Did Aptera Make A Splash At CES? – CleanTechnica

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If you’ve been following Aptera at all, you’ve probably heard a lot of pessimism from mainstream EV fans and investors, while also hearing a lot of enthusiastic things from Aptera fans. I’ve been on both sides of this myself. Initially, I was very excited about the vehicle’s planned unique features, but I’ve watched with some disappointment while features like hub motors and the first prototypes’ interior design fell by the wayside. I’m still very excited by the unrivaled aerodynamic body shape and the solar capabilities, though.

Make Or Break

At present, the company is in a bit of a make or break moment.

After years of struggling to get through the development process (alpha, beta, and gamma prototypes), the company has finally progressed to a production intent design. Suppliers have been selected, and the first of these final development vehicles have been built with the same parts that would go into production cars. In other words, a lot of progress has been made.

On the other hand, this progress took a lot longer than traditional investors would have liked. Most of the money the company has raised so far has come from crowdfunding and smaller investors, and attempts to bring mainstream investors onboard have been met with limited results. This has led to the company moving back to crowdfunding for the final 60ish million bucks it needs to open up initial production for customers.

To get over this last hump (which is smaller that what the company has raised so far), the company really needed to make a good impression and get the attention of investors after the unveiling that recently occurred at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. If people can see the value of Aptera’s technology and see that there’s a viable path to production and selling cars to reservation holders, Aptera will get the money needed to get the factory going. If not, the company could fail.

Attention From Mainstream & Larger Outlets

I would love to be able to tell you that the company succeeded or failed at CES, but we won’t know for weeks or months whether the production intent vehicle reveal worked. As usual, there was plenty of excitement from Aptera enthusiasts and investors, but the real gauge of whether the company has a shot now lies in the hands of mainstream outlets.

Fortunately, there has been some interest in the car! Firstly, local Las Vegas media covered the vehicle. Here’s an example story from News 3 Las Vegas:

While I haven’t seen any coverage from major news networks, tech outlets like CNET paid Aptera some much-needed attention:

Whether this positive coverage beyond the EV publications and the enthusiast channels will be enough has yet to be seen. It’s definitely a good start, and that’s on top of the attention from tech industry insiders that the vehicle may have received in person at CES. There’s enough coverage that I can’t tell you that the company is doomed, but not enough to where I can confidently state that they’ve got it in the bag.

At this point, the company really needs to be working on other ways to get public attention. Existing EV publications need to be invited out soon for test drives, obviously. Events beyond CES are also going to be vital in the coming weeks and months.

Featured image by Aptera.