More on the trouble at Aptera, cash may be running out
Aptera 2e final design rendering - Click above to enlarge
While Aptera has yet to respond to our request for a comment about about the reported turmoil there, Darryl Siry has apparently been able to talk to some people close to the situation. Reporting in Wired, Siry confirms that founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony are out, along with a number of other staffers.
In many respects, what is happening at Aptera parallels the situation at Tesla in late 2007 when an idealistic founder butted up against the realities of actually delivering a product to paying customers. When auto industry veterans like Paul Wilbur were brought in to help bring the 2e to fruition, they realized that the constraints put on the vehicle by the original designers would make it much more difficult to sell beyond the cadre of early adopters. The design changes that were pushed through delayed production by over a year and, with it, any revenues from sales.
At the same time all of this was happening, the ability to raise further cash from the capital markets had evaporated and, while new legislation passed last month makes companies like Aptera eligible for ATVM loans, that money has yet to be approved or disbursed. As we all know by now, regardless of what the energy source is, the auto industry runs on cubic miles of cash.
Gallery: Aptera
[Source: Wired]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
harlanx6 11:12AM (11/16/2009)
It is still a very cool car.
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T-Rex 11:26AM (11/16/2009)
This 'necessary changes' stuff is such total bullsh*t. They had 4000 pre-orders! Make 4000 of the existing variant, and sell them! 4000 units in the field means revenues, extended use customer feedback, visibility.... who the hell cares that the windows don't wind down??? Because the early adopters sure as hell won't, they know what they're buying and I doubt windy windows are on their list of key purchase criteria.
The modifications can be made in the second release, and Paul Wilbur can have all the windy windows he wants, as can the mass market. In the meantime a revolutionary vehicle could have made it to production.
Instead, it's being delayed by certain individuals who would rather spend the companies existing capital on their own salaries than risk it trying to meet the companies actual goals.
The only possible justification for delaying the release is if the car was flat out unsafe. Frankly I think Wilbur is either incompetent or completely self interested and is killing (or has killed) the company.
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jim 8:21AM (11/17/2009)
Yeah, sell 4000 cars at the price point of Ferrari and you have a viable business. Sell 4000 at the price point of an Accord and you...are headed for bankruptcy.
Mark 11:24AM (11/16/2009)
Why they didn't roll out the Type 1, then come back for the 2e based on the revenue of that first series is baffling.
Wilbur seemed dead set on making a "real world car" when he had 3,000 people already lined up to buy the car -- limitations in place -- with very real dollars. In other words, Wilbur's insistence that this car be closer to what's in every other car has kept a visionary vehicle out of the hands of consumers, and make break the company.
That's not a pragmatic approach -- that's an approach that says the founders and the people who have ponied up money to buy the founder's visions should be ignored.
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meme 12:43PM (11/16/2009)
Exactly. If you have people who want to buy it, you *sell it to them*, and then make the *next* generation more mainstream. Then you're a company with actual sales, which makes fundraising easier. You don't wait a year, year and a half just to add a couple inches to the door and ruin the door/windows' structural strength just to get a fully roll-down window instead of a split. You don't delay to try to make the car more your average Detroit car. People turn to companies like this because Detroit doesn't make what they want to buy!
Buzz 11:29AM (11/16/2009)
" When auto industry veterans like Paul Wilbur were brought in to help bring the 2e to fruition, they realized that the constraints put on the vehicle by the original designers would make it much more difficult to sell beyond the cadre of early adopters."
What constraints? As near as I can tell, the original designers were going to offer a vehicle that had everything the 4000+ early adopters wanted. That's cash flow.
It seems Wilbur and the Detroit crowd have wasted a year to add Big Gulp cup holders and fully-roll down windows (as opposed to a split window) and increasing drag and vehicle weight.
Seems like Wilbur & co have thrown the founders AND 4000 early adopters into one ditch while driving Aptera into another.
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Dan Frederiksen 4:25PM (11/17/2009)
well put. I also object to the wording 'they realized'. instead it should be 'some erroneously concluded'. I also object to the articles premise that the autoindustry must be expensive. In the case of Tesla, Musk made it expensive when Eberhard wanted to keep it simple. it turned out Musk should have listened to Eberhard. same here, douche man Wilbur insists on spending huge money at great delays only to fuck it up completely, a vehicle people would have loved as it were. so you have to open the door a bit at mickiD and toll booths. big deal. it's a good excuse for when the coppers pull you over : ) sure you'll get shot when you open the door but that's part of the experience :) either way it is certainly not worth 24$m, a year's delay, loss of a year's sales, production experience and good will and possibly destroying the company in the process. when it could have been introduced as second gen if it was a must. people liked the vehicle for its extreme nature, not for how it could be made to look and operate like cars of the past.
satan keeps obama too busy to follow the details but if I were Obama I'd tell Aptera to go fuck themselves until Wilbur is hung from a yard arm and Fambro reinstated. unless what actually happened is not what it appears to be.
It turned out that Eberhard was right and Musk wrong and I think it will turn out that Fambro was right too but in this case Wilbur doesn't have 2bn dollars of his own money with which to smooth over his whopper mistakes.
Oh4Sh0 12:11PM (11/16/2009)
Yes, sell your 4,000 copies, and whenever persons report that their Aptera 2e sucks because it doesn't have windows that open or an ass that they can see out of.. When they write appalling reviews of said practicality which then causes Aptera's mass-market plans fail because the car is undesirable, and then the company sifts into bankruptcy because they've built all of these cars that nobody is buying your responses will be that they've made a smart decision selling those 4k copies to generate a few measly dollars in the short term?
Brand image is very hard to overcome, as evidenced throughout the years by both foreign and domestic competitors.
