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Sandy Munro and Aptera
updated 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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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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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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The point is Aptera is limited to traditional capital markets and their culture and rules at this point because “They” have the money, especially if Aptera’s intention is to do an IPO. None of the conditions you cite will change between now and an IPO for Aptera. That is one of the reasons they hired a CFO with IPO experience. The other point is crowd funding from small investors will not provide enough capital or provide it fast enough to support a smooth and expeditious move to production.
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