Greenlight: Aptera's in house testing software

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Hello everyone, it's Steve. Um, Appar put out this video called Getting the Green Light Appar's end ofline testing tool and this was put out several days ago. I just got back from my trip not too long ago. Um, and so I thought we'd watch this video together cuz I thought it was pretty interesting.

[00:00:16]Every vehicle must be tested to know that for the customer it's going to be safe to operate and all the features deliver on what they >> All right, let's go back and look at there's a lot of stuff you can glean by looking at these screens. So, if you look at this, um, it's probably going to be hard to follow on this, but if you watch the original, you can see here, you can see the operator's name, Ty Leb better, and then this is stationer station 16. The vehicle is Atlas one.

[00:00:44]And you can read off the VIN number here. And you can see the test program filming with Adam. So, they're doing this for the film obviously, but you can see a green light. It looks like a textbased program. So, it's it looks like it's something that is um probably purposebuilt for a terra and looks like it was it's not like a fancy one with like a graphical interface. It's very like just get the job done. Um and I kind of like the nononsense approach.

[00:01:13]It's similar I think to these other programs like uh Vector Canoe um and Indigo and this is Verisan from National uh Instruments and then there's another one called configuration desk from DSpace. These are all software packages for testing the ECU and the LIN and the CAN buses and doing like vehicle testing. Um, my guess is that EPA looked at that those software packages and decided that they were too expensive and maybe overly complex for what they needed. What they're looking for is something to test everything, you know, like the the lights and the the brakes and the air handlers and, you know, the windows, all that kind. They they they need a standardized testing for it. And so, it looks like they developed one on their own. deliver on what they're looking for.

[00:02:08]My name is Charles Custin. I'm an embedded software engineer here.

[00:02:11]>> So, I didn't know what an embedded software engineer was. I'm sure many of you guys know what an embedded software engineer is. These guys um are people that code firmware. Basically, they code firmware for specific um hardware pieces. So instead of like creating software for like generalized computing systems, they they code like in usually in like lower level languages, they code firmware or specific hardware devices.

[00:02:36]So he evidently designed or coded or helped code this green light software.

[00:02:43]>> At Aera, I work on vehicle software and I've recently been working on an automation tool called Greenlight.

[00:02:49]Green.

[00:02:50]>> Okay. So if you look here, um let's let's go back a little bit.

[00:02:54]You can see here appar green light choose operator and then you see the names of um a bunch of people. We don't recognize most of these names. So these I think are the technicians that are building the Atlas vehicles. Um I think I met Andrew Stanton when I was there. But um yeah, these are so you can see they've hired a bunch of people.

[00:03:17]Okay, here's Charles Cust. That's the name of the engineer that designed Greenlight. Green light is a software program.

[00:03:25]>> Okay. So, if you look at this, what you see is there's blue bench and then you can see that you can there's a there's a test testing station at every station. Station zero, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.

[00:03:39]It goes all the way down. And later on the video, there's a screen where um you can see more you can see this screen much clearer.

[00:03:50]program designed to make our manufacturing line more efficient. It is an automation tool that allows us to validate our vehicles on our low volume validation line. It guides the operator through starting the vehicle in an automated fashion capturing over a,000 signals.

[00:04:10]>> Right. So, I think that this is this part must be a dummy test cuz like there's no data coming through. It's zero kilob bits per second. Then I think if we go here, so they're checking the firmware and you can see right here they're doing a ECU audit. They're looking at all the ECU and you can see all the different things. Look, it's like the left corner light, right corner light. I don't know what IP stands for. The air handler, underbody, rear, B-pillar, left, B-pillar, right, roof. Um, these are all LIN buses.

[00:04:40]Well, I think APA is using mostly LIN buses in and a more distributed uh master slave system rather than the traditional CAN bus. It's a little simpler and makes the wiring harnesses less involved.

[00:04:56]>> Thousand signals and comparing them to known values and then walks the oper >> and then you can see here um the ECU item there's AGM, BMS, SEC, I don't know what these stand for, but BMS obviously battery management system. atm I don't know is that the like the the gel battery or something not sure >> through over 60 manual tests that allows us to >> so they're yeah they're checking the windshield wipers the horn all kinds of stuff and so you know this this software I think makes it very simple for the technicians to just go to hit every box and check everything >> not only use computers to confirm that the functionality is correct but with human eyes validate that everything is operating as it should from external lighting, internal lighting.

