Aptera employees smashing car bodies, auction of remaining assets

I’ll admit, the title is a bit of a lead on. Yes, Aptera is out of business, and yes there is a youtube video of employees smashing Aptera car bodies with forklifts, but we’ve now learned (via Fox News) that the video was made back in the Spring of 2011.

It was first believed that disgruntled, or perhaps just bored and under-supervised, employees were smashing up cars after the management was fired/left and the company went into bankruptcy. Former executives of the company and many online personalities were quite upset about the videos that appeared on YouTube. It turns out that the videos were shot in April, before the company was vacating their headquarters sometime in May. The Aptera chassis being destroyed via forklift was actually flawed prototypes that were being disposed of intentionally, and employees subjected them to some impromptu crash testing in the process.

As for any remaining Aptera assets, the company says they are safely under control of a liquidation company who plans to auction them off at a later date. (Former) Aptera staff remain hopeful that another company/entity will pick up where Aptera left off, at least by continuing with some of the technology they were pioneering.

Aptera leaves the electric vehicle community mourning – Aptera claimed to have been working on a four-door, five passenger electric car that could achieve 190MPGe and cost around $30,000. Claims like that blow the current electric vehicle offerings out of the water. The Mitsubishi i is currently rated at 112MPGe so 190MPGe is another 70% ahead of it. We expect to see some heavy hitters coming to the auction to get their hands on the research data and technology that Aptera leaves behind.

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