They are skirting the “street legal” and safety stuff by making an electric motorcycle instead of a car. Months (years?) ago I read something about how they are planning to tackle helmet laws in court because of this. Accident safety features are heavy, this thing is going to be a death trap on US roads in order to be as light as possible.
Overall I think that’s the right move, but I wouldn’t get in rush hour traffic in this thing.
I get the criticism of the cyber truck, and the hummer EV is ridiculous, but why do the R1T and Silverado EV not count as trucks? R1T is an expensive but great midsize go anywhere truck. Silverado EV is a range king and a little flat looking, but still 100% “truck”. Lightning is just the all around best value of a truck. I say this as a lightning owner, there are options in this market.
Good thing they aren’t on your roads then, being that you’re not American, and therefore not in either of the metropolitan areas they operate. They are on my roads however, I see them all the time. I see constant terrible driving from all kinds of people, but these things are patient and I don’t think I’ve personally seen one make a mistake.
By referring to their current stage of deployment as a public beta like it’s a bad thing you show a ton of ignorance on how testing cycles work as well. No amount of alpha testing would make these safe for broad deployment into real world scenarios that test designers can’t dream up. This is exactly the type of slow roll out that is required to get as much real experiences as possible to be programmed for.
I have no doubt these things aren’t perfect, but they are a lot better than an overworked and tired human being the wheel.
I’ve been in software for more than 20 years now. I’ve done some pretty innovative things from time to time. There is nothing I have ever done or seen in any proprietary code base at any company I’ve ever worked at that isn’t at every other company. The only unique thing at any company is how all the puzzle pieces get connected. It’s pure ego to think that any idea you have in that now open source project is unique or what’s giving you any competitive advantage in your other projects.
I’ve watched plenty of their videos. Despite how you took my message, I’m actually very excited and hope they make it to full production. But if you think that thing is going to be safe enough when some a-hole in a Tahoe t-bones you, you’re going to be very disappointed. The problem isn’t the Aptera, it’s the ridiculous sized SUVs already on the road.