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152 points voisin | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0.829s | source
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r14c ◴[] No.42168778[source]
The only EV I'm even interested in is an Aptera. They're building a new class of vehicle that takes advantage of the affordances of full electric. I want a small efficient car that can go long distances and nobody else is building anything like that. Even US capital markets don't understand the appeal of this class of vehicle, but luckily they were able to fill their funding in global capital markets. I'm pretty pessimistic about US EVs, but Aptera gives me a little hope.
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1. kube-system ◴[] No.42172956[source]
Aptera is coming up on their 20th anniversary of being vaporware. It's a vehicle with a potential market of potentially hundreds of nerds. Unfortunately, an idea that appeals to so few will never be a viable mass-production automaker.
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2. throwawaymaths ◴[] No.42176043[source]
demonstrably false. Unless you think they're lying, they have something like ~47k preorders registered. If even 75% of those preorders flake, that's something like 2 years of manufacturing pipeline and sales, if they manage to get the first stage factory they want.
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3. kube-system ◴[] No.42176688[source]
'Hundreds' was a bit of hyperbole, but it ain't far off.

47k in 100 countries, they say. These are $100 fully refundable 'preorders', so they're more like placeholders in line than anything else. They will absolutely have a high attrition rate because most of them are speculatory. And of small number that are serious -- how many of those are in a regulatory region where they will be launching? ...and in a way that they are normally registrable? I think even they'll be shocked to ship 10% of those preorders.

For a bit of a reality check here -- the cybertruck preorder originally had the exact same terms (before it got more expensive), and had 2 million preorders. They've sold almost 30k of them, and it has already been reported that all waitlist reservations have been fulfilled. So at best, a 98% attrition rate. If the Aptera ever ships, and they are able to convert sales as good as Tesla did with the Cybertruck -- then yeah, the number will be measured in hundreds, not thousands.

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4. r14c ◴[] No.42177965[source]
I was happy to see them get funded, but its fair to be wary. They are a new company after all, but I think there are a lot of emerging markets where this type of vehicle makes more sense than a wagon. I'm pretty pessimistic about US manufacturing in general tho so I'm willing to admit that there's a good chance that you're right about Aptera.
5. throwawaymaths ◴[] No.42180970{3}[source]
The cybertruck also went up in price by 50k? IIRC from promised. I bet a lot of the flakes couldn't justify the extra cost. Sure the aptera has gone up from 28k? to 37k? but

1. That's likely a high water mark estimate

2. An extra 10k is easier to come up with, not to mention generally cars in that price range going up by about 5k anyways