be spread- especially that is an affordable vehicle and incredibly efficient and fun to drive.

Also, don’t underestimate RU-vid ability to bury channels when adjusting the algorithm.

I concur on your assessment of the fatigue factor. I am an Aptera fanatic, and feel fully engaged/excited about current progress. But if I project myself into a summer of 2025 where production still looks to be 6-9 months away...yeah, I can imagine it difficult to sustain my interest at the same level.

Early adopters are always a small group , mass adoption bigins when a successful vehicle hits the road .

The success of this channel is because of the high interest in Aptera and YOU!

count me as one of the early invertors/reservation holders who is growing tired of Aptera. I need to see the first vehicle delivered in 6-8 months. I expected to see the Aptera release well ahead of the delayed Cybertruck but here we are.

The last year feels like treading water. I expect interest to explode when the PI builds start coming together.

You are not even half way through the year and you have nearly as many views in 2024 as you did in 2023. If they can finish the PI builds and validate their claims by September, you might be able to eclipse your 2022 numbers this year. Thanks for all your efforts, keep up the good work.

A lot of people won’t order a car they haven’t sat in

Waning? Yes. They need to get the car built.

In my opinion it is easy to say "Wow!" And spread the word when you first hear about something like Aptera. 2 years later.... You might still think it is great, but you have stopped saying "wow" and telling folks about it.

Validation is now the lynchpin and sooner rather than later. If the numbers are really good, crash test shows robust building, EPA milage rating over 300 mpge, zero to sixty in four seconds, and yada yada yada, then the process of assembling it should be easy as capital will show up. As to being adopted as mainstream, the VW Beatle was ugly, and had a tiny back seat, but look at them and think about 23 million of them were sold. Not sure why Aptera can't become the car (autocycle) of the 2030's and sell a ton of them. They will not rust, and should last a long time. Steve you are Mr. Aptera too, so over 4 million views of your channel says that people believe you provided a valuable amount of information. Thanks for your charismatic style, and logical reporting.

I feel the leveling of interest is part of the natural development process also. Most design detail has been revealed and we are in a quieter time where Aptera is crazy busy bringing production pieces together behind the scenes, but public announcements and reveals are less, so the leveling of interest follows. When driving vehicles hit the road, I agree that interest will surge once again.

I completely agree with and share your concerns Steve. I do think the window of opportunity is closing. Thanks for being balanced in your reporting of Aptera! We want to know the good AND the bad. You do a great job of that.

I think it IS going to be a mass market vehicle...or could be. Thanks Steve.

I can't think of a crowd funded campaign that didn't level off. My concern level for this is quite low. 1 or maybe 2 out of 10.

I'm a fan but it's not real until they actually produce at least one.

Even as a superfan, I don't seek out much information beyond Aptera's social media and the AOC channel. I think in 2022, I probably watched every video that touched on Aptera.... so you might conclude my interest has waned. However, I would say nothing could be farther from the truth... I went from "I'll hold my reservation and maybe I'll buy when the vehicle is ready"... to... "I'm definitely taking delivery." Some of that is my related to finances improving just prior to projected delivery.

With 47k reservations and production proposed for 2025, I don't think it's fatigue as much as the prospect of a 3? year wait at best to get an Aptera.

As expected, good analysis and realistic comments on the first segment of the investor presentation review.Glad there is someone in the Aptera community with your objectivity. Agree that the reservation growth has slowed considerably. End of early adaptor enthusiasm (I am one) and rational investors and interested people are now biding time for substantive results. It is evident that Aptera is high risk for financial success by the lack of entities that are professional startup investors not providing funding. No room on the road to kick the can much more. Also agree with your assessment that if no production delivery by end of 2025 Aptera will fail. They have pulled the rabbit out of the hat before. Hopefully they will again.

I agree with the majority of comments, once the PI and Accelerator vehicles come out, there will be a lot more interest.

