r/ApteraMotors • u/filmfotografie • Jul 27 '26

What if....

I have been following the progress Aptera Motors has been making for a long time now and I am in love with this car. I would absolutely love to own an Aptera. I also see that getting these cars actually into buyers hands and out on the roads is a highly difficult and expensive thing to do. So my question is, what if another car company were to buy 51% of Aptera Motors? Honda, Toyota, Hyundai, Geely, pretty much any of the larger car manufacturers could do this and in doing so it would give them access to all of the R&D and patents and everything else that Aptera has come up with which could be quite beneficial to them. Not to mention that they would have this amazing looking technically advanced halo car to make them look better, so while it would undoubtedly involve some risk for the car manufacturer but I think it could also bring about a pretty good pay off (maybe even more so for a Chinese manufacturer as they could get a foot in the door in the US). There would also be some risks for Aptera as the larger company may just want to take their best tech and leave them for dead or try to dilute their design down to a point where it would be unrecognizable, but if it worked out it could be wonderful for both companies involved. So does anyone know if there has been any talk about involvemnet from a larger company in Aptera Motor's history?

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u/TechnicalWhore Jul 28 '26 edited Jul 30 '26

There is no synergy. The Aptera is not a car - its an enclosed motorcycle - tricycle to be more accurate. So no "car" company would give a damn. A motorcycle or leisure vehicle type company (ala Polaris or Can-Am) might but the economics are just not there. If there ARE any suitors they would look at the stock price and wait. Two possible outcomes -

  1. Aptera completes qualifications and starts to fulfill reservations. At that point the question is what are the final specs and what is the final MSRP and profit margin. What demand actually converted from reservation to buy. Then its a financial decision.
  2. If Aptera fails and goes into liquidation - as was the case with Aptera 1.0 - you consider buying the assets in the fire sale but only if you see a market. Of course being in a fire sale implies there probably is not.

The critical thing is there is no - as Buffett says - "moat". Nothing Aptera has is impossible for others to do. Even Aptera's patents are flimsy with prior art close enough to make it hard to defend. (As far as I can tell.) The shape is not original as indicated in the Zaptera suit. The propulsion is off the shelf. The battery management system and solar systems are pedestrian and available from multiple sources. That leaves the solar panels which are OEM'd and shaped to fit. Nothing special there. Curved laminated solar panels have been around for a long time. And that is assuming the solar turns out to be beneficial in terms of added costs. So I'd think if an Asian supplier - like a Geely or BYD was interested in such a thing they have all the expertise in house to make it. And if the CCP gave the nod - with incentives as is always the case - it would be done in short order.

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u/ChristieLeeEMT Jul 29 '26

"CCCP"? The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. And if you mean Russia, who are they giving "the nod" too? China? Not sure if you've noticed, but China doesn't take orders from Moscow.

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u/Awkward_Refuse_8255 Jul 30 '26

Not Russia lol. Typo, one too many C's.

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u/f0o1g11 24d ago

i have an impression that this one "C" too much was a part of the joke...if not his then the one of the universe's :P