Aptera CEOs discuss IPO plans, solar EV production, 3-wheel variants, and a possible 4-wheel model
Video footage meant for investors has leaked, showing Aptera Motors co-founders and co-CEOs Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony discussing many topics about the solar EV startup’s future, including a potential IPO.
Usually, when we share progress updates from notable solar EV developer Aptera Motors, they come directly from the horse’s mouth. The born-again startup is known for keeping an open line of communication with its growing fanbase of investors, Accelerator program reservation holders, and EV enthusiasts who want to see a company bring solar-powered vehicles to mass production.
The latest public update came in late February as Aptera’s co-CEOs teased its flagship vehicle’s upcoming app and battery tech while giving the viewers a glimpse of the three-wheeled EV’s Body in Carbon (BinC), which ended up on display at JEC World 2024 in Paris earlier this month.
As we’ve followed Aptera through its progress in reaching scaled production slotted to begin later this year, its founders have spoken quite candidly about the funding still required to achieve the milestone.
Even after achieving state grants and successfully raising $34 million in a crowdfunding Accelerator Program, Aptera still needs more liquidity to get its solar EV over the finish line and into the driveways of early adopters and beyond.
One solution to this lingering issue has always been the possibility of Aptera filing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Per video footage that recently surfaced, an IPO is still very much on the to-do list of Aptera’s co-CEOs, and these men have some big plans if and when such a milestone comes to fruition.
Aptera founders target IPO around start of SEV production
YouTube channel Free Power posted a video that shows Aptera co-CEOs discussing the possibility of an IPO and what that level of public funding could mean for the start of solar EV production and beyond.
We could not find the source for the video footage but were told by representatives from Aptera that Free Power leaked footage from an old exclusive investor-only webinar. We are unsure how dated this webinar footage is, but there are some interesting tidbits here that anyone rooting for Aptera’s success would be interested in hearing. Per Aptera co-CEO Chris Anthony:
We would love to tie an IPO to our production start. Obviously, once we start delivering vehicles, we think we’ll get a lot more notoriety, we’ll get a lot more pre-orders. It seems like a natural fit that if we can tie an IPO to our production start, that kind of maximizes the benefit of everything. It gives us growth capital to launch into other variants of the three-wheeler and possibly four-wheel vehicles, part of a whole future plan to get us to 150,000 units per year.
Fellow Aptera CEO Steve Fambro followed up with some wise words, stating that you’re constantly raising money in any business like this (startups especially). Aptera has done an excellent job of staying cost-conscious up to this point, but as mentioned, it has never shied away from the fact it will need more capital to realize its solar-powered dream.
An Aptera IPO feels like a natural next step. Anthony again spoke:
We aspire to deliver one million Aptera by 2033. So, sow do we do that? It’ll be a capital-intensive plan; it will require multiple factories, and an IPO can help us rally the capital to do that.
The closer Aptera gets to genuine scaled solar EV production, the more the public and other investors will notice, thus boosting its chances of getting that IPO and truly scaling to mass production.
Aptera is currently developing production-intent builds that will be used for validation and crash testing to ensure safety and has promised to share more details of its pending partner supply agreements once they are officially signed.
If you want to join the solar pack, reserve your Aptera EV today for $70 down.
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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