I'm definitely frustrated with the slow progress in the past year. Not enough to lose hope but patience isn't one of my virtues. I'm also worried because Chris said that, since inflation has been close to 30% for some things, there might be a substantial price increase. He did mention that some things have come down in price like copper, batteries and solar (I think). If the price goes up too much, I'll probably pass on the idea of buying one. Also, my reservation number is in the 38,000 range, so I might be priced out even if inflation remains low over the next 5 years or so.

Thank you for all the researched added value you bring, and theories.

In my mind people are looking at the proposed production rate and the current reservations and thinking if it comes out next year they will basically be waiting 5 years before they get a vehicle. And I think that is the same reason why the accelerator program worked so well because it allowed people to jump into the front of the line. Certainly getting production intent vehicles tested and on the road will be a big boost.

There are still a lot of people who have never heard of Aptera. There was a lot of initial interest, but the thing is, I think most of the people who found out about the Aptera early on were already people who were interested in solar vehicles, and aerodynamic efficiency. They were people who frequented the sources who reported on the Aptera early on. So I don't think it was a case of "stumbling onto Aptera". I think a lot of us already knew about Aptera from 2005 and had an understanding of it that drew us to it. Naturally as more of us have found Aptera there are less of us left to stumble into it. This is kind of similar to what Chris says a little later about the majority in interest in Aptera being from men. It's not that women aren't mechanically inclined or interested in solar power, it's just that they don't usually browse the same sources. They WILL find Aptera, it's just a matter of later rather than sooner. So I think the interest will come back once production begins. Crash testing will probably also draw attention, but again only among people who monitor crash testing. 2020 was about the time Aptera was last planning on beginning production, and 2023 was the start of the redesign, so there was definitely a lot of waiting going on in that timeframe. I expect that as we start to see progress on the PI builds interest will come back pretty fast. The thing is, as parts are delivered, milestones are going to start to be reached a lot faster over time. They've got work going on in parallel, and some of the first steps are the hardest. Once they've got wheels on the vehicle and it's drivable, the remaining components should not take as long

I believe at some point in the past year or so they cleaned up the count. My guess is they were a bit lax in cleaning up cancellations. I think it needs to be stressed that reservation fees are fully refundable. It isn't unusual for people's financial conditions to change leading to a cancellation.

Totally agree. Its crunch time now.

When the finally get on the road the public will adopt the idea. Almost all daily driving is with one or two people so this will take off when introduced to the general public.

Those reserving vehicles surely don't all have an infinite time horizon until they absolutely must have such vehicles. People drop off the reservation list because the deposit is refundable and they ultimately need to go with a vehicle that actually exists. So, what you are seeing is the quantity of reservation holders has approached an equilibrium at around 47k.

Don't sell yourself short Steve. I enjoy your down to earth style of presenting the information without all the hype. Your channel is popular because of Aptera, true, and Aptera is more popular because of you. You are a realist that says what you see without too much bias. We have all been made to wait too long for this vehicle. Maybe time spent redesigning an inverter or the motors could have been spent on the chassis instead. There have been more than a couple disappointments in the timelines. I agree if they don't have models sold in 2025 they may never make it big time. I am em bare assed when people I have told about this vehicle years ago say "so what happened to the 12-18 months, wasn't that like three years ago"? While they have lowered that to 6 to 9 months, it is from a starting point some time in the future! They probably will not get many new orders faster than people cancel if they don't get something GOOD on the road!

I would like to see Aptera include in the deliveries: 1 'bumper sticker' with "Aptera" + QR code to the specs & website, & 1 'bumper sticker' with short list of top featured & QR code to Order page. I would put 1 on each side of my Launch Edition!!!!! 🌞⚡️💪😎

I wouldn’t order something if I was going to have to wait 2-3 yrs. I would just wait 3 years from now and get it right away after ordering. The thing is who knows how many will start ordering once they see it on the roads… could add another 2 years of cars ordered.

Since they have continued to kick the can down the road, it doesn't surprise me that people are no longer ordering. Once Aptera has been in production for a few years they may start ordering again.

I wouldn't agree that they have not been making progress. If anything, they are constantly achieving milestones every year, even though slowly. Yes, interest is somehow wanning, but that is natural when you are trying to build something new and difficult, which people don't fully understand. I believe Aptera will finally come through.

