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Speaker 2: Driven by the Sun and looking like it belongs in
Speaker 2: outer space. At Terra Motors is a solar mobility company.
Speaker 2: For I'm back in twenty nineteen. It is based on
Speaker 2: its website, still in the testing phase, but we wanted
Speaker 2: to find out exactly what they're up to and where
Speaker 2: they're headed. Chris Anthony's co CEO. It is a one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty two million dollar market cap company at
Speaker 2: Terra Motors. The company is based in Carlsbad, California, and
Speaker 2: that's exactly where we find Chris. The microcap, by the
Speaker 2: way down about thirty one percent from its direct listing
Speaker 2: on the NASDAC earlier this year. Hey Chris, good to
Speaker 2: have you here with Matt and myself. I know he's
Speaker 2: going to take over in one minute because he's our
Speaker 2: car guy or one of our car guys. But tell
Speaker 2: us a little bit about where the company is. You're
Speaker 2: in your what sixth year? Tell us about where the
Speaker 2: car is, where you're going, you're on the road, you're testing,
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Terra's currently in final validation and we're looking to
Speaker 3: press into full production in twenty twenty six, and it's
Speaker 3: just exciting to see the vehicle come together and see
Speaker 3: solar mobility finally on the road.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about this interview earlier today, and you know,
Speaker 1: clearly the current zeitgeist is not what you would consider
Speaker 1: pro solar car. The administration seems not to be the
Speaker 1: biggest fan of alternative energy or renewable energy. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, they've given you a ton of what I
Speaker 1: must believe are very incentivizing tax rules in the current
Speaker 1: one big beautiful bill, especially if you're going to manufacture
Speaker 1: in this country, which you are right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're manufacturing in Carlsbag, California. But you know, there
Speaker 3: is a globe supply chain for vehicles like this, and
Speaker 3: we hope that, you know, there's enough investment in the
Speaker 3: US to bring more and more of that supply chain.
Speaker 3: You know, over in time, what.
Speaker 1: Are the critical pieces that you need, like what do
Speaker 1: you need to import and pay tariffs on and what
Speaker 1: can you get from this country in order to build
Speaker 1: your car.
Speaker 3: You know, initially we partnered with LG Kim and a
Speaker 3: company called CT and S in Korea to make our
Speaker 3: battery packs, but we're bringing cell manufacture over to Tennessee
Speaker 3: and bring the equipment over to manufacture our battery packs
Speaker 3: here in Carlsbag, California. So that's been assisted by California
Speaker 3: Energy Commission grant and we hope to you know, have
Speaker 3: all that production here in the US, hopefully by the
Speaker 3: end of twenty twenty six, maybe twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: What's the most difficult aspect of what you're doing and
Speaker 2: trying to create a market essentially for it and then
Speaker 2: ramp up What is the trickiest part right here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, most companies start with a minimum viable
Speaker 3: product and transportation, you know, it's kind of about the
Speaker 3: styling of the vehicle and how many cup holders it has,
Speaker 3: how many passengers. That's not really where we started. We
Speaker 3: started with how do we make the most efficient transportation possible?
Speaker 3: And then it became this solar powered masterpiece that we
Speaker 3: have now. But we really didn't know what kind of
Speaker 3: market there was. We weren't able to study the market
Speaker 3: for something that didn't exist, so we kind of had
Speaker 3: to just build what we wanted to bring to the
Speaker 3: world and then hope that people really liked it. And luckily,
Speaker 3: within the first couple weeks of announcing it, we had
Speaker 3: over four thousand orders. Now we have almost fifty thousand
Speaker 3: orders for the app Tarra, And you know, we think
Speaker 3: people are really excited about transportation built for efficiency's sake,
Speaker 3: and something that can be solar powered, something that you
Speaker 3: never have to worry about putting gas in at, something
Speaker 3: you never have to worry about plugging it in.
Speaker 2: Do you have to worry about range?
Speaker 3: The standard version of the app Era gets four hundred
Speaker 3: miles of range, plus it gets the solar charging that
Speaker 3: it gets every day just by leaving it out in
Speaker 3: the sun. But we do offer larger range. Models of
Speaker 3: our app tear up to one thousand miles of.
Speaker 1: Range, So that's easily enough for like my daily commute.
Speaker 1: The car looks really, I mean, it looks cool, looks weird,
Speaker 1: looks different. It's a three wheeler. I guess that would
Speaker 1: be so that you can classify it as a motorcycle.
