Four videos have surfaced showing what is understood to be the destructive aftermath following news of Aptera's closure last week. Without knowing for certain what's happening, the videos appear to depict employees (or former employees) laughing as they trash prototype bodyshells of the three-wheeled, hyper-efficient vehicle.
Using a forklift, the people in the videos crush a bodyshell against the wall, drop on from on high and then put it into a dumpster. At the end of the first video, someone says, "None of this shit ends up on YouTube." In another, an off-screen voice asks, "How much do you think these videos are worth?" Well, now that they're publicly available, not much, but at the very least, these videos suggest that the shells were pretty sturdy. That's worth something, right?
This all has the potential to go from bad to worse very quickly. Steve Fambro, Former Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Aptera, wrote on the Aptera forum that, "There is no viable or logical reason for this to have been done, only to prevent the founders from ever seeing their functioning works again."
Earlier, Aptera co-founder Chris Anthony wrote on the Aptera forum that the overall plan for the company once it went out of business was to put the assets into:
a trust with a very well respected Managed Liquidation Company. Their responsibility is to maximize the value of the remaining assets for the benefit of debt and share holders. There are no employees at Aptera and no Board of Directors. Everything that is Aptera, in terms of assets and IP, are now held by the Managed Liquidation Company.
This process to establish how the liquidation will occur has begun, but will take several weeks to be fully defined. Eventually, the assets will be auctioned off to the highest bidder to do with what they choose.
It is the responsibility of the managed liquidation company to protect Aptera's assets and maximize their value now. They were there when the doors were closed and hold the only access to these assets now.
Nothing will be destroyed, taken away, or otherwise impacted in a way that value will be decreased.