I've been waiting since 2008. I was on the wait list for the original version and I'm on the wait list for this version. I could afford to "invest" money but I've elected NOT to do that since I cannot figure out if Aptera's primary product is investor slides or if its primary product is actual cars driving on the road. I want the Aptera that I saw in 2008 without solar panels. The solar panels are a distraction to getting the initial version of the car on the road. Add solar panels in V2, but for V1 follow Musk's advice: "The best part, is no part".

That's RU-vid in a nutshell, report content that people are interested in and they will come. Keep it going there's not a ton of these channels out there, thanks for doing what you do!

I have been on the fence on whether I should pre-order. I have invested, but not pre-ordered. A 3-seat option would immediately make me pre-order. Reason: with 2 kids, I need this.

I agree that interest and initial orders is flattening. Personally, i let folks know that I've ordered mine, but i don't recommend that they order yet. Too many unknowns.

I currently drive a Chevy Bolt EUV. I bought a very expensive 48 amp EVSE and Chevy paid $1500 to install it in my garage. When I go to get my Aptera I am selling the Bolt AND the EVSE. It wont be needed with the Aptera. I will almost exclusively Solar charge. If I need to plug it in I will use a normal 110V outlet for home charging

From the time you started this channel, there have been few other content creators who started doing content on Aptera. That should have also diverted some engagement. Other bit is Aptera's recent ad campaigns have been targeting the age group who otherwise are in the age group of gaming content. Any converted off that effort are not adding to this channel's engagement. We must remember Aptera is still design and development vehicle. The amount of engagement we see is huge in that sense. Once few make it to the production floor that is when we should talk of growing engagement for Aptera.

If you have ever worked for a large corporation, the ERP is basically the HR system that ties everything together. It is connected to everything downstream from your HR systems obviously to your IT, Finance and Legal systems. It allows you to align costs with employees, departments, individuals assets, projects, etc. For instance, if you terminate an employee everything downstream will automatically update and potentially trigger other processes such as revoking security access on the IT side or even the recruitment process within HR. It’s needed to keep organizations efficient and scalable.

I think things have levelled off naturally. No reason to panic. Perspective? Look at the all the accomplishments up to now, and look at the current potential energy in the system. It's good, it's really good. We are moving forward faster now than ever, so let's relax a little and give them a chance to do the PI builds. I also second the "get out and drive it" sentiment from Arlen. I think now is the time to tour with whatever prototypes are driveable, or perhaps as soon as they get a few PI builds. These things should be driven constantly while they are not on the hoist, and I think Aptera should enlist community to help with this. The prototypes are sitting around mostly now. Make them into demonstrators along with the PI builds and start touring them? You don't raise eyebrows by keeping your hot ride in the garage. You gotta drive that baby.

Hey Steve, you’re doing an excellent job. I know I have been quite critical in the past but really you are doing a great job. I do try and keep my critiques constructive but sometimes they get away from me.

For sure Aptera enthusiasm is down. BEV enthusiasm is down. Price competition has arisen in the $30-35K range. A few of the initial Aptera enthusiasts may be aging out. (Might be my own case.) I agree that if prices stay "similar" to what was announced and if the "product is known to be reliable", these are minor problems. But these are two very big ifs that will not be answered for at least the first year or two of production. I would also speculate that "having the right to repair" as an answer to all service, remains uncomforting to many and no flesh has been added to that bone. No public discussion of agreements from national or local service chains. No list or schedule of DIY service training modules. No mention of outreach to community colleges or trade schools. It all seems to be on the good intentions road.

In order to figure out whether interest is waning, you’d have to plot the number of people who KNOW about Aptera, and then what percentage of those people make a reservation. If the number of people who know about it hasn’t grown much in the past year and a half, then that would be the bottleneck, not the desire to buy one.

PI builds are very important right now.

Leveling off of interest might also be a function of saturation of the RU-vid social network. There's no mention of it on Tumblr or Imgur that I'm aware of. A mention on the more nerd oriented news sites immediately brings out the "where's the car" trolls.

