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– Visiting Aptera – Factory Tour
We’re going to be in Escondido next week and I want to visit Aptera HQ and see my future Aptera!
I’ve reached out on IG and email but not one peep back.
Has anyone else just “popped-in” and said hello?
Suggestions/Advice?Thanks
- 23 Replies
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– Visiting Aptera – Factory Tour
updated 4 months, 2 weeks ago 14 Members · 23 Replies -
Aptera has at least 4 different sites in San Diego county.
1. Sorrento Valley was the original HQ
2. Carlsbad assembly building3. Carlsbad Engineering building
4. ????? Battery Manufacturing building
I advise against a cold call drop in visit, but you do as you deem appropriate.
From what I know Carlsbad is the most likely location for some or all the 5 prototypes. -
…. Ah great answer- that’s exactly what I was actually wanting to know (where we could see the vehicle).
👍 Thanks Bruce
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I have stopped by the Aptera facilities for purposes of investment due diligence. I’ve felt that the investors who are putting up the funds for the business get less access to information than the brand ambassadors, so I’ve tried to fill in the gaps myself. The Aptera team has been very gracious and I haven’t stopped by without emailing Aptera at least a week ahead of time. The ability to get a response to such an email has improved.
The Sorrento Valley location should now be vacated based upon discussion during my prior visit there. I suspect the location was simply too small to provide for the needed R&D.
The Fully Charged Live event and events such as these, the Issuance Stonks webinar and others are probably your best bet to get questions answered.
I suspect Aptera wants to avoid visitors as they don’t advertise the locations, but they’ve not told me this specifically. I’ve limited my visit time to 10 – 15 minutes as I don’t want to be a distraction.
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Jonathan, would you mind sharing your impressions and observations with us?
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I was suitably impressed. When I first stopped by in the middle of 2021, I had emailed, but received no response. As I was in the area already and had figured out the unadvertised Sorrento Valley address based upon Aptera test drive videos, I took a look to find it, did so and parked out front. As I didn’t have an appointment, I considered leaving, but ultimately curiosity got the better of me and I decided to knock on the door.
The receptionist put in a call since I had ‘investor questions’ and to my surprise Steve Fambro came out to help answer them, though I didn’t have anything substantive to ask as talking to Steve wasn’t part of the plan. More so, I wanted to assure myself that investor money was being spent wisely and meaningful progress was being made. Steve passed me to one of the engineers to show me around.
The Sorrento Valley facility was small and it didn’t take long to see the place. For my unannounced “audit” of a visit, there was a good bit going on. Two engineers were actively working on one of the Alphas and when we approached they were head/shoulders deep into the work. They explained some of what they were working on. I saw a number of prototype parts, testing rigs and fixtures while I was there. I’m sparing detail in case anything I saw was proprietary. Prior to leaving, I was able to have a seat inside the Alpha Noir vehicle which I found to be rather comfortable and to my liking. The vehicle was inside near the front door and getting a test ride would likely have been quite inconvenient, so I didn’t ask.
I stopped by the Sorrento Valley facility this past summer 2022 and Anuj (solar, see most recent Aptera video on solar panel production) was kind enough to give me a quick tour before he got on a call he was waiting for. I was able to see in-person what can be seen in Aptera, AOC, or other videos on YouTube. Things were more in disarray as they had clearly begun the process of moving out of that facility.
I don’t have much to note about the Carlsbad assembly location. I have seen it in person, but when I stopped by it smelled largely of paint from the outside and looked like contractors were getting work done on the building. I didn’t see any Aptera employees and didn’t go inside. I don’t know where the other Aptera locations in Carlsbad are.
All was in keeping with my expectations. My goal in visiting was to reduce any possibility in my mind that Aptera is not what they purport to be. This goal was met. As far as whether they will be a breakout success, I don’t know, but it won’t be for lack of trying.
I was still interested in Carlsbad and prior to FCL, I emailed and actually did get a response this time and was told ‘no tours, sorry’, so haven’t really seen anything there and haven’t been back. I know brand ambassadors got the tour, but I didn’t sign up to be one of those. FCL was actually very helpful, possibly more so than the webinars or a facility visit/tour since Chris Anthony and other Aptera team members were there and ready to answer any sort of question and discuss.
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Thanks so much for your generous response. Always helpful to hear from an “outsider” with first hand objective observations and impressions. I appreciate it.
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This is a correction & confirmation. I just did a recon trip to Sorrento Valley & I can confirm that JJ was correct that Aptera has vacated the Sorrento Valley location. I had posted based on past knowledge & had not been by Sorrento Valley location in a number of months.
