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