As an Aptera Ambassador and Accelator, I have become somewhat frustrated after therr years of telling people I would have one to show them in a year, now it is still a year away. I agree that seeing a PI Aptera will help a lot, I scheduled a visit with Aptera last November for this April fully expecting back then, that the PI would have been there for a month or more. Now three months later still no PI. I remember that Gamma was about 6 months after it was expected and even then it was not fully ready. Steve implyed that the first PI's may not be ready for testing until Augest or September.

I am in the list for the introduction 400-mile version, when a few years later the 1000 mile comes out I will trade up to it.

It's really tough to be objective when we want so much that this thing succeeds. Good job, and I agree with some of the other comments about what you bring to the table. You do all the homework for me and the rest of us to provide a clearer more objective understanding. And like so many others, why was Elaphe not mentioned?

There is just less value in having a reservation that won't matter for 3 years after production starts.

Yes. I've stopped paying attention and really telling people. I just haven't quite unsubscribed to the channel so this still pops up

When their first production intent vehicles are built , interest will pick up to 22 levels .

I remember pointing this drop off approximately 9 months to a year ago and I remember Steve asking Chris about whether reservation growth was dropping off. Chris quickly dismissed this as a no, but it definitely wasn't accelerating its growth as I would have expected. I think the jury is out regarding just how niche this product is. I think it is fine for Aptera to have visionary plans as long as they are absolutely diligent about managing expansion only when they are clear the order growth is there. A reservation is not an order.

I have promise fatigue, so might others. Most people do not want to reserve a car before they buy it, it's just not how we typically buy a car. We buy a car after we see it and touch it and test drive it and of course after we've heard good things from others about it. Your channel provides great coverage and is professionaaly run, and trust-worthy :).

Thx Steve! My personal referrals , which mainly came in the early days, have only dropped by nine over the years. Reason? Maybe they feel they will hold on to their early reservation number… Not sure. Which original referrals may have changed to LE or Accelerated ? Some “Yes” How many ??? Some are still waiting for the later 600 mi range model. Chris A. said they may not need all 16 PIs as some “could possibly be reused for some testing”🤞 Most people that have been following know the PI is actual the last series of Development vehicles. Original to be labelled Delta. Hoping validation with this high number of PI vehicles ( up to 16 ) “ on the ground” does the trick! Surly to get to some type of a production start and stimulate new reservations. Folks have different situations to balance… Age., timing for vehicle need, etc. But actual production vehicles on the ground and “priced right” should get to the younger ( bigger ? ) audience. Fleet sales ?!

Yes.

I don't think it's waning. People are just waiting. The updates are great that they do and once they start delivering, interest will rise again especially if people see it on the road. But that being said, there's a number of options of EVs that people can choose from now.

Steve, a couple of things. 1) you are too modest. Your channel is doing so well because you have great content. You ask great questions and don't hype things. You are a very reliable source of information and people depend on you. Other youtubers reference your material all of the time. 2) You are right, Aptera needs to have a functional PI build ASAP and it can't look like it was taped together the night before. (Gamma was revealed with black tape on it that I was really surprised to see.) At this point, anyone that is interested is purchasing an Aptera is going to be waiting several years before they see a vehicle in their driveway. 40 or 80 vehicles a day is great in theory but until a single vehicle is delivered, 40 or 80 vehicles a day is not happening any time soon. I have a relatively low order number as I placed my order a long time ago and I am still looking at 18 months from today at the earliest. This is now become a challenge as my current vehicle needs extensive repairs or I need to replace it. I'm hoping to get by with just one family vehicle until I can take delivery but my wife is asking if I really want to do that. I understand that building a vehicle like Aptera takes time and that the amount of time taken so far is not too far off other vehicles but people are not patient. Once gasoline goes up to $5.00/gal nationwide, interest will come back but and only if Aptera has a functional PI build in July/August with delivers in December. The elephant in the room is the funding. US Capital Global has not provided the money, only that they will work towards raising the money. Without that money, the PI build is going to be a slow process and their cash reserves have to be getting very thin.

