Production in other states?

[NeilBlanchard]

Greetings,

Have the folks at Aptera looked into starting production facilities in other states? It certainly would be great to have a factory here in Massachusetts, for instance! :)

What are the bottlenecks in the production process? Judging from the factory tour video, I would guess the molding process and joining the two main chassis pieces would take the longest time.

[KarenRei]

Auto manufacturing is very supply-chain limited. They can control what goes on in-house, but if any part manufacturer has a delay for some reason, that's going to hold up the company. In-house, sure, I'd expect molding to be the most time-consuming process, and they'll probably need quite a bit of parallelism.

On the upside, the nature of the auto industry means that you may already have a company producing some parts for the Aptera near you and you wouldn't even know it. ;)

[evolutionmovement]

A123 batteries are in Cambridge. I think the Aptera would be easy to set up in other places, probably cheaper here in MA since the batteries, the heaviest components, wouldn't have to be shipped as far. Once the process is down for the mold, I can't see why they couldn't be reproduced and shipped to other facilities. Wiring would be simple. I obviously haven't taken one apart, but if Rolls-Royce could make cars in Springfield (even those ancient vehicles were more complicated build-wise than the Aptera likely is), I don't see why they couldn't be produced here. This is an expensive state, though. Perhaps there could be a tax break for setting up here. The neighboring New England states would all be decent marketplaces for the Aptera and the factory could double as a service center (as they're apparently doing with their CA launch) with techs sent out for smaller jobs to less local customers.

[aptera1213]

i think, if and when they expand to a second facility, they will put it either in New Mexico or Florida...

why?

New Mexico...
pros:
cheap land
fairly cheap labor
lots of tax incentives for business (they have given incentives to the film industry--which is lately huge in new mexico---, to Intel--crazy large incentives to them---, Tesla---though they likely regret that so far as the second car is not around yet---heck the first car isn't really around yet either---, Eclipse aviation, and many many others...
warm weather market next to Texas...so cars made fairly cheaply in New Mexico can also ship to Texas and Arizona and Colorado and points East...Cali will supply Cali and Oregon and Washington and Nevada...
lots of land to also test drive and such...
great weather year round to test in...and the mountains to the north can be used to do cold weather test driving
large available work force close to cheap land
still fairly close to the "main" office in so cal

cons...none really...
maybe that most parts will have to be shipped in...
also, some might think their car was made out of the country...you would be surprised how many people think new mexico is part of mexico...kind of a sad reflection on our geography skills...but i digress

Florida...
pros:
fairly cheap labor
fairly cheap land if not in a major area (cheap land an hour or so north of Tampa)
would supply the whole east coast, keep the west for the cali plant (though the whole west might be too much for the cali plant to supply)
will offer incentives too, though probably not as much as New Mexico
mostly good days for test driving
nice flat roads for mileage testing

cons
hurricanes...rainy season
the cheap land is far from the metro areas (cheap land in new mexico is 10 minutes from Albuquerque...cheap land in florida is usually an hour or more from any metro area)
large work force is not close to cheap land (ie...if you buy cheap land an hour from Tampa, well nobody lives there but a few locals and the "snowbirds"...so all the day workers will have to come in from Tampa...as opposed to NM where the plant would be on the west side of Albuquerque or in Rio Rancho and Aptera can pull workers from a city of almost half a million people)...
dang far from the main office...
parts would likely have to be shipped in
lastly...
old people are afraid of new technology (ok that is just being mean)



either would be good choices for a second plant...

truth be told, the second plant will probably be in so cal too...

but i could see them going either NM or FL next

[evolutionmovement]

If they use their plant as a service facility, it would make the most sense to locate it near the greatest number of potential buyers, typically progressive-minded people, which, other than Southern California, would be the Pacific Northwest, and parts of New England (MA and VT in particular, but I think they'd do well with pragmatic people in damn-conformity ME as well). If they become enough of a fashionable green accessory, they'll do very well in CT and downstate NY as well. FL may be the center of weird in the US, but I can't picture many selling there. Maybe Houston TX would be a good market there, and maybe I'm going by stereotypes, but I don't see them being popular with the rest of the state.

I just really want the damn things here!

[GoodCheer]

It is with only a small amount of self-interest that I would suggest Delaware. Delaware is famous for having very low tax rates on corporations, and consequentially has a disproportionate number of corporate headquarters in the state. Most of them are just P.O. Boxes, but still....

-There is a large Chrysler plant here in Newark that is scheduled to be shuttered, because for some reason nobody wants Durangos any more. Its a huge facility with easy access to both Route 95 (THE east coast highway), as well as an extensive railroad siding from which Chrysler ships trainloads of FUVs each day to all points.
-There is also a rail link to a "Roll-On Roll-Off" transatlantic shipping facility that currently ships ~200,000 vehicles a year to Europe and the middle east, which I'm sure would be happy to have 10% more business when Aptera goes international.
-Pay-scales are probably slightly higher than NM or FL, but certainly much lower than CA or the north-west.
-UDel has a nationally acclaimed composites program, born of the close ties between the university and DuPont, which almost runs the state.
-And best of all, we have the nation's first off-shore wind farm from which to charge!

So we have a workforce with composites and automotive experience, in-place infrastructure for manufacture and distribution, and a very 'cozy' corporate climate.

And then they'd be just around the corner from me, which I'd love!!

cheers
Nat

[speculawyer]

A123 batteries are in Cambridge. I think the Aptera would be easy to set up in other places, probably cheaper here in MA since the batteries, the heaviest components, wouldn't have to be shipped as far.
But does A123 actually make batteries in Cambridge, MA? I think that is probably just a development center and actual manufacturing is done elsewhere.

Yeah . . . Cambridge is just the MIT geeks and manufacturing is done in China. (http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2008/01/24/the-a123-story-how-a-battery-company-jumpstarted-its-business/)

[speculawyer]

Oh . . . California stands a good chance of keeping the production since the deal Governator Ah-nuld made with Tesla as far as tax-breaks are concerned applies generically to makers of zero emission vehicles (or something like that), so Aptera and Th!nk may piggy-back off that Tesla tax break deal.

[sk8ndad]

If they use their plant as a service facility, it would make the most sense to locate it near the greatest number of potential buyers, typically progressive-minded people, which, other than Southern California, would be the Pacific Northwest, and parts of New England (MA and VT in particular, but I think they'd do well with pragmatic people in damn-conformity ME as well). If they become enough of a fashionable green accessory, they'll do very well in CT and downstate NY as well. FL may be the center of weird in the US, but I can't picture many selling there. Maybe Houston TX would be a good market there, and maybe I'm going by stereotypes, but I don't see them being popular with the rest of the state.

I just really want the damn things here!

I like to think that Northern California also has a couple of progressive minded people too :rolleye0003: