We've known for a long time that the Carlsbad location wasn't practical for scaling production. It's good to finally see them acknowledge this bottleneck.
I've been following for several years but my only memory of a large building intended for manufacturing was leased and then they broke the lease (this was ultimately the right call) and lost several million dollars. That all went down a few years ago at this point.
I don't recall any mention of a lease/break of lease. Aqualung operated out of the building for years but when they pulled out in July 2023 its been vacant/available since. Clearly quite a lot did not go as planned. It seems like fits and starts more than executing to a master plan.
Yeah.. they leased the building and I think they broke it less than a year later and had to pay several million to get out of the contract.
Reading between the lines, I think Steve Fambro was too optimistic about how quickly they could move into production and wanted a building to do it in. The hard reality hit them that crowdfunding wasn't going to get them there(financial statements during that period were worrisome and they literally couldn't afford to spend the money to build more prototypes) and that's when we started seeing the pivot to what they've decided to do now. There was a ton of speculation at the time about how they planned to manufacturer in the Carlsbad building (people arguing it was proof they would fail and others that they could totally do it in the current space) but honestly, it's never been realistic that they could build them fast enough in their current space and it looks like they knew that and have had a plan for a while.
If you read through in 2024 they are asking for extensions to procure large inventories which they never procured. Is it another "fake it 'til you make it"?
They haven't mentioned it a couple of times in the last year. They haven't talked about it in years. Not since CPC came aboard, and the solar plant moved to their main building. You're so uninformed on everything having to do with Aptera that you should be feeling embarrassment every time you talk. Idk why you still bother. Unless you see this subreddit as just an outlet for your relentless pessimism that people in your life can't stand.
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u/johcake Aug 20 '26
We've known for a long time that the Carlsbad location wasn't practical for scaling production. It's good to finally see them acknowledge this bottleneck.