Yes, interest is waning. If I remember correctly, I reserved my Aptera back in 2022 when there were about 17K on the waiting list. The understanding at the time was production would start in '23. It's now 2024 with no clear production starting time. I couldn't wait, so I bought a Tesla. However, here is a point to keep the interest in Aptera going. If the Aptera stays true to its prediction of 10 miles for every 1 Kwh then it would be more efficient (in terms of $cost per 100 km) than an ICE vehicle that gets 100 mpg. My Tesla's efficiency is equal to an ICEV that gets about 40 mpg. For the approximate price of an Aptera, you can get a Toyota Prius that gets about 50 mpg. Aptera would do better to promote it's efficiency rather the keep repeating that old chestnut of 'powered by the sun'. Also, Chris Anthony and Steve Fambro would benefit significantly by hiring a PR consultant to help prep them for their webinars. They come off looking a little unprofessional. I sincerely want to see Aptera become a successful EV company. I wish them well. Thank you for your AOC videos.

IMO, the reason is because if you placed a reservation now, vs when production starts. the wait time would still be essentially the same. Getting in line at 47k+ is not very appealing. The wait time is just to long!

Once Aptera started waffling on the price of $25,000 for an operating vehicle, citing fluctuating supplier costs, it became apparent that Aptera was no longer promising a vehicle at the price point of $25,000. Now, we don't know what price it will be released at. We don't know if it will qualify for federal EV tax incentives. And once Chevy and Kia started introducing EVs intended to start at $30,000, despite the unique technical advantages of the Aptera, I'm sure the biggest draw of the Aptera early on was the chance to get an EV for $25,000 when most EVs were still selling for $75,000 plus and without subsidies. The delta has narrowed now or may have even been eliminated depending on what pricing Aptera offers.

I get excited when something actually happens, like when Gamma was revealed. Those events have been few and far between. I'll get excited again when they start doing range and crash tests with PI builds.

Hey Steve, I’m personally not a reservations holder but I have invested. The only reason for me to make a reservation is for Aptera to have better numbers. For me personally it doesn’t make sense to reserve one since at the time they hit 50k production things should be moving quite fast. So I personally don’t see a need for it

100% correct.

I'm an early investor and have been concerned for some time. Then came the fundraising for the first 2k units. I put more money in order to finally get it to production. Then it wasn't enough and needed another 65 millions. I'm starting to feel like it might never be enough to get it started. It is never enough and more money is needed. I now feel bad to have talked my friends into reserving an aptera and the delivery is constantly moving further into the future. I think that it is 50/50 that I might loose my money.

I've seen the exact same trend with referral count spiking during 2022 and fading in early 2023 to none in 2024. Even had 3 or so drop off, I assume due to cancelling pre-order. Having a Aptera PI build fully drivable will start to gather excitement again. Then the real interest will spike when US Capitol has raised what's needed for production.

Ford has this same issue with the Maverick. If they had included cruise control on the xl I would have bought a new one years ago. They put so much money into ev platforms with bad engineering. There is still a waiting list for a very popular vehicle because of it.

There's probably also a soft threshold effect. If people know that it'll be 2-3 years before a vehicle could be delivered, a lot of people will just tune out since that's too far ahead to make plans.

Just reserved for $70, more promotions might make more reservations

I think during fully charged live at the gamma reveal they were saying they were at 42,000, so it's been a lot longer than one year

LOL I was thinking, besides loving your updates you were playing soft Gershwin in the background and I was enjoying it. But it was me. I pushed a. Button by mistake in my car.

Forty thousand reservations we declared on January 23 2023 when Aptera announced the Launch Edition So they have only managed to garner a little over 7000 more in 17 months and this after spending real money to buy placement on three large youtube channels. So yes, interest has waned significantly. Also note all Accelerators were automatically granted a reservation and they do hand out free reservations. You can see the slowing of reservations in their SEC filings.

It would be great if reservation holders actually knew their reservation number. Not some number that may or may not be close to what you’re actual number is.

