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Sandy Munro speaks
While it is common knowledge that Sandy Munro, who has become an icon in the EV industry world-wide, is an ‘investor’ in Aptera he’s been very reserved in talking about Aptera. I assume that is because of the NDA’s he has as part of his consulting contract with Aptera.
And he did have that first sit down with Chris where they went through the concept of the vehicle. I recall, for instance, his observation of the crashworthiness of Aptera in that quarter-front barrier impact test. But I’ve not hardly heard a peek, only a few video snippets of him in the production facility.
I did the notice he’s going to be at the show on the 10th. I also noted Arcimoto, whom he also provides significant consulting and promotion – he has been present at some big Arcimoto events providing his respected opinions on the vehicles.
I’m just wondering if he’s going to speak about Aptera in some official “Aptera” capacity or is he here because of Arcimoto or a specific invitation from the show itself. I suspect it may be the latter, that the folks from the show who also list Corey Stuben as a panelist in one of the presentations.
Also, are the events going to be livestreamed? I suspect we’ll get some reports from folks ranging from the Aptera Owners Club, Munro Live, Transportation Evolved and Drive the Lightening as well as others.
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30 Replies
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Sandy Munro speaks
updated 1 week, 2 days ago 20 Members · 30 Replies
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Thank’s for the poster Len. I looked at the program but the images as they displayed on my refurb 17-inch chromebook were pretty hard to make out as the type was extra small on the small screen and there was some kind of zoom max that was far below what I do on a real PC.
Chris, the show’s host and Monro are unveiling the Aptera. That’s cool. I would have thought that deserved a topic of its own instead of a few casual mentions, almost in passing.
What is happening in personal transportation is a revolution that changes how and where we get our energy. With much of this new energy coming from the sun – all we have to do is capture it – this effort challenges the powers that be in the legacy energy industry. This is a conflict and the new energy folks have a trump card – adopt solar, wind with storage because the alternative is we sink, for starters, Miami and Manhattan. The challenge is we have to do this quickly or it doesn’t make any difference.
These guys are key influencer’s in this space – especially Monro … and this is on top of his value as a consultant on lean manufacturing.
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Perhaps influencers in the retail space, not so much where it is needed right now and that is the capital acquisition space. Sandy has been publicly associated with Aptera for sometime but Aptera is still struggling to get capital to go to production.
Still, once in a startup’ s lifetime for their 10 minutes of fame. Lets hope it is enough to jumpstart the flow of investment. Hopefully gamma is sufficiently finished to make a good impression. At least we know it is the Sol.
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I don’t know, Monro was there with the profitable low volume Dodge Viper project; he was involved with GM’s EV-1, his company has reverse engineered and production priced more EVs down to the cost of welds than anyone else in the world.
As I understand it, he has been crowned the living successor of Demming’s ideas of simplified; or as Monro and Associates say, lean manufacturing.
The point is that if you are a smart investor, the reputation a company gets in the market is going to be based on your research which, for a smart investor, includes more than the numbers.
Because of Monro’s contribution to Aptera, which was to sort out and design the assembly procedure and rationalize production costs, largely by a professional ethic that emphasizes minimizing the number of parts and therefore the cost of operations.
From my perspective, if Monro waxes on about how simple the assembly is and how few man-hours are involved means the assembly is really inexpensive despite use of premium materials like the composites. Indeed, the assembly process, with its component-orientation and construction method is just about as revolutionary as the efficiency-orientation of the Aptera.
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This tells us that it’s not the design buck they’ve been using for the recent Gamma videos and photos – which is obviously a Luna with Codex interior.
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If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Munro & Associates, look them up!
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Go Sandy. Go Aptera. This kind of support we can always use more of.
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Sandy’s been a feature on a few other car sites I look at for the latest gossip on cars. I know he knows his stuff, but I would have liked to hear more about what he’s doing within Aptera to influence design and manufacture.
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The more teaser shots of delta that we have gotten to see, the more self evident it has become to me that Sandy has had a great deal of influence on the design and fabrication plan of the Aptera. The latter they have been touting for some time so nothing new there.
More recently it seems that the switch to the carbon fiber composite body was, if not his idea, then at least heavily sponsored by him.
In his recent video from Canoo’s manufacturing facility, I picked up on Sandy’s opinion that body-on-frame construction is superior in several important respects to the unibody construction favored by big auto for the last several decades. Shortly there after we get CAD renderings showing delta’s body-on-frame construction. My impression is that was not the original plan.
And what does that new frame appear to be made up of? Why, a handful of more-or-less complex (aluminum?) castings. Sandy has been unsparing in his praise of Tesla’s mega castings replacing welded sheet metal assemblies. Coincidence? I think not.
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Good observation I think!
The delta version of Aptera is a long way from the orginal concept instantiated in the alpha and a marked improvement in engineering for manufacturing and unit cost in time and dollars for large scale production. My grandfather who follows Aptera and a vehicle engineer for decades has great things to say about the tranformation.
Whether from Sandy and/or a combination of influences I don’t know, but the result is excellent. Kudos to Aptera leadeship for maintaining the original ethos while taking a giant step in comercialization
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Sandy’s review of the Launch Edition:
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Hmm. What stood out to me was Sandy saying the yoke was his favorite type of steering. Maybe a little bit more influence that he had on the design.
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What Sarah needs to get Sandy to talk about is the process of manufacture, which closely follows the lean-manufacturing approach his outfit is known for.
