Growth is good. That's why we're excited to announce that our team is expanding in a major way and will continue to do so as we gear up to build thousands of Typ–1s. For now, we thought it would be appropriate to shine a light on our very first hires'three of them, actually. And if you'd also like to be part of the Aptera team, click on our job listings link below. |
Kurt is our suspension guy, among many other things. A massively talented integration engineer, he was part of the original team of five that designed and tested the Aptera Mk0 prototype in 2006. When he's not problem-solving all things mechanical (no easy feat at a place like Aptera), he's hard at work as the lead engineer on the Typ-1's state-of-the-art suspension system. Not only does he make sure that the dynamics are on point, but because much of the suspension is exposed, he works closely with our in-house CFD aerodynamicist to make sure it's sleek and aerodynamic, too.
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We're looking forward to moving into the new building, because we're growing fast and it's definitely getting cramped. In the past month or so, we've jumped to 30 people on staff. In the corner area that I share with Director of Engineering Mark Nibbe and co-founder and COO Chris Anthony, we've just made room for two more: Chris's new puppy Dexter, and our new SVP of Program Management and Manufacturing, Neil Hannemann. (Check out AutoWeek's article on Neil).
We're really excited to have Neil on the team. He's responsible for taking our final design and pushing through validation and crash testing, all the way to manufacturing, just like he did with the Ford GT and the Viper....did I mention he's also a professional race car driver? No doubt, Aptera is bringing all of his skills to bear to not only get the Typ-I into production on time, but to make it handle great too!
It's a good thing the new space will be ready soon, because by the end of the year we'll be up to 70 people - more than double what we have now. We're bringing on a bunch of fabricators and machinists, some engineers, electrical technicians, and composites people. Right now, our composites team are busy cranking out parts and making lots of Typ-I's, but you'll never see them. They're being crushed and otherwise destructively tested, and it's all happening here. So we need all the composites experts we can get.
You see, we made the decision to make the doors and the roof of the Typ-I much, much stronger than what's specified by law for a passenger vehicle. We want the Typ-I t be renowned not only for its remarkable performance and efficiency, but its safety too. One of the ways we've done that is to look at the federal safety regulations and ask not how we meet them, but how do we *beat* them, and beat them by a comfortable margin. To do that, we need to test and inspect a variety of different manufacturing conditions and materials. And thus, we've built a testing lab in house just for that purpose, and we're constantly expanding our safety and testing team.
We'll be making some more announcements soon, like our new CMO and other positions. We've got a world-class product and it makes our job pretty easy when it comes to recruiting world-class talent.
Talk to ya soon,
Steve
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