The first production body of Aptera’s solar EV has arrived at its San Diego headquarters

Aptera Motors is touting its latest milestone en route to solar EV production later this year. The first production body of its flagship vehicle has made its way over from Italy to Aptera’s headquarters in San Diego, enabling the team to finalize its design ahead of production-intent builds.

It’s been almost two weeks since our latest Aptera Motors update, so we figured you readers were due for some news. No, production is not yet underway, sorry. However, it’s one step closer!

As we reported at the beginning of the month, Aptera has been gearing up for production-intent solar EV builds at its California headquarters and across the pond with its supply partner CPC Group in Italy.

According to co-CEO Chris Anthony at the time, Aptera’s first production body structure had successfully been bonded together and was making its way to Carlsbad, California, to be finalized with several key solar EV components.

As anticipated, the production-intent body has made its way safely to Aptera’s headquarters, and the solar EV startup shared some fun images of the milestone. Check it out.

Aptera shared the image above in a recent post on X, showcasing its team having some fun inside the production-intent build after it was unboxed at its headquarters in Carlsbad. The post also included the following caption:

We had so much fun last week celebrating a company milestone — the arrival of Aptera’s first production body in San Diego. Now Team Aptera is back to work finalizing the cable routing, connectors, and placement of components in preparation for our first PI (Production Intent) Builds.

The caption is on par with details Chris Anthony shared earlier this month, as local finalization of cable routing and other components remains a vital precursor to assembling and testing drivable, production-intent solar EVs.

This completed body could serve as the backbone of the “PI-2,” a solar EV built out of its headquarters. Anthony describes it as Aptera’s first solar EV operating with a production-intent drivetrain, frame, safety structure, and suspension.

Aptera’s battery team also recently ordered parts to build its first full packs, which should be implemented in PI-2. Per Anthony, other non-structural body parts are being validated in Italy as the tooling process, and production-intent builds should continue “in the coming months.”

Our eyes will be on Aptera’s headquarters, and we hope to see a production-intent solar EV built and begin road testing soon. Stay tuned to Electrek for more Aptera updates, and as always, you can still reserve your own Aptera EV today for $70 down.