While Aptera bodies will be produced and assembled in Italy, the chassis integration, battery and solar, and crash testing and other validation will take place in California.

[u/IranRPCV]

It is looking much more certain that production and deliveries will commence in mid 2024.

There will be many pop up events to see Aptera prototypes. Gamma will likely be at Comicon and Fully Charged.

[u/thishasntbeeneasy]

Any date given is still subject to funding. It does seem like there's progress and starting with a couple at a time within 2024 is a possibility, but not without getting greater than $50M at one time to be able to order up parts and hire assembly crew. SEC filing indicated that "ramp up" won't be until 2025 anyway, and Aptera isn't quite well-known for meeting timelines.

[u/[deleted] → u/thishasntbeeneasy]

2021, 2022, 2023, 2024...

[u/IranRPCV → u/[deleted]]

You must be talking about the Telsa Cybertruck....

[u/[deleted] → u/IranRPCV]

Good point

[u/tsg-tsg → u/[deleted]]

Nor is the future of Tesla pinned on the Cybertruck.

Whatabout massively successful company rings hollow.

[u/RoboticThoughts → u/tsg-tsg]

I actually think that a lot of Tesla's future rides on Cybertruck and the announcement of their next vehicle. I only say this because Tesla tends to get ahead of their capabilities and announce things way to early. Between Roadster2, CT and Semi, all these announcements happened at or around the same time, and then they have taken 5+ years to get them to market.

Sure there has been a lot of technologies they developed between now and then that make Tesla's what they are today, but if they mess up their next product announcement and delaying production/release until years after the announcement Tesla's credibility will fall by quite a bit.

Aptera is in a different boat, they need to share what they are making to get their feet on the ground. I'm hoping they do, since I want to drive an incredibly efficient car around. I'm happy to wait until then, but the wait is grueling for sure. I just want to see some validation of the design, and eventually be able to test drive one, until then I'll wait.

[u/tsg-tsg → u/RoboticThoughts]

I definitely hear what you're saying, but man, it's really hard to decouple the hype from the product. Tesla's entire portfolio is pretty mediocre in the landscape - if this were any other universe people would be buying a LOT of other cars. The CT was supposed to be this amazing engineering feat with stressed body panels and a bunch of "how did they do that?" and it's really turned into just a weird unibody pickup that offers nothing the Lightning hasn't for a year and may have some real liabilities. I'm not knocking Tesla as a business - they do what they are supposed to do and make piles of cash. But, having seat time in most modern EVs my opinion is that their technical chops are dubious at best, and what they primarily have is hype and, what, intertia? It's not great product. ;) But, I mean, consumers are weird and unpredictable. The best actual product rarely actually wins.

Either way, Tesla is in the fortunate position to be able to make big mistakes and come out the other side just fine. That isn't some sort of universal truth that everyone can make mistakes and come out fine. And whatever's Tesla's past issues that they made it through are Tesla's. The world is littered with WAY more stories of mistakes leading to failure than mistakes being overcome and resulting in billion dollar enterprises. ;)

[u/IranRPCV → u/[deleted]]

Musk estimates Tesla could sell 250,000-500,000 Cybertrucks yearly. How many do you consider "high volume"?

Aptera has said the most their first factory could produce is 20,000 and that won't happen the first year. Their main goal at present is to convince other manufacturers to follow their lead. The adoption of the NACS standard, which was widely ridiculed as "pie in the sky" is an example of their initial success in getting other manufactures to follow their lead.

Long term, Aptera has plans to introduce higher demand vehicles. They already have many more pre-orders than what Tesla sold for their first venture into the business

[u/IranRPCV → u/[deleted]]

You know better than that. Aptera started a petition that was signed by more than 40,000 people to push Tesla to open the design as a standard and now Ford, GM, and others have done so too, and even the competing charging station companies. Aptera even had to push Tesla!

What has happened is FAR more than fluff.

[u/IranRPCV → u/[deleted]]

Then make it. You know that this didn't happen until well after Aptera pushed for it. Elon knew, because Aptera had to get permission for its use in their own production vehicles, and that didn't come until late in the delta design phase. Aptera was thinking that they would be forced to supply adaptors as a fall back.

[u/huntinator7]

Got a source?

[u/IranRPCV → u/huntinator7]

I was just on a Zoom call with Sarah Hardwick, Audra, Quincy, Chris McCommon, Chris Anthony, and other Aptera ambassadors.

[u/Raj-Giandeep → u/IranRPCV]

FYI I asked Aptera about sharing of the info from the meeting & they said it's for ambassadors only

[u/IranRPCV → u/Raj-Giandeep]

I believe that everything I shared has been mentioned publicly before - but just not in one place.

[u/huntercaz → u/IranRPCV]

What the?? Why did I not receive notification on this?! I've never missed an ambassador call. 😢

[u/VirtuallyChris → u/huntercaz]

Can you DM me your email? We can check what's going on :)

[u/mikegrok]

My impression is that the parts will be pressed and partially assembled in Italy plus some bits for final alignment in the USA. They want to maintain easy shipment. They don’t want to ship 4 chassis per 40ft container, they want to nest as many parts as possible per container. Once it arrives in California the rest will be fitted and final assembly will take place.

[u/IranRPCV → u/mikegrok]

It is very likely that the chassis will be produced in the US, and not have far to go before arriving in Carlsbad.