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Very informative video, seems mpge is up by quite a bit, rear hatch makes up 1/2 of the vehicle’s solar charging as well as a lot of info about solar cell manufacturing and qc.
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Great content. Really cool to see a great breakdown and some good progress. Amazing content on his channel for such a small sub base.
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I think it’s smart to have the age group of presenters Aptera chose for this video. Great enthusiasm coming out of the two.
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Agreed! I think the young engineers and other staff are the secret sauce for Aptera success. Little to no guile, enthusiastic about Aptera’s mission, and refreshingly honest. Bodes well for our future that we keep creating these kind of young people.
When do we grow out of that?????
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My wife and I visited the factory in May. We were hosted by Audra, but also spent some time with Chris and Quincy. My wife, who is “Aptera tolerant” (i.e. not a raving fan) was very inspired by the smarts, enthusiasm, and commitment of these young people. We left feeling very grateful and encouraged that the planet is in good upcoming hands.
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It seems others (with seemingly very few followers) were offered tours as well:
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I wish that all leaderboard investors automatically got a factory tour, but it is only for $25K and above. Guess I will have to cough up a few more dollars. I wish I could trade that fugly jacket for one. I hope Chris or Steve or anyone else important didn’t design it. I just don’t get it.
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The Q&A section of the tour:
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The last part of the tour:
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I believe the Beta tested in this video was produced prior to the Elaphe motors being tweaked for efficiency. The acceleration of those motors to 60mph was 3.5 sec. as compared to the newer more efficient version getting to 60 in 4 sec. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I would love to see a video of a test drive of the Launch Mode acceleration in the Gamma.
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None of the current prototypes have the new Elaphe motors installed, and I don’t believe we ever got official 0-60 times with current prototypes (which would be somewhat meaningless anyway). The 0-60 on the PI and LE builds won’t be confirmed till next spring at the earliest.
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Tailosive tour of the factory:
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Summary, empty. Scary empty. Notice what was missing? People. Traffic was steady outside the facility so its not an off hour of the day. There was no one in the background anywhere inside the facility.
The assembly area was barren, just some blue tape with no indication of preparatory work. only the renders and it doesn’t even look like it fits. No Red Viking AGV even on pallets were seen. The shelving is all empty, the whole place is mostly empty. It gives no impression of staging to build out the first PI vehicles. You would think they would be happy to show off where they would be worked on.
Solar was again disappointing. We have to remember that back in October 2022 they stated in video that Solar was in production and we still have nothing to show for it but one working set on Gamma and few odd pieces here and there. Did they make anything back then? Why not show off pieces intent for the upcoming Production Intent builds?
Hell why not show off anything for working on the Production Intent builds, from work spaces to even some early arrived components?
It was all set up for a nice tour of students and such to walk along and see all the sample pieces and renders but nothing said, we are getting ready for actual work,.
- This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by
Chris Ho.
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Aptera has less than 50 employees some of whom telework so they wouldn’t be in office, or they could be upstairs in the office area of the building.
There’s no reason for the assembly area to be full of people when there’s nothing to assemble. There’s no reason to spend money programing the AGVs to run around doing nothing. No reason to spend money on parts and tools when they can’t be used for weeks.
There’s no reason to produce a bunch of solar panels when there are no vehicles on which to install them.
Don’t expect anything substantial on the factory floor until the PI bodies show up from Italy.
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> Don’t expect anything substantial on the factory floor until the PI bodies show up from Italy.
I doubt that they’ll need to set up the factory floor to assemble the PI bodies (although later in the process they’ll probably do a production line walkthrough). From what I understand the PIs will be a mostly manual process. My guess is mid-2024 when we’ll see the production line start to look ready, and that’s only if they get full production funding soon. It would be counterproductive to be spending capital or manhours too early on stuff which won’t be needed until later.
- This reply was modified 4 months, 2 weeks ago by
Michael Marsden.
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Great video.
Drop test on the glass was impressive. That should be in one of their feature videos when they update the solar bit
Larger packs with the longer cells have higher energy because of the longer ‘jelly roll’, which isn’t directly proportional to the outer case length for the 2190 and 21120, just as I’ve suggested previously.
The VR demo was cool, but it would’ve been nice if the video feed was recorded directly
It looks like the factory animation was updated. Would be nice if that gets released.
Looking forward to the upcoming AOC test drive, but sounds like it’s at least a month away.
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