Bring the costs down

I would consider a cheaper version of this concept. I have no doubt you have already considered this list in far greater detail and I would love to hear your thoughts.

- Single driven rear wheel with belt drive.

- FRP Body

- Hard coated lexan body Panels only in white

- Hard coated lexan window

- Body Panels easily and cheaply replaced

- 3rd party android tablet, interface for non-safety controls.

- JBL Flip equivalent in the dash for the cars audio.

- Battery good for ~ 100kms

- Use as many parts from existing scooters, motorbikes, quad-bikes as possible.

- Standard 240/110V charging connector.

- 50kW Power

- Regular doors.

- Only the minimum safety features, front airbags and some sort of crumple zone.

- 3d printed or machined metal parts? Steel tubular space frame front crumple zone?

- Car arrives as a kit the user assembles and can self service when parts fail. Electrical connections will need to be IP rated plugs. Open source component designs and let China happen.

- Standard motorbike/scooter tyres.

- Open source the entire car. Aptera can focus on change management, regional standards compliance and base builds.

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Brett Steyaert

Jan 06, 2021

As a manufacturing engineer with a background in aerospace composites, I think that the biggest cost will be creating the body structure and bringing it to a presentable finish. My suggestions for cost reduction would be using a "crushcore" process for the exterior panels and flat panel cut-and-fold for the inner structure. The crush core process has a cycle time of less than 30 minutes for a pre-CNC trimmed part that is structural and highly repeatable. The flat panel requires some cure time, but little labor as panel finish can be easily covered in a fabric material. I love the car and the concept, but I think that to scale the fabrication of the composites will be challenging. Resin infusion provides a great finish with lots of fabric control, but is incredibly wasteful (vacuum bagging material) and tool intensive (tool needs to be perfectly cleaned and prepped before each part is layed up) with a very long cycle time for the tool. Maybe 3 per day? Good for low volume, but not scalable.

Unknown member

Jun 07, 2021

Replying to

What is crush core sandwich construction? I can't find much on it. I've been wondering what exact process they'll use too.

Possible Work Instruction of work flow:

1. pre-cut prepreg cloth pieces on CNC cutter (or find a good supplier to outsource to)

2. pre-cut slices of foam on CNC cutter (or find a good supplier to outsource to)

3. Lay cloth pieces in computer-determined pattern onto female side of exterior mold. Assist humans with correct and fast placement by suspending a laser array from the roof which projects exact pattern downwards onto mold base (we used this at a fab job I did here in AZ). Each piece of cloth is pre-treated or pre-impregnated with pressure based adhesive (PU based instead of nylon or epoxy).

4. Lay pre-cut foam pieces (also by laser-mapped assistive pattern projection).

5. Lay the interior face pieces (also by laser-mapped assistive pattern projection).

6. Close the hinged clamshell-design mold.

7. Fold the re-usable vacuum bag table over hinged clamshell mold's A half and B half, which now forms a complete mold shape. Turn on vacuum.

8. Fold temperature-controlled electric heat blanket and insulation around A half and B half, completed and fully loaded clamshell mold. Turn on power. Check that the green stacklight indicator is lit continously, indicating that vacuum has reached 0.015 ATM or more. (Power to heat will not engage unless required vacuum is reached and held).

9. Allow heat-assisted vacuum cure to press-mold major sub-assembly for required minimum time (probably 15 min to reach 90% of peak strength, depending on adhesive vendor's specifications and design.

Preventative Maintenance and Shop Service Work Orders:

respray mold release agent on clamshell style touch faces each usage.
Check platinum-RTD100 sensor for damage and response to heat stimuli. Replace if reference temperature block temperature agreement is OOS.
Check vacuum bag for cuts, tears, damage. Patch or replace if needed.
Check vacuum system's debris trap for excessive debris or blockage. Clear debris and investigate as required.