Aptera as US distributor for Elaphe?

The Lordstown Motors truck and Aptera are scheduled to be the two American companies using Elaphe in-wheel motors. Lordstown Motors is planned to be the US distributor/representative for Elaphe Propulsion systems.

The future of Lordstown Motors is looking very bleak and thought by many to be out of business in the near future. If this happens, this would leave Elaphe with no US distributor, and Elaphe is trying to find American buyers for its motors.

(The US must be seen as fertile ground for selling in-wheel motors, because a UK competitor of Elaphe has already arranged for a Canadian company to manufacture its in-wheel motors for sale in North America.)

Would Elaphe try to get Aptera to become its US distributor? Aptera is a smaller business than Lordstown, but a small representative is much better than no representative. Would Aptera want to be the US distributor if it had the opportunity? These are questions I do not have an answer to, but I would not like to see it happen in the early days of Aptera. They have their hands full and I would prefer to see all of Aptera efforts directed to bringing their vehicle to production.

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leftlysc

Jun 16, 2021

It seems Lordstown Motors has a new lease on life. See : https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/06/15/business/economy-stock-market-news#lordstown-motors-production

993cc

Jun 16, 2021

Replying to

Thanks for the link.

"But in a news conference hosted by the Detroit-based Automotive Press Association, the company’s new executive team presented a far more optimistic outlook without providing many details."

In circumstances like these it's kind of the new management's job to convince investors that the situation isn't hopeless. I think it's a stretch to call this a new lease, especially upon reading that the current plan is to go into production BEFORE safety certification, and then retroactively (ex post factory, if you will) fix any problems revealed in crash testing.

I like the idea of Lordstown's truck. As an Aptera fan, I would love to see any vehicle with hub motors succeed. I would like to see those who went out on a limb to finance Lordstown at least get their money back. But I don't hold out much hope, especially with Ford offering a fleet-trim Lightning for less than Lordstown's projected price.