[henry-kitt]

I suspect that the market will be in recovery soon, hopefully, and that Aptera can have an IPO around October or later at an over $2 billion valuation that the CFO is aiming for.

[henry-kitt]

Previous price was $8.80/share.

Aptera will run multiple micro factories. Producing 10k vehicles from each one isn’t horrible, but they need capital to set up 10+ micro factories around the world.

The demand will be there because it’s the ONLY EV that counters all of the downsides of owning an EV and is way faster than most sports cars. But I’m also referring to the upcoming 4 wheel vehicles.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Henry Kitt.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[henry-kitt]

Aptera has plenty of money to make it into production, but it does not have enough money to boost production numbers to the levels that Rivian is looking to have, and they don’t have enough to fully establish their 4 wheel vehicles or to spend capital on marketing at the level of Lucid.

With all of the preorders Aptera is realizing that setting a goal of 10k units a year is a joke, and that they need to get to 100k vehicles asap. Aptera making it to production at all, however, is not a concern whatsoever for me. It’s only that their production guidance will have an effect on their market value. The higher their market cap and funding raised the faster they can expand.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Henry Kitt.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[henry-kitt]

Let’s go with the Aptera EAGLE

Aptera means wingless flight, their vehicles are all about wind resistance, everyone thinks it resembles a plane, and the bald eagle is the national animal of the US and it’s a US based company. The Noir especially looks like an Eagle, or a crow actually but that’s not a cool name.

Aptera intends to make other vehicles and they should have cool names, and starting with Eagle can create a theme. Their successive cars can be the Aptera Hawk, Aptera Pelican, Aptera Albatross, and the Aptera Stork delivery vehicle.

Maybe I can convince Aptera of doing this… with your help.

[henry-kitt]

Would everyone here be comfortable if their Aptera came with a 10 year vinyl wrap warranty, basically ensuring a free re-wrap for everybody who buys an Aptera?

That way you save money, can change the color for free which incentivizes their wrap over paint, and Aptera gets the chance to upsell you on something extra. That seems the only viable way to sell these cars with wraps, to have a shared contribution down the line instead of their customers having to shoulder the entire weight of all wrap replacements throughout a 20+ year ownership.

Most people get rid of their cars in less than 10 years, some in less than 5 years, but for those Aptera for life people we need that warranty.

Otherwise Aptera needs to change tactics and clear coat the pigmented composite, which is likely the most cost effective option for both them and us.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Henry Kitt.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by  Henry Kitt.

[henry-kitt]

Aptera can be considered a supercar in that regard. In general its 0-60 is better than most supercars of the past, and faster than most present ones if it really is under 3 seconds.

The cheapest car that beats the Aptera is probably the Corvette C8, which will by going up in price they’ve said but is already 2x the price of an Aptera.

The butterfly doors also lend to the supercar feel. 0-60 is what matters, or is cool, in real everyday driving, not top speed.

[henry-kitt]

To put it simply, the reactions are VERY strong, moreso than with any car ever. Alot of people still have no interest in buying one because of the 2 seats (which will be fixed with the next vehicle) and because of safety concerns (they don’t trust that’s its one of the safest vehicles there is), but everyone thinks it’s cool for sure.

[henry-kitt]

Aptera raised $20 million in the previous funding round, which was $10 million more than their goal. This round hasn’t finished but they intend to raise $30 million. Given that they raised $20 million in only one week last time, mostly through individual investors, they are very likely close to ending this round as well, having met their goal again.

[henry-kitt]

I keep having this feeling that today would be the perfect day to unveil the Luna. Then finish up most of the beta vehicles by the end of October, do proper testing and tweaking, and have a production intent vehicle by the end of December 2021. I think they can roll out at least 200 vehicles by end of June 2022. End of December 2022 numbers? Who knows, but for 2023 they may hit the 10,000 deliveries target for that year, which would mean all deliveries would be fulfilled for current US orders. International is a bigger question mark.

But I think the demand will be high enough to where if they can produce 50k+ of these a year and 100k+ of the 4 wheel version a year, they should.

[henry-kitt]

Yeah, what I think the goal is now is to have a “production intent” vehicle by the end of the year, so the only thing that I think may be possible at this point is to have fully completed 1 delta vehicle, and use that as a basis for scaling in 2022.

Though in that scenario the delta vehicle would need to be almost identical to the beta vehicles, outside of some cosmetic touches.

Fully outfitting a new production facility will take awhile so first deliveries in January 2022 is probably far fetched.

[henry-kitt]

I was told that their beta vehicles won’t look as visually pleasing as the alpha prototypes, so they don’t care so much about unveiling those. Probably gamma will be the next pretty ones, unless something changed.

[henry-kitt]

I haven’t talked to a single person who had already heard of Aptera before I mentioned it. With Lucid Motors they’ve already spent a lot of money on advertising their inferior product, more people know about it because of that.

If Aptera goes public in 2023, the media coverage will be strong because a production vehicle will have been turning heads for over a year at that point, so it should IPO at over $5 billion valuation and not get overlooked by people who don’t know a thing about the company. Investors get excited when a company that’s a household name is about to go public, after the hype is already built. If you go public first and then build the hype that’s psychologically more boring to investors and the market cap would have to start out lower to garner interest.

[henry-kitt]

The solar over the rear glass looks much better. That is a huge piece of glass that looks a bit weird with nothing on it. Visibility should be better with cameras, it’s a more direct view behind the car. With mirrors your view is from a further distance, plus with a wide angle lens you get a broad unobstructed viewing angle. Add on to that the 2 side view cameras. Then the increased privacy and additional miles a day of charge. Full solar please!

[henry-kitt]

Thanks for taking the time out to do this, can be useful for silencing the critics. Actually every time I drive somewhere now I look at wide vehicles and see how easy it is for them to keep their lane. I also imagine what would happen if I’m going around something in the road while having a middle rear tire. Should be easy on both accounts, especially with safety pilot, which should stay in the lane better than a Tesla which likes to sway back and forth. Aptera says because of torque vectoring it won’t sway within lanes.

[henry-kitt]

Yes, I definitely want for the alpha Luna to have the full solar package, and I want them to leave it parked outside and run tests on its solar efficiency daily. I think, though, that they’ve basically completed their solar engineering for this iteration and just want to see which of their 3 or so resin options provides the best mix of efficiency and durability/protection.