It shouldn't be surprising that reservations have leveled off because people wanting an Aptera now are looking forward to two years before they can expect delivery due to the production schedule being announced. Many prospective owners may be looking at replacing their current transportation sooner than that, and/or waiting for any subsequent designs to become available.

The culprit, in my opinion, for the drop off in reservations for Aptera is the Launch Edition model. The announcement of the Launch Edition in January 2023 coincided with the flatlining of the growth curve. Hear me out on this one. I think that most people want the Launch Edition because it has the 400 mile range, and are prepared to pay the $33k for that model, but here's the thing: because they know this model will be the first one produced, those who are contemplating placing a reservation for LE don't have an urgency for clicking that reserve button because they know that they won't be going to the end of the line of 47,000 reservations if they wait until Aptera is either in production or close to it. Most people assume that there are only a few thousand reservations in that LE queue, so they will have their Aptera within a year or earlier, even if they wait. Of course, we don't know that is the case, but that's what people assume, because we don't have any information about how many LE reservations have been made at this point. If Aptera published that information, it might motivate people to get in the queue and place their reservation. If for example we knew that there are 25,000 LE orders in the queue, that might motivate people to jump in now, to make sure they aren't being delayed when it comes to delivery time. How about it Aptera, a little more transparency might help your cause in this instance.

Of course new interest in Aptera is waning. Demand in a new product follows an S curve. We're in the saturation phase. You're right that once production vehicles hit the streets, demand will skyrocket.

I think the plateau is a media/messaging saturation, and I agree with most folks that as soon as they start hitting the streets, it'll pop loud!

A $25K EV was a lot more interesting when the floor price on EVs was $50K. Now with the $7500 available on EVs as cheap as a Bolt yet not on the Aptera.

2:39 Early market saturation. I agree. Not sure I agree on holding off on making a reservation. I’m super cheap and even I went into the queue for $70 that can be reimbursed if I back out. I hedged further to wait for a 600 mile variant to see how things play out and to go see someone with a launch edition. As a two-seater, it limits its use case. I’m excited but am somewhat sober considering all of flame-outs of other companies as we all tag-along on this Aptera ride to production and profitability.

They're their own worst enemy when it comes to dates. At the end of last year they said they would have multiple PI units by March and begin testing by April. Now it's June and they're struggling to produce ONE of these "easy-to-build" products.

I don't expect that demand will immediately occur when my friends and neighbors see the car for the first time. But to everyone that approaches me I'll make the point that even in WI I don't need the Tesla chargers, I can charge 160 miles over night in my garage. So pointing out the pennies per mile cost will get people starting to think that this car could make sense at least for the second car, which nearly every family here (rural Wisconsin) has.

Aptera forum activity also seems very slow ATM. I'm buying something else in the interim - I can't wait till 2028ish for the Aussie version. I used your referral in early 2023 (I think) - I was about 42K in the line. Yes I noticed the slow-down as well.

I agree that it is time to get the vehicle produced. I am an accelerator and have put as much money into the company as I can. I also have a car with over 200k on it and I can afford to buy one vehicle. I want that vehicle to be the Aptera. If it takes another 2 years before they ship, I am not sure I can wait that long.

I ended up buying a model y last month as I couldn’t hold out any longer. A friend of mine is likely going to take over my reservation, but with 2,000 accelerators and who knows how many others ahead of me for my LE build, it’s still a couple years before I see mine. As far as I’m aware I was around #18,000 but not sure how that stacks up with the LE reservations.

You mentioned Red Viking. Man, I forget how long ago they purchased those robots. In retrospect it seems like that expenditure was done way too early. Cart before the horse.

A production line is important. The biggest criticism I see for aptera is that there doesn't seem to be a path of actual large scale manufacturing.

I got new tires and an alignment done on my current car and wondered how i would get that done on my future aptera. A 3 wheel vehicle want go on my shops alignment rack. Would I have to take ot to a motorcycle shop?