If they can come up with a design that offers distinct styling, performance, and functionality then it seems far more worthwhile to sell 100,000+ copies of that versus 4,000 cadillac cimarrons which makes people laugh at your logo for years to come.
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why not the LS2LS7? 12:18PM (11/16/2009)
People who paid $500 aren't going to convert to buyers at any appreciable rate. They put that down mostly sight unseen. And when you see and drive the car, you often change your mind, even with a car where you largely know what you are getting. And this isn't one of those.
Heck they'd lose half the people just because the buyers don't have any way to charge it at home and no way to install it either.
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meme 1:48PM (11/16/2009)
The people who've gotten to see and ride in this car have turned into its biggest supporters.
Look, we get it. You're among the 50% who think it's ugly. We get it. You can leave now.
why not the LS2LS7? 8:20PM (11/16/2009)
Where did I say it's ugly?
The key is it's not a practical car. If you haven't seen it in person you wouldn't necessarily know this.
And this is before the issue of people who want to own an EV but cannot because they cannot charge it at home because they can't get 220V to their carport/parking spot/apartment garage. This really put a hurt on the EV1, why do you think it won't hurt Aptera?
meme 11:27PM (11/16/2009)
"Where did I say it's ugly?"
In every other thread on the subject. What, you think we have no memory?
"The key is it's not a practical car. If you haven't seen it in person you wouldn't necessarily know this."
I have. I fell in love with it all over again when I got to see it in person.
"And this is before the issue of people who want to own an EV but cannot because they cannot charge it at home because they can't get 220V to their carport/parking spot/apartment garage. This really put a hurt on the EV1, why do you think it won't hurt Aptera?"
Aptera charges 100 miles range at 75mph in 8 hours on 120V. One of the advantages of being so efficient.
NeilBlanchard 12:21PM (11/16/2009)
Hello,
I wonder if an open source super efficient vehicle would be a better way to go? I've been advocating this sort of thing for a while now, and here's a little blurb from my blog: http://neilblanchard.vox.com/library...formation.html The idea is already out there -- they just mentioned it on the 'On Point' radio show about the renewed energy of inventors and tinkerers.
http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/11/...and-innovation
The idea is the most important thing, and spreading it around means that you get the input of everyone who uses the information.
Sincerely, Neil
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Mike 12:58PM (11/16/2009)
If i wanted to drive an airplane with wheels i'd go buy an airplane and chop the wings off. If i wanted to buy an affordable car that was light on the environment i'd buy the nearly 100% easily recyclable rotomolded SAM car. The aptera is a good case of over engineering. With a bit more work the safety of the SAM car could be greatly improved along with the interiors ergonomics. Even if the aptera reaches the market i think it will do poorly as it will be very expensive to buy, and it's environmental payback period will be far too long.
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Dave 1:04PM (11/16/2009)
"As we all know by now, regardless of what the energy source is, the auto industry runs on cubic miles of cash."
Clearly, there are plenty of folks on this forum who don't know this or won't accept it.
4000 cars wouldnt even cover the tooling.
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Joeviocoe 1:05PM (11/16/2009)
Playing the Devil's Advocate:
"People who paid $500 aren't going to convert to buyers at any appreciable rate." -LS2LS7
Exactly, $500 is not a down payment by any means. Even if it were not refundable (which it is up until production), it is not a considerable amount enough to think that many wouldn't walk away from it.
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Nick From Montreal 1:16PM (11/16/2009)
Tesla has proven that their plan was (so far - until Fisker delivers) the best for a EV start-up:
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1) Get inspiration from a *working* prototype (AC Propulsion's T-Zero) & use this as a starting point to get your own drive train IP together.
2) Get a dependable firm (Lotus - not Magna) to help design & build a gliders for you based on a *working* (Elise) design. Martin Eberhard recently mentioned at a Siemen conference how much work they saved just by having working hair-bags & other details that came with the Lotus package.
3) Deliver the vehicle ASAP and continuously improve the design (Roadster 2.0, Sport) as you go along.
4) Sell enough units to break even and continue selling them while working on a second design of your own.
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The main lesson I get from all this is that it's better to base your EV on a *working* platform to try to invent everything -- at least for version 1.0. Then again, there's no reference design for a 3-wheel EV...
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Joeviocoe 1:29PM (11/16/2009)
Actually, that is not how they really planned it. The changes to the gearbox was a huge argument between Eberhard and Musk. *not gonna get into that here*
The point is, that the Roadster met all the expectations at initial release and didn't have any big design changes that severly limited their customer acceptance.
Also, Tesla has a top down approach (as does Fisker). Start off selling a high end model which is more flexible on cost. If the Roadster was promised to be $90k and eventually sold for $105k, that is $15k difference!!! Not a big deal when your already paying so much.
But with Aptera, they cannot afford delays or price underestimations like that. If they are trying to enter the $20k -$30k market, they have better put out a product that is ready by first production.
Reminder: This is not software. To upgrade a car, you need to RE-INVEST millions in factory tooling. There are no Beta-testers folks like Windows 7. You cannot just make a few thousand cars and change as you go. Making a few thousand cars and then making design changes means you just sunk your factory.
Nick From Montreal 1:36PM (11/16/2009)
@Joeviocoe:
Actually Tesla did ship a few units before upgrading the gearbox:
http://gizmodo.com/5048822/new-tesla-gearbox-ups-range-to-244-miles-hits-zero-to-60-time-of-40-seconds
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Your point about the top down approach is correct.
Joeviocoe 3:19PM (11/16/2009)
"Actually Tesla did ship a few units before upgrading the gearbox:"
Understood. But there is a fundamental difference between component level upgrades such as a gearbox and redesign of bodywork, frame and doors.