Manufacturing plans

[curtis-cibinel]

The hatch just makes no sense. The opening shown is similar to the gamma and has no notched depression for the elongated hatch glass shown later. The transition at at roughly 1:50. Either the rear of the body needs to be different (which is supported by the parts shots shown related to CPC) or the hatch wont reach to the end of the car. I quite like the look of the hatch going to the end of the car but it may be far more prone to damage.

[Greek]

The longer hatch seems to match up better with what will be produced by C.P.C.

Then I tried counting the solar cells on both the hatches to see if they match up, I don’t believe they do.

At the end…I think APTERA doesn’t want us to see the complete picture until the Delta is revealed.

[Scott]

Unclear in that assembly process where the discussed exterior wraps will be manually installed onto the exterior body pieces. Perhaps wrapping would occur as additional (just currently un-labeled) steps at final station 13+. Or perhaps it implies that wrapping would be done on each individual piece prior to assembly. TBD.

[Greek]

Originally mentioned the completed APTERA will take 2 hours. Hand wrapping is not a quick process. Towards the end of the rendition, it showed the vehicles exiting facility towards a loaded truck. I would think they would have been driven off to a parking area.

[Pistonboy]

I find it interesting that fluid filling occurs at station 12, but the belly pan (which contains fluid) appears to be added at the following station (station 13). The belly pan is also mentioned at station 1.

I know, it is only cgi. But the build functions performed at each station has already been determined.

It is very futuristic that each station is controlled by equipment which is accessed by a hand print.

[Russell]

I’m surprised at how different it looks without the front and rear wheel covers. Very motorcycle-ish. Also looks like two of the 3 pics posted by Curtis show the front wheel drive versions. The rear wheel without the motor looks pretty light weight.

[JRWiley]

If I recall correctly, the solar panels are being manufactured at the rate of about 10 a day. Makes sense at this point because they don’t have any cars to put them on. How about when they are assembling 40-80 cars a day? Does anyone have any idea how they plan to spit out 4 panels per car times 80 cars per day, or 320 panels, from their solar panel assembly plant?

[wingsounds13gmail-com]

That 10 panels a day is for their pilot plant. They are building (or have built) a facility that will have a much higher production rate.

I would imagine that they will not bring the mass production on-line until it is needed, about the time that the vehicles go into mass production. Until that time I am sure that they will be doing all the production they can in the pilot plant, learning all of the pitfalls and tricks of production that they can to incorporate into the mass production.

[old-boot]

At 40 a day it will take Aptera over 2 1/2 years just to fill the pre-orders. Am I missing something? It seems like it will take a 100 a day to keep up with the demand.

Fair winds and Smooth sailing,

Lawrence Leonard

[Greek]

Lawrence, once the first shift is up and running with 40 a day production, a second shift will be added to add another 40 a day, 80 a day is what APTERA’s goal is for the factory in Carlsbad.

[Mike-Mars]

> “Am I missing something?”

Several things –

firstly, is the conversion factor. Typically only a fraction of people with pre-orders go on to actually order the vehicle (lets say 20%-40% is not unusual).

Secondly, is that a lot of these orders are outside the USA. Carlsbad will only be producing vehicles for NA, so you can discount those.

Thirdly, as Paul says, there will be secondary local factories in other regions – for example, an EU factory would be set up once the design has been modified to be legal within the EU. These secondary factories would most likely be funded via an IPO at the time that NA vehicles start to be delivered.

Fourthly, as John says, they’ll do a second shift once the first has ramped up.

[Qiang]

Not all the reservations will be converted to eventual sales. I think the conversation rates can trend lower with production delay and more lower cost EVs entering the market.

[BigSky]

I won’t beat the same drum here, but you do have a point. Putting the orders vs. reservations aside, I don’t think they will constrain themselves at 10 panels per day with a 40 vehicle per shift assembly plant. I know nothing about their intentions, but this is what I speculate based on my experience. I think they are using their pilot mold for production if they are running them now. There is a lot to unzip if that is the case. They did announce they are done with solar design. So why run your pilot/scale up equipment for production? Could be because it is cheaper to preproduce vs. invest high speed capital right now to reduce their fundraising hurdle. It could be a very long lead time for solar production equipment (ie. Longer than their 9 month projection) so they need a buffer, etc. So if they are in low volume production on a pilot scale, they must be adding a slow cash burn which would be a good sign for those worried if the company will make it to the market.

[Biker]

From the Republic investor site about three weeks ago:

Question:

I’d ask how much or what percentage of the tooling/equipment costs will go to CPC for molds and to other suppliers as a one time cost before bringing some operations in house? In that same vein, is production still planned at an agreed upon existing facility in Taiwan, is that a cooperative with shared costs, and is there an expected time frame for that? Trying to get an idea of repeatability cost for a second final assembly plant there and/or in Europe since much of the supply chain is EU based.

