Aptera invited us down to the Palomar Airport in stunningly beautiful Carlsbad, CA to show off the latest iteration of their three-wheeled, high-mileage electric car, the 2010 2e. Before the fairly-close-to-production-ready car was driven into Hanger #11, CEO Paul Wilbur gave a state of the Aptera union address, explaining why the company has had its head down for the past several months. After all, a year ago you couldn’t causally glance at a magazine or newspaper without seeing the white three-wheeler. But lately? Not so much.
According to Wilbur, this has been intentional. The first reason is due to funding. “2009 was difficult,” Wilbur explained, especially for companies seeking start-up funding. The other reason is that Aptera has been, “Engineering.” Meaning that they wanted to have a more finished, production-ready vehicle to show off to the media and customers. “We have to get it right the first time,” Wilbur explained. Going further, he stressed the fact that Aptera doesn’t want to go down in history as the next Yugo, DeLorean or Tucker. The questions then are, does Aptera have the necessary funding and is the car they showed off today actually production ready? Well… make the jump to find out.
Gallery: 2010 Aptera 2e
Photos by Drew Phillips / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.
Continue reading Aptera 2e moves forward, eyes set on X Prize
Aptera 2e moves forward, eyes set on X Prize originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.