First off, I LOVE where Aptera is going with this and finally a project I would invest in and buy. Being an Engineer and huge gear head, I do have some concerns and wanted to see what you all think. With "First Generation" of any cars, they alway have their issues and fixed by following new generation upgrades. Whether it's mechanical, technology and cosmetic wise. Cosmetic and Mechanical changes I can deal with, but the internal technology is what I'm worried about.
Will the tech software, functions and features be upgradable on the system the car comes with already? For example, I would be able to update my cars software via the internet.
As drivetrains and batteries are improved, will I be able to head to a shop and swap those out as a "plug and play" style? For example, Can I go to a shop and get the new drivetrain swapped easily out for the better one? Or, I now want a larger battery instead; can I go to the shop and have that easily swapped out?
I only ask this because I would be very crossed if I all of a sudden had to buy a whole new car just for simple upgrades and features. I would love to look back after 5 years of ownership of an Aptera Gen One and see Gen Two come out and say, "I'm still happy with this one!"
What we know for sure is the Safety Pilot will have OTA updates. As far as the batteries, for safety and weight reasons they will be structural members of the car. I think they are still working on whether they can be modular or not, but this makes it more difficult for the 100kWh version, and they are also fighting a tight time schedule. I expect that there will be engineering changes as the build process continues. This is one of the known risks of being an early adopter, especially at such an early stage. I am glad to be one of the initial users, and consider this to be part of my contributions to a successful rollout. It is unlikely that I would need more performance than what I am getting with an early model, but should that happen, say, a lot more long trips than I expect to be taking and under time pressure, I am not too worried about being able to find a buyer for my Paradigm, should I need one.
The big improvements I think we might see is in cabin and battery thermal management, if heat pump vendors can't meet the initial supply requirements.