Speaker 1: Correct me if I'm wrong. And you've got these outboard
Speaker 1: fenders on the front, two wheels and then one wheel
Speaker 1: in the back. Tell us about the design yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, what most people don't realize is that sixty
Speaker 3: to seventy percent of your fuel that highway speeds just
Speaker 3: goes to pushing air out of the way if you're
Speaker 3: in a typical suv or sedan. So we started, you know,
Speaker 3: with aerodynamics when it comes to making transportation more efficient.
Speaker 3: That's why it looks more like a fish than a box.
Speaker 3: And with something that looks so unique, also want to
Speaker 3: eliminate any weight you can, so it's very light weight
Speaker 3: and that made it three wheels, so there's less rolling resistance,
Speaker 3: less weight, and that three wheels has some unique advantages
Speaker 3: and that we're classified as a motorcycle. But because it's
Speaker 3: three wheels, you don't have to have a motorcycle's license.
Speaker 3: Because you have something over your head, you don't have
Speaker 3: to wear a helmet. And in California, evs are no
Speaker 3: longer allowed. Brought us admission to the HOV lane, the
Speaker 3: Highacops Vehicle lane, so we'll be the only EV that's
Speaker 3: able to drive in the HOV lane without any restrictions.
Speaker 1: So that's interesting that you can get you can sort
Speaker 1: of weave through different regulations with a three wheeled vehicle,
Speaker 1: and that's why You've seen some of the coolest experimental vehicles,
Speaker 1: from the Morgan three wheeler to this Apptara car. It's
Speaker 1: got us room for two people inside right, as well
Speaker 1: as I guess luggage or a pet or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to bring along. What's it like when you're driving around?
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody must be rubber.
Speaker 2: How come you haven't driven one yet? Yeah?
Speaker 1: How come I haven't driven one yet?
Speaker 3: Chris? Well, we need to get you in one soon, Matt.
Speaker 3: It's it's a pleasure to drive. It's super super quiet.
Speaker 3: It's kind of eerily quiet because a lot of the
Speaker 3: noise you hear in a typical suv or sedan is
Speaker 3: win noise buffeting off the vehicle at higher speeds. But
Speaker 3: because the Aptera cuts through the wind so nicely, you
Speaker 3: don't really get a lot of that. So it's very
Speaker 3: different kind of driving experience. It's quick, it's zero to
Speaker 3: sixty and five seconds, top speed one hundred miles an hour,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's definitely something that gets attention. If
Speaker 3: you are an introvert to maybe this is not the
Speaker 3: vehicle for you initially, because any Starbucks that you pull
Speaker 3: up to, you're gonna you're gonna bring a crowd, but
Speaker 3: you can.
Speaker 1: Take it off the beaten path, right. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've seen the website because I recall pictures
Speaker 1: of maybe the Aptara on a beach or in the woods.
Speaker 1: It comes with or you can buy I guess camping
Speaker 1: gear or a kit that goes along with it so
Speaker 1: that you can get out there. And plus the fact
Speaker 1: that it's solar charging, you can charge with the sun
Speaker 1: up to forty miles a day, right, means that you
Speaker 1: can really take it off the grid.
Speaker 3: It's a little deceptive on the storage. There's actually thirty
Speaker 3: five cubic feet of storage in the back. If you
Speaker 3: put the front seat forward and the passenger side, you
Speaker 3: have seven feet of space from the tail of the tip,
Speaker 3: so you can put surfboards back there, mountain bikes. You
Speaker 3: can actually leave the hatch up, and there's a camping
Speaker 3: kit where there's a tent that goes over the back
Speaker 3: of the vehicle so you can camp to people comfortably.
Speaker 3: But most importantly, it's very cool to think that you
Speaker 3: can drive two hundred miles to your favorite camping spot,
Speaker 3: you can camp for a week, and you can come
Speaker 3: back with more energy in your app tear than you
Speaker 3: left with. Unless allan or no, it does get less
Speaker 3: solar production. You know, if it's super cloudy or if
Speaker 3: it rains. You know, if it's cloudy, you can count
Speaker 3: on maybe half of the energy production. You know, if
Speaker 3: it's a white out snow, obviously you're not going to
Speaker 3: get much solar. But it's really a whole new vehicle category,
Speaker 3: a vehicle that creates its own fuel. There's never been
Speaker 3: anything like it where you purchased the vehicle and you're
Speaker 3: also purchasing a lifetime's worth of fuel with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hey, we're talking with Chris Anthony Co, chief executive
Speaker 2: officer of Eptera Motors, joining us from Carlsbad, California. You know,
Speaker 2: I mentioned that the company began in twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 2: it's really like an iteration of a company that goes
Speaker 2: back a while. I think goes back to actually two
Speaker 2: thousand and six. It was a company. I think it liquidated,
Speaker 2: it came back as a second company, and now it's
Speaker 2: the third company. Is there anything like if someone you know, googles,
Speaker 2: they might be like, God, this feels a little uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Anything that connects you to kind of the history of
Speaker 2: this company from day one.
