Aptera has officially announced a repair network partnership which will give owners of its upcoming solar electric car access to thousands of repair shops nationwide.
Aptera is an old name in the EV industry at this point, but it’s one that hasn’t yet shipped a vehicle.
We recently got a chance to drive the Aptera solar EV and tour the company’s factory, and came away both impressed at the progress that has been made, but cognizant of the long road ahead for the company.
The plan is to ship an ultra-efficient three-wheeled electric car which is covered with solar panels – enough to get a meaningful amount of range back every day, potentially enabling some users to never even have to plug in.
But, since the idea has been around for so long, and yet the company hasn’t yet shipped product, there has been some skepticism among the EV faithful. This isn’t helped by the fact that the initial incarnation of Aptera folded in 2011, only to be brought back to life in 2019 by its original founders.
One question that often gets raised in reference to EV startups is how owners get service on their vehicles, especially those from a small company. Successful companies like Tesla and Rivian have grown an in-house service network as they have grown their national and international footprint, but smaller companies need to find some other solution.
And, for those who’ve been around the EV industry for a while, there have been a number of startups that have shipped product and then folded, and the question of repair options is often an open one. Sometimes a group of owners can set something up, but sometimes it’s more difficult (see: the Coda owner who I saw at AltCar Expo in ~2013 wearing a sandwich board stating “Coda owner looking for a friend”).
So to waylay those fears, Aptera announced a partnership today that unlocks access to 4,300 service shops across the US, through a company called RepairPal. Aptera had been working on this partnership when we saw them at our factory tour, but today they’re ready to officially announce it.
RepairPal doesn’t own its own shops, but instead certifies local shops to work on particular models of car. You can search for local shops through its website (although, when I do this, lots of shops come up as “Tesla certified” for my car, but as I have a Roadster, I’m sure most of them have never seen one…). All shops will get access to Aptera-specific service procedures.
However it’s possible that not every one of these shops will be certified to work on every aspect of your Aptera. For example, only about 200 of those shops are currently certified to work on high-voltage EV batteries. That’s still quite a chunk of service availability for a small startup, and other shops will be able to do more basic work like hinges, tires, brakes and so on.
So all in all, a useful thing for future Aptera owners to be reassured that service will be available, but we’ll have to wait until the cars are on the road to see just how the service experience plays out. At the very least, the company is being proactive at providing something that it doesn’t yet have the breadth to provide in-house, which is admirable.
In other news, Aptera did recently earn its EPA “Certificate of Conformity,” a regulatory step required for all vehicles. While this is an important step, it’s not nearly as big a deal as receiving Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) certification, which Aptera is still waiting on.
FMVSS ensures that a vehicle conforms with the myriad safety rules for vehicles on US roads, and while Aptera has fewer safety rules it has to follow due to it technically being classified as an “autocycle” which is treated more like a motorcycle than a car, it still has to conform to lots of FMVSS rules. Validation on that front is still upcoming.
Aptera is taking reservations now for $100 a pop. If you want to get in line, you can use our Aptera Referral Link for $30 off the refundable reservation fee.
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