Aptera Claims It’s Ready to Build 100 Cars a Day

As Aptera Turns… when last we checked in on the scrappy carmaker in Carlsbad, California, it had video of a “production intent” car. That was 2024.Now we see a still photo of the “First Vehicle off Validation Assembly Line.”
This thing looks extraordinarily interesting, in a techno way. Now if Aptera can just start selling them to those 50,000 order holders, all will be well.

It’s hard to tell when to jump on the Aptera bandwagon and say something, since the company has been around in one way or another since 2006, but let’s take a dive anyway!

Aptera Motors Corp. is the outfit planning to make a hyper-efficient, three-wheeled, two-seater electric pumpkin seed of a car down in Carlsbad, California. The car itself is revolutionary, unlike anything ever made, with an aerodynamic carbon-fiber bodyshell slathered in solar panels that altogether promise 400 miles of range.

That’s in addition to a liquid-cooled 44-kWh Li-Ion NMC battery powering a front motor driving the two front wheels. In back is a single third wheel that makes it a motorcycle and means the Aptera doesn’t have to meet the same government safety standards as a four-wheeled car, thus saving millions of dollars on certification but making some compromises on safety compared to a regular “car.” But it also means you can drive in the carpool lane.

“The company’s low-volume validation assembly line represents Aptera’s transition from hand-built validation vehicles to a structured assembly line process,” Aptera said. “The line consists of 14 dedicated stations, where vehicles are assembled by a team of vehicle line technicians, enabling repeatable builds, process verification, and optimization.”

first aptera vehicle on the assembly line with a sign overhead Aptera

The Aptera at the end of the Validation Assembly Line.

The line can make 80 to 100 cars a day when it’s up to speed. Aptera has nearly 50,000 orders, it says. At 100 per day that means 500 days and it’s caught up. Is that optimistic? It’s a startup, remember. The first Aptera was launched in 2006, went away in 2011, there was an interim company that lasted about a year, then Aptera was re-founded in 2019, and here we are.

The car has a lot to offer in terms of efficiency: 350 MPGe, 400 miles range, 700 watts of solar panels on the roof offering “as much as” 40 miles a day on sun power alone, a NACS charger, and an efficiency that could hit 10 miles per kWh. Pricing could be $40,000 for the launch edition, up $9,300 from a year and a half ago, while a $28,000 model could come later, maybe.

Will it all work? It looks really cool and promises unprecedented efficiency for a production car. Apteras could be rolling into customer garages by the end of the year, they say. Ya just gotta believe.

Headshot of Mark Vaughn

Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed the Blue Oval, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.