There's a lot of misinformation and FUD about Aptera on social media. To raise the signal/noise ratio...

Aptera is currently in their validation phase, immediately preceding production of their "Launch Edition" vehicle. They've built five out of ten validation vehicles, named "Atlas" with mostly production parts, including some "first article" (preceding production) parts. In addition, they've rebuilt one of their earlier (pre-validation) vehicles, named "Artemis", to nearly the same spec as their Atlas validation vehicles. In a recent interview, they revealed remaining steps include tooling for some die-cast and injection molding parts, as wells as crash testing and airbag/seatbelt calibration/validation. They recently achieved "EPA Certificate of Conformity" certification, one of two major regulatory milestones before commencement of sales to the public. Throughout this year, company officials have consistently stated, with high confidence, the goal of first customer delivery this year, with hints of up to 40-50 customer deliveries before the end of the year.

They've recently revealed their in-house solar charging testing, showing that they easily exceed their stated solar charging goal of up to 4 kWh/day. They've announced plans for third-party testing, soon. Aptera Solar is an in-house developed technology, with patents, for integrating solar modules into 3-D curved automotive grade body panels. Polydrops (energy-efficient RV) is selling Aptera Solar upgrades under license. TELO Trucks has licensed Aptera Solar, and offers it as an option on their pre-orders. Averest has been evaluating Aptera Solar on their airport ground support equipment vehicles. In summary, Aptera Solar is thoroughly tested at this point, including by third parties, and is exceeding energy generation goals.

Aptera has partnered with industry leaders and innovators, including CPC Group for carbon fiber sheet molding compound (CFSMC) body panels, Costamp for aluminum frame, LG Energy Solution for battery cells, CTNS for battery assembly, Vitesco for integrated drivetrain, and Chery Automobile for various parts.

They had early manufacturing consulting with Munro & Associates. As a result, they did their "design for manufacturing" concurrently with general vehicle design. This should give prospective buyers (and investors) high confidence that Aptera will avoid both the minor hiccups and the major stumbles that have led to the end of many other startup EV companies that we've mostly forgotten about today.

As for funding, Aptera has reached their current pre-production/validation stage with less than $200 million in total funding, including $40 million raised through a record setting crowdfunding effort. Most other EV startups consume a billion dollars or more to reach the same point. They've previously announced their financial break-even point is an unheard-of 6,000 units/year, as a result of their clean-sheet design for manufacturing efficiency, as well as energy efficiency.

As for the history, the original Aptera motors was founded around 2005. The founders were forced out of the company in 2009, after an outside-hire CEO (from the traditional auto industry) diverged from the founders' vision. In 2011, the company closed, under outside leadership, after the founders had left.

The founders re-acquired the intellectual property in 2019 and established the current Aptera Motors company. A patent troll lawsuit was settled earlier this year, largely in Aptera's favor, but with the award of Aptera stock to the plaintiff. The current Aptera vehicle conforms to the original vision from 2005-2009, while incorporating all of the technology advancements of the last 15 years, and adding Aptera Solar.

The principal reason that Aptera has taken so long to get to production is because they are doing everything right, without rushing. They did the systems engineering and design for manufacturing up front. They aren't taking any shortcuts on testing and validation. As a three-wheeled vehicle that's legally an "autocycle" or "enclosed motorcycle", they could skip some of the vehicle safety certification steps, but they've voluntarily opted to design and certify for full passenger vehicle (i.e., 4-wheel) safety standards, including passenger safety cage, energy-absorbing crumple zones, and airbags. They've stated their rooftop crush strength is higher than any vehicle that is legally on the road today.

Those who complain about the long time to production should consider the obstacles the company has had to overcome, and the consequences that befell other startup EV companies that rushed to production. Those who understand the benefits of patiently waiting for thorough engineering, testing, and validation can expect to be rewarded with a high quality, innovative (SEV category defining!) vehicle from the first customer unit.

Will the Dell be preinstalled with Novell Suse Linux? With the previous wheeling and dealing between Microsoft and Novell, that would seem to make the most sense (in a twisted way). The only other conventional alternative I can see is Red Hat. I doubt Dell would preinstall a Linux distribution that doesn't have strong corporate backing like Novell or Red Hat.