Chris Anthony Answer:

We think about a quarter of our CapEx for high volume production will go to our efforts with CPC. The rest goes to motors, batteries, solar, interior, and glass along with some other mechanical parts. We will do final assembly at our Carlsbad facility which is capable of 20,000 units per year. To duplicate this level of assembly in a new plant we feel it will cost about $60M for each additional plant. We plan to have 8 assembly plants open by 2028 around the world.

[ROMAD]

LE Pre-Order numbers 5,001 and above SoL?

The LE has everything that was on my original pre-order except the wrap (Sol), interior (Coast), and 2WD. I don’t have a problem with AWD so now the only differences are the wrap and interior which are minor and easily changed.

[OZ.]

CA’s answer was “about 5,000” “but if we get overwhelming support, we may expand that number.” leaving the door open for it to be an ever expanding number.

[Jeff]

It’s also possible that they would build fewer than 5,000 LE’s if there’s not enough demand.

[Biker]

@Dennis Swaney At about 9:00 in this video, Chris Anthony sorta addresses the LE build quantity:

Aptera CEO Chris Anthony Talks Launch Edition with DC Fast Charging – YouTube

[ROMAD]

I saw that video earlier today and it was pretty informative. I do have one question though: should we send Dark Chocolate flavored Rum, or Rum flavored Dark Chocolate to CA? 😆

[Biker]

A new video describing the manufacturing:

Aptera — Design to Production – YouTube

[john-malcom]

I think this is one of the best and most significant videos from Aptera to date relating to production. Thanks for posting this to the forum!

This video demonstrates (For those that are familiar with R&D and product production) that Aptera is no mom and pop shop WRT production control for cost containment, speed of operations, and defect minimization.

A significant advantage is that Aptera is starting from scratch with these systems and implementing them as a meta system. Other manufacturers trying to adapt this tech are trying to collage out of what they have currently and what they want. This includes keeping bad or reduncent data in the systems.

They have simulated the operation as a first step instead of putting it in production and debugging it as they go along.

And finally they used it to control the manufacture of their PV, operational verification testing.

The presenter is impressive. Articulate, knowledgeable, and good presentation skills.

Many on the forum (Even on this thread) miss the signifcance of this post. This is my area of technical expertise. Process implementation and improvement for R&D and production of mechanical products. I have been doing it for more that 50+ years. This is the best I have seen! I have just come from a consulting engagement with a vehicle manufacturer who is trying to make a transition. The Aptera implementation runs rings around them.

So for the haters and doubters on her, find somewhere else to criticise something you know nothing about.

[craig-merrow]

I think it’s no longer “if” but “when” Aptera finally starts production. They are making a lot of progress getting things lined up and sorted out. Starting from scratch and completely reimagining not only what transportation could/should be, but also the entire manufacturing process and design aspects is a big job, one that I think they are doing right, even if we don’t see the full picture of what’s going on behind the scenes right now.

As an aside, I once worked for a company that was so focused on the bottom line that they always built to a cost standard and struggled with quality issues, rather than build to a quality standard and look for cost savings. I remember when they launched a redesign of a product line; rather than building a few alpha/beta prototypes to sort out the manufacturing process, they launched it with almost no warning! We didn’t have fixtures or tooling, and most of the outsourced parts didn’t fit. That was a costly mess, and all because they didn’t want to spend the time and money on it.

[Biker]

Some of this was mentioned/shown on the investor webinar but Jason Hill made this post today:

“Steel makes it real.”

[Mike-Mars]

I’m guessing that this is one of the tool steel moulds for CPC? I’m not entirely sure which component it is for though. Could it be the rear-left fibreglass body casting?

• This reply was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by  Michael Marsden.

[Biker]

This was posted on Discord – looks like they are starting to buy/get/install production stuff (most of that was empty floor last month)

[john-young]

Which discord?

[jo_drei]

Discord group name: Aptera Owners’ Club. It’s from the same person how runs the Aptera Owner’s Club, YouTube Channel.

[Biker]

Further confirmation that the use of Vista facility may be winding down and solar production being moved to Carlsbad:

“Aptera solar manufacturing has a mixture of human labor and precision robotics to ensure the highest quality solar panels are being produced.”

[alain-chuzel]

Unfortunately, the “mixture of human labor and precision robotics” didn’t “ensure the highest quality solar panels” were “being produced” for Gamma and “filling shelves”. Hopefully, of course, things will be better for Delta and beyond!

[Biker]

Posted on the socials today:

“Special delivery! Can anyone guess what these are used for?”

[Uncle-Dirt]

Red Viking Automated guided vehicle number 5

[kerbe2705]

AGV unboxing

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wyhqxf9AfoE