He could talk a bit about right to repair and what that means for those inventors and innovators who may create accessories. He could then hint that smaller companies that might want to develop after-market products ought to jump on the bandwagon now by having one or two of their principles or executives make the $10,500 investment in the accelerator program as he can’t think of a better way to get an early model.
He might even talk about how this differs from the Telsa model of vertical integration and indeed provides the community model of vehicle development that centers on the first principles of efficiency and seeks input and is encouraging of improvement from all quarters.
He could say that Aptera’s focus on weight savings means that the savings they made can be spent by the owners/drivers who may choose spend some of that efficiency making it go faster.
Other companies like Roush – this in their racing division – may opt for five or ten of the LE editions in order to create a hyper-performance version with adaptive suspension and redesigned Elaphe motors – I think the original M700 motor packs a punch at 75kw while the Aptera spec’d motors come in at 43kw a piece.
The idea is that electric mobility is a such a big deal that retailers like Amazon with Rivian and Canoo with Walmart have forged alliances with major retailers. Could other retailers be interested in Solar Electric Vehicles be far behind. Corporate executives could easily organize among themselves to obtain two, four, five, ten ‘evaluation’ vehicles ‘on the sly.’
And the industries interested may extend beyond retail to financial industries.
Then there are those of who have been considering getting an early version Aptera to rent weekend ‘test drives’ in what, 100 cities in the US on Turo. What about the other 55 countries that Turo offers their peer-to-peer rental program?
Then ask yourself how many traditional car dealerships are there?
Just viewed a youtube video that featured something like 1, 000 VW Vanagons that this guy’s father – a car dealer – started collecting in the early 1990s when the Vanagon was disco’d. – a lot of car dealers are collectors.
Now we get to the dedicated environmentalists and, Monro, would say, I think Aptera did them a favor considering that if just about anyone else had built this, it would look like it was designed by a committee of old men.
That is not Aptera.
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As usual, I found Munro’s unwavering support to be very reassuring.
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Sandy Monro at Electrify Expo has some words about Aptera, around 5:25 till the end of this he speaks about Aptera, and boldly predicts a production date.
Sandy Munro Interview at Electrify Expo – YouTube
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This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by Christopher Barrett. Reason: Leaving the right time on the clip
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This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by Gabriel Kemeny.
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This reply was modified 2 weeks, 1 day ago by
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THANKS! This is encouraging NEWS!
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That was interesting, there was no hesitation in Sandy’s response. Asked and answered desd flat, no maybe, no sort-of, no around or about. I hope he’s right. I also noticed that when he was talking about Aptera he said “we”, not “they”. He considers himself to be part of Aptrra, not just a consultant.
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Just found this video where the host saw an add that Fully Charged is coming to San Diego at the end of August 2023. His correlation was that last time they were here was to cover Gamma reveal. There is some logic behind this…Reddit
Sandy Maybe Right About September , Here's Why ! Free Power
by u/IranRPCV in ApteraMotors-
I wonder where he got the info that a Delta has already been built?
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Definitely agree on your perception. It is well known aside from being highly vested into APTERA, he seems to have huge affection towards APTERA. As an Ambassador I always find myself saying we to others when I am introducing APTERA to perspective investors or reservation holders. As much as I follow and respect Sandy Munro, not everything he touches turns to gold. It is very easy to show enthusiasm for something you support but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee success. I will say though Mr Munro does get me jacked up. He does seem to release information that may be ahead of what APTERA wants to offer.
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Munro: “2,000 a month beginning in September”. That doesn’t fit, not even close, to anything Aptera has told us. I’m very confused.
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Perhaps that is the START of the FIRST 2000 for the “Accelerator” investors.
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I agree, the way I Interpret it aptera will build the first 2,000 and by that point should be at 20,000 per year and continue to ramp after that.
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Agreed! Either wishful thinking assessed against all other released information by Aptera representatives to include the CO-CEOs, or perhaps meant to mislead to support confidence in potential investors for early returns on their late investments. Too much to do from end of May to September (Four months) to have a production Delta for certification and safety testing, complete that testing, equip, train, and spin up a production line to say nothing about business operations to support sales and delivery. (Warranty service, financing, customer care, etc.)
I guess stirring the rumor/specuation pot. A favorite pastime in Aptera social media.
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John-Malcom. I’m usually a bit more pessimistic/skeptical than you are, but in this case maybe not. The test mules need to be built with production parts, as I understand it, but could be hand made. Non-structral parts (ie: decoratives) might even be represented by 3D-printed mockups. For Aptera, the long-lead production parts may be happening behind the screen, in Europe, or China, or elsewhere-then-SoCal. A dozen builds for crashing and such? Might be “possible” to start in September. “Wishful thinking”, sure, but not as impossible as with a traditional car with a traditional factory.
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John-Trotter. I am surprised at your statement. I thought I was as far to the right of the “Skeptical” distribution that anyone could be!! But it looks like you’re slipping and will cede that spot back to me. I see you moving to the light.😉
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This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by John Malcom.
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This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by
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I do believe the September time line may correspond with APTERA doing their testing for the vehicle. Nothing can be available for delivery until their test mules are delivered and the vehicle is put through all that is needed to complete their testing, especially safety of the vehicle which will be paramount in convincing the public that 3 wheels can be as safe as four.
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Crash Test Dummies in Deltas on YouTube. Coming this fall.
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Delta in September is plausible (hand-assembled vehicles), however I can’t imagine LE vehicles arriving this year. There is still too much needed on the production line IMO.
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even when production line is up and running, Deltas will still be hand built. Parts are assembled by hand, doing so without production line is possible just less efficient. If they have the production parts available, assembly of several vehicles should not be difficult .
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