CMO Sarah Hardwick gives a progress report on Aptera’s solar electric vehicle development.
We just wrapped up our first Solar Mobility Tour where we spent time road-tripping to colleges and universities along the California Coast to introduce Aptera to college students, meet with eager reservation holders, find passionate innovators to join our growing team, and give more people the opportunity to experience Aptera first-hand.
If you didn’t get the chance to join us this time around, don’t worry! We’ll be back on the road again soon. In fact, Aptera will be at the Electrify Expo in Long Beach, CA from June 3-5th. Come experience Aptera like you never have before and be sure to check our new events page to find where you can see Aptera in the coming months.
While we’ve been away, the rest of the team has been getting situated in our production facility and are preparing to begin ramping production later this year.
Even Sandy Munro stopped by our final assembly location to check in on our progress!
Because of our team’s collective effort, we are excited to announce that we have finalized several “supply agreements” over the past month.
First, we’re excited to announce that Aptera will source distributed drive platform technologies from Elaphe. Elaphe is a technology leader for in-wheel powertrains, and this agreement includes a detailed plan to scale production to high series in Slovenia and then extend production to the US.
Next, we’re thrilled to announce a supply agreement and collaborative partnership with industry leader, Yazaki (YNA). They will serve as an engineering service supplier and line prototype and production part supplier. Within this agreement, Yazaki will supply specific production parts for Aptera’s LV & HV EE Electrical harness, including wiring, connectivity, charge ports, and other utilities.
Finally, we’re ushering in a new era of automotive assembly, announcing a supply agreement with RedViking for all AGVs (automated guided vehicles) for Aptera’s final vehicle assembly. This supply agreement represents significant forward momentum as we rapidly scale to the final production stage. We are reinventing transportation– going where no other automaker has gone before. Likewise, RedViking is innovating beyond the status quo, leading in Manufacturing 4.0. We are proud to partner with a like-minded company as we push past what others deem impossible.
In case you missed the announcement, our battery team has also hit a major milestone and we couldn’t be prouder. They finished the production-intent battery design for the first vehicles that will be coming off Aptera’s manufacturing line. These will have 41-kilowatt hours of usable energy, a 400-mile range, and 6 battery modules, linked together with our patent-pending busbar design. Check out our Battery Update video on YouTube for more information.
We’ve also further refined Aptera’s shape to increase aerodynamics and reduce drag. All of these ultra-aerodynamic updates mean we’re one step closer to a production-intent vehicle design. In fact, a reveal of our Gamma vehicle will be coming soon, so keep a close eye out!
With all of the progress we’re making in design and engineering as well as supply chain development, we thought it was about time for us to sit down and catch up with all of our future Aptera owners. We’ll be hosting a live webinar in early June. We hope to see you there!
I think that’s it for now! There will be lots more coming soon when we show you the first look at Gamma and Aptera’s interior details come to life. As always, thanks for being a part of our movement.