Thread: Aptera moves HQ to Carlsbad, place car factory OUT OF CA

Good bye to another viable company that would have made more jobs here in CA!

Aptera to move headquarters to Carlsbad, place car factory out of state

By Pat Maio pmaio@nctimes.com North County Times - The Californian | Posted: Tuesday, May 17, 2011 5:54 pm | (16) Comments | Print

Font Sizeefault font sizeLarger font size.Aptera Motors Inc., which once had big plans to hire thousands to design and manufacture ultra-efficient cars in Oceanside, is trimming costs by moving its headquarters to Carlsbad while it searches for a factory in the auto-rich region east of the Mississippi River.

"We are really scrutinizing our business," said Paul B. Wilbur, president and chief executive of Aptera Motors.

The moves are part of a bigger plan to eventually garner a key guaranteed loan from the federal Energy Department that would allow it to begin low-level production on its teardrop-shaped vehicles. It hopes to finalize those confidential negotiations with the government in the next six months.

"I'm not sitting around hoping for an answer," said Wilbur, who is taking steps to get the automobile startup running with other investors on board as well by the fall.

Aptera employs about 50 people, but could see its workforce grow to a "couple hundred" by later this year ---- far short of the 500 at corporate headquarters and the many thousands that it originally envisioned as part of an auto manufacturing hub in Oceanside.

Wilbur said that California economic officials did little to offer an attractive package of tax abatements, incentives and other carrots to keep Aptera's manufacturing in the state.

"Economically, it's just more affordable to build elsewhere. The numbers were never big enough for me to ever write them down," he said of Aptera's courtship of California.

"We have states calling us to actually compete for the manufacturing," Wilbur said. "They are offering us tens of millions of dollars to come into their state. It is hard to turn them down."Wilbur said Aptera is likely to end up in a factory east of the Mississippi River.

Decisions on its restructuring accelerated May 12 when Aptera's board of directors decided to abandon its 200,000-square-foot building along Ocean Ranch Drive and move to one less than half that size at 2765 W. Loker Ave. in Carlsbad.

Some "low-level production" in the tens of thousands of cars could happen at the Carlsbad building, Wilbur said.

The Loker Avenue location is a futuristic office building that will have a "mock" showroom for many brands of its streamlined three-wheeled vehicles.

The major lines of vehicles proposed by Aptera include an electric-powered one and a hybrid counterpart. The electric vehicle will have a range of 100 miles and get the equivalent of 200 miles per gallon. The hybrid model ---- which will operate on a small gas-fueled engine along with a durable battery ---- would have a range of 300 miles and get the equivalent of 150-plus miles per gallon.

The restructuring reflects Aptera's intense desire to deeply cut costs as it attempts to win the guaranteed loan from the Energy Department's Advanced Technologies Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program. That program already has handed out close to $9 billion in guarantees to Fisker Automotive, Ford Motor Co., Nissan North America Inc., Tesla Motors (which plans to reopen an auto manufacturing plant in Fremont) and the Vehicle Production Group LLC.

Aptera was turned down for the program in late 2008, when DOE officials said that the company's request for a five-year, $184 million guaranteed loan didn't qualify because the three-wheeled vehicle didn't meet the definition of an automobile.

The program's rules were eventually changed as President Barack Obama signed legislation permitting new entrants, along with those who had ideas for two-wheeled vehicles.

Aptera resubmitted a similar request for funding in early 2010.

"Ever since then, we've been on the phone with them (DOE officials) every day," Wilbur said.

The Aptera vehicle is classified as a motorcycle by the state of California because it's a three-wheeler (two in front, one in back). That enables it to use California's high-occupancy vehicle lanes with just one rider. Using three wheels also reduces weight and ground friction, significantly increasing mileage, the company says.

Aptera has been playing musical chairs with corporate headquarters as business strategies have been revised for the start-up. In 2006 and 2007, Aptera's founders had the company in Carlsbad, then moved it to Vista in 2008. It outgrew that plant and finally moved to Oceanside a year ago.

With its restructuring, Aptera hopes to close its plant in Oceanside by the end of May, and begin moving some workers to its new Carlsbad location by next week.

The price for the two-seat vehicle is expected to range from the high-$20,000s to the mid-$40,000s. Wilbur had previously said that Aptera would eventually employ 2,500 people. He also said 10,000 jobs would be created indirectly for component suppliers, retailers and other companies involved with Aptera.

Aptera Motors has raised tens of millions of dollars in private funding. Investors have included Pasadena-based Idealab and Google.org, the nonprofit philanthropic arm of search engine giant Google. Others were Corpus Christi-based Esenjay Petroleum Corp.; Newport Beach-based The Quercust Trust; and, the Beall Family Trust, headed by Donald Beall, retired chairman and chief executive of aerospace firm Rockwell International, which by 2001 had been split into two businesses.





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