Shakeup at Aptera?

[jamesqf]

Selling 7000 or more per month is bad?

Toyota just builds a better car than Honda...

Well, that's debatable: you're maybe confusing popularity/name recognition with quality. See for instance the "The Crash that Caused..." thread in the lounge, about how Toyota's really, really stupid design decisions killed people.

But as you say, back to Aptera. I wish someone would do a kit. Start with a small FWD engine & drivetrain, build the body around it.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

The deposit for an Aptera was just $500, and at something under 4,000 of those collected, (total of less than $2M). They got $30M-40M of VC investment.

I very much hope that they can build some actual units of the production design, and start to "ship" them! This would quiet the critics, and calm the fans; to a great extent, I think.

[MetroMPG]

FYI: an article summarizing the situation at Aptera from the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Vista's electric carmaker forced to adjust - Business - SignOnSanDiego.com

[cfg83]

Hello -

Got this in my e-mail from Aptera. I think this is an engineer (in charge of manufacturing?), David Oakley. I didn't bother with Paul Wilbur's statement :

Aptera's Beach Body (evolution of the 2-series composite body)

When I came on board a year ago, it was clear that the approach to composites was useful to produce the initial concept vehicles, but was inadequate for producing a vehicle at any scale. The two primary fronts included product development and process development, both of which required a substantial commitment of resources and time.

Product Development: The initial body design had the vehicle split top to bottom with a joint, which extended the entire length of the vehicle. As you can imagine, this was a major issue from both a manufacturability and warranty perspective. The problems resulting from this construction included:

1. Manufacturability: The butt joint, the resin, and the material choices made the ability to match components a major issue and would have severely limited production and product quality. The vehicles that could be produced with this scheme would have had substantially higher costs to achieve an acceptable finish due to seam treatment being in direct view of customer sight lines.

2. Warranty: The butt joint was placed directly in an expected impact zone, which meant even low speed crashes would result in the integrity of the body being severely compromised. Butt joints are weak and difficult to control for body alignment. The safety of the vehicle in side impact collisions would be substantially less than a body with properly designed and placed joints.

Process Development:

1. Manufacturability: The initial materials and processes used were suitable for demonstrating the powerful application of composites in a one-off mode, but were not adequate for high quality, cost effective manufacturing.

2. FMVSS Compliance: These same materials would not have passed the FMVSS standards for flammability.

The interest, excitement, and anticipation of the vehicle has caused many to speculate and over simplify the need for our re-design efforts, which is very understandable given how revolutionary a vehicle like ours will be. However, we could not move forward with those kinds of serious, identifiable, and solvable issues.

We only get one first impression as we deliver the promise while caring for the safety and confidence of our customers.

New bodyThe re-design of the body enabled us to resolve these issues from a structural standpoint while enabling us to develop potentially compelling alternative finish methods. These finish methods will require less capital and have less impact on the environment. That means a less expensive and more earth friendly composite body! The process re-design is something that we have not discussed publicly, but it too took the same type of time commitment to get right using best practice tools like Six Sigma. Both of these efforts were imperative if Aptera was to stay true to the dream of lightweight, aerodynamic, and safe vehicles. Had we cut the corner, we would have killed the world's most efficient EV. Having taken the time and effort, we insured its ability to flourish.

-David Oakley

CarloSW2

[cfg83]

Hello -

Here is a follow-up article by Karen Pease that debunks the newsletter I got :

Inside Aptera’s Troubles: Part II : Gas 2.0

...
Concerning flammability: not only do vehicles like the 2e not have to pass the same FMVSS standards that cars do, but we were unable to find anyone who works with composites who felt that the difference in flash points between epoxy and vinyl ester would have any practical difference for such an electric three wheeler. Quite to the contrary, vinyl ester is approved for use in everything from internal combustion engine parts to helmets — areas where if the fire danger was significant, you would never expect approval. Polyester and vinyl ester have similar flash points, and polyester has long been the most common composite resin used in vehicle manufacture.

“Fire resistance of straight laminating resin is like any similar plastic. It will burn if you give it reason to - a strong heat/energy source,” said Adriaan Snyman, a composite boat builder. “Bottom line is that metal cars burn every day. Electric cars will too. Good electrical design and testing will reduce this risk hugely over time.”

While one can certainly disagree about the merits of vinyl ester versus epoxy (we found a wide variety of opinions on the topic in the field), our sources from Aptera were consistent on two things. One, even if one argued for using epoxy over vinyl ester — debatable, given the low price point and high production rate target of this vehicle — it certainly didn’t merit throwing away a nearly complete production process rather than making a later model revision. Aptera was a company that sorely needed to start moving products to earn greater publicity and investor confidence. And secondly, Paul was not an engineer; he should not have been making specific engineering decisions, let alone ones so fundamental as which resin to use.
...
The 2e newsletter didn’t stop at claims about the resin: they also discussed how the vehicle was put together. They noted that the design of the vehicle as primarily two shell components, one top and one bottom, posed various quality and warranty problems. What they didn’t mention, and what my sources inform me, is that Chris Anthony, former head of Aptera’s composites operations, had already begun this transition before Paul’s team came onboard. The two-part shell was only done for prototyping, not production, as it was easier to produce. All of my sources who read the newsletter and commented on the issue were in agreement that this was Paul’s team taking credit for Chris’s ideas.
...

CarloSW2