Speaker 3: Hey, you know, I met Steve Fambreau in two thousand
Speaker 3: and five. He had a vision for how to make
Speaker 3: vehicles more efficient. It was a bit perplexed that there
Speaker 3: are some vehicles on the road that you would think
Speaker 3: should be efficient. You know things that look aerodynamic. You
Speaker 3: know a VW bug. Why doesn't that get more more
Speaker 3: than fifty miles per gallon? It really all comes down
Speaker 3: to the aerodynamic losses, the weight losses. So how would
Speaker 3: you make the most efficient vehicle possible? And that's what
Speaker 3: Steve and I set out to bring advanced engineering too,
Speaker 3: is if you really tackle the problem from our first
Speaker 3: engineering principles perspective, and what do you end up with?
Speaker 3: You end up with a vehicle looks more like a fish.
Speaker 3: It's about two thousand pounds, it has three wheels, and
Speaker 3: it has an electric power train. That's the most efficient
Speaker 3: way to get energy to the wheels. You know, by happenstance,
Speaker 3: we created something that gets some three hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: miles per gallon equivalent. And when you do that, you
Speaker 3: can put a relatively small solar package on top but
Speaker 3: get really useful range. We get about forty miles a
Speaker 3: day of free power just from leaving the apptar out
Speaker 3: in the sun. So if you're like the average American
Speaker 3: and you only drive thirty miles a day, forty miles
Speaker 3: a day of solar charging is great. You just never
Speaker 3: have to plug the vehicle in, You just leave it
Speaker 3: outside and takes care of all your average driving needs.
Speaker 2: So, Chris, is this something that you really see for
Speaker 2: local driving? I'm curious if it taps out at sixty
Speaker 2: five miles an hour or is it does it? How
Speaker 2: fast can it go? And can it be on highways
Speaker 2: or what's your vmax?
Speaker 1: Dude? Thank you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're the suspension handling characteristics are great. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a very spirited drive there to sixty and five seconds,
Speaker 3: but you're actually faster, you know, at the upper ends
Speaker 3: of the speed. You know, thirty to sixty you know
Speaker 3: is faster and a top speed of one hundred miles
Speaker 3: an hour. So definitely driving it on the highway. It's
Speaker 3: it's made to be a Southern California vehicle. You know,
Speaker 3: lots of sun out here. It's made to be more
Speaker 3: than you know, just a commuter vehicle. You can you know,
Speaker 3: take it and you know, do the family shopping. You can,
Speaker 3: you know, pick up the kids from the school. You can,
Speaker 3: you know, do a lot with this vehicle. In terms
Speaker 3: of usability.
Speaker 1: I also see that it can fit individuals of up
Speaker 1: to six foot eight, which is important for me.
Speaker 2: Because you're six I'm six four.
Speaker 1: But I want I need leg room, right I don't.
Speaker 1: I get claustrophobic and normal cars and planes, so I
Speaker 1: need my space. And by the ways, you're to sixteen
Speaker 1: five seconds. When I was in college, that was what
Speaker 1: a nine to eleven was doing. So that's respectable, really respectable.
Speaker 1: I mean there's still a lot of cars they can't
Speaker 1: do that. Of course, you got the instant Torquere getting
Speaker 1: up to one hundred miles an hour. I rarely exceed
Speaker 1: that speed when I'm driving to and from work. I
Speaker 1: try to come close when there's nobody around. How many
Speaker 1: orders have you got for this? I mean, how many
Speaker 1: people do you think you're going to sell this car
Speaker 1: to when it goes into final production?
Speaker 2: Just got twenty seconds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got almost fifty thousand orders, but we hope
Speaker 3: to deliver up to a million Avtara in the next
Speaker 3: ten years. It took Tesla thirteen years to deliver their
Speaker 3: million vehicles. We hope to do it in ten Well.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for that, to try it out and
Speaker 2: report back, and then you can come back on with us.
Speaker 2: Chris Chris Anthony co CEO of Afterra Mortars joining US