Jim Grant’s “Almost Daily” report comments on Aptera’s funding situation in a less than hopeful way! June 10,2024

CEC Grant is half for solar and half for batteries, nothing else. But it has to be production equipment for making packs, not testing equipment or supplies. Which bringing over someone from Chris's other recent venture to manage battery pack production is rather Elon-esc. I think some of the funds for solar has been purchased using raised funds. But not the battery production line.

Yes Aptera interest is falling. Just look at the message board on the website. Like zero activity and boring topics. They need to show a production intent model soon. Hell my interest is almost gone, seriously looking at the Prius Prime right now.

I do believe Aptera will make it into mass-production. I'm not convinced that I'll receive my Aptera that I ordered three years ago before I die. I have health issues. I seem to have stabilized now. But I have liver issues, I've had skin cancer before, and I had some kind of mysterious illness starting in September that would come and go up until March. When I ordered my vehicle, it was supposed to be approximately 7, 000th in line. Then the accelerator program pushed me back. Then I learned that the model I ordered with the equipment I ordered will probably be one of the last ones built in the first big push to satisfy the 47,000 orders. I was expecting to be driving this vehicle last year. It looks like I'm five or six years away from getting this car. I seriously cannot count on being alive five years from now. This left me driving an old car that was supposed to be a short-term place-keeper. It just coded last week. I don't know if it's totaled or it can be repaired. It happened when I was on my way to buy a newer used vehicle because I just could not wait any longer for my Aptera that I ordered. I am in sales and my current car was undermining my ability to sell because it looks so old that it looks like I couldn't afford a new car and therefore I must not be good at what I do. It's taken me a year to get my wife to understand this and finally break down and let me buy something newer. I was trying to persuade her to let me get a new Hyundai Ionic 6 SEL and give up on the idea of getting the Aptera. She wouldn't let me take that much money out of our investments. I hate car loans. I had to pull $15,000 out of my stock investments that were doing really well in order to buy a used vehicle I don't want to buy because I can't get the new vehicle I want for untold years to come. Or ever. I'm an investor too. In fact, I'm going to invest another $7,500 via a Roth IRA before the Reg A deadline at the end of the month. I have a feeling that I will die, and that my wife will be the beneficiary of the investment. It would be nice to know before I die that it has succeeded and that she will benefit from the risk we took that I had to sell to her. Frankly, I think this is a vehicle that a lot of older people that are retired empty-nesters have ordered. They're probably in the same boat with me. They're old, they don't know how much longer they're going to be around, and they're driving an older ICE or hybrid car they don't want to drive anymore because they're waiting for a car to be built for them that's taking years longer than they were told. It's frustrating and disappointing. One thing that worries me is that I see they're still not settled on a final design. I've noticed other EV startups seem to just perpetually redesign their products without ever introducing mass-production. Canoo comes to mind. I lost money investing in Canoo. It blew money constantly redesigning what looked like an excellent original design just so they could generate more media attention. Wasted money. Some EV startups seem to be founded solely to provide an income stream for the founders of the company without any intention of delivering a mass-production vehicle. Again, Canoo comes to mind. Fisker comes to mind. Lordstown comes to mind. Nikola comes to mind. I don't think this is what the Aptera is now. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into that situation later.

100% fatigue and when the heck are the crash tests being done?????

What's the conversion rate gonna be on those 45,000 reservations? Maybe 40-50 percent at best? I don't think this car will have mass appeal, but we'll never know unless they get to production.

Near the end of the show, I believe they show they intend to build between 10-16 PI vehicles. The first one in Aptera motors may, slowly, evolve into a beta like platform? After that there will be full builds, depending on suppliers. My two big take aways are, they are out of the funding business [that is now US Capitols job and they are good at this], and their solar panels have value in the market, outside of cars. Love the airlines pilot project! Does each cart get it's own batteries? Might this be a joint venture with Flo? Plus they answered my question about how many panels were on the aero trailer; 4. SUNA!

Maybe they should quit advertising that a 1000 range BEV is available! If Aptera does this kind of advertising, people look for the available vehicle, and find it is not available, only a design concept, Aptera loses credibility.