[00:05:45]>> So, I don't know what this is. This is cool. He takes some kind of card and sticks it underneath there and it seems like that boots up the system.

[00:05:54]>> Control surfaces.

[00:05:56]>> Yeah. I don't know what that is.

[00:05:58]>> Turn signal inputs, hazard lights, safety features, as well as UI features such as Bluetooth audio.

[00:06:07]You can see here this test is a powertrain coolant pump. 50% then 100%.

[00:06:12]It says pump runs at 50% for 5 seconds and then ramps to 100% until you press PF. And so it kind of guides the technicians through every test and then the software runs the test and then it collects the data for the test.

[00:06:28]>> Before green light we >> and you can see here right here it says air handler air direction face.

[00:06:35]He would enter a vehicle with a test.

[00:06:38]>> And then this says air handler, air direction, feet. So yeah, they're testing the air handler here >> plan and a goal for cover.

[00:06:45]>> And here it says air handler direction defrost >> covering certain features. And that was a very manual process.

[00:06:51]>> And then you can see here like fresh air, recycled air >> of performing the tests, consulting procedures, recording the results and then communicating that to team members.

[00:07:01]With Greenlight, that effort is streamlined because the the capturing of data and the procedures are all in one place. There's much less context switching to allow for the testing to be completed much quicker. We've been calling this our end of line tool, but it's really a tool that can be operated.

[00:07:22]>> Okay. So, yeah, see here you can see um every station here. So you see blue bench which is the standalone lab verification the station zero pre-line receiving station one that's the surfboard the body wheels drivetrain cooling major systems high voltage battery harness uh station 9 doesn't have a name here and station 10 is electrical 11 is interior rear lighting is set at 12 lighting is at 13 14 and 15 don't have anything and then 16 is controls and 17 is end of line. So there are 17 stations here >> at any station on the assembly line. You can choose what station.

[00:08:07]>> Okay, this I think is the coolest part of the whole thing. Um, you can test type the last digits of the VIN and you'll see here the vehicle test program they have sequence 6 7 8 9 and so you see Hermes Apollo Gemini Atlas 1 2 3 going down line with their full VIN number. So it the software is keeping track of every vehicle and and is um is saving the test results for every single vehicle at every station >> you're at and then the testing that's provided is limited to what's been installed at that point. So green light allows us to see where we are at any point along the assembly line. And even after a vehicle has been completed and it's left the line, we get snapshots in time of what our performance is. It allows our technicians to test each and every vehicle from a digital point of view, analog point of view, safety point of view, user interface point of view and communicate that information from the assembly for to the engineers up to management. After every test run, the data is uploaded to us.

[00:09:21]>> All right, so here's the thing. You can tell here this is like BMS information.

[00:09:25]You see like the nominal voltages are like in the high fours 4.95 volts and the next screen shows like solar stuff >> server where it can be reviewed by our team. In this dashboard we can see our entire fleet and every test that has been run on every vehicle.

[00:09:41]>> Okay. So that's a cool statement that he says. So from that dashboard they have data for every vehicle that they've manufactured and that they will manufacture.

[00:09:52]And then here's the other here's another shot at this screen where they're looking at the ECU units AGM BMS and all the LIN uh the LIN buses.

[00:10:03]>> So at that point we can compare runs. We can look and see how the latest run compared to our previous run and we can see not only what happened today but what happened in the past.

[00:10:13]>> Right? So they can go back and see, oh, like our testing was better, it was faster, the vehicles were, you know, were passing the tests uh more efficiently. Those kinds of things. I mean, that's like really good information that they're getting from this. One of the major problems that Greenlight solves is repeatability.

[00:10:31]Unlike other manufacturers, if you look around our our warehouse, you won't find robot arms. You'll find real engineers and real technicians working on the vehicles. Greenlight allows us to get much more repeatability and consistency through our testing and and that's extremely important for us. So creating this tool was a way to accomplish those goals to put the power in the hands of the tech technicians and the validation line to do their their jobs on a daily basis. I walked in the building and I could hear the sounds playing. It definitely put a a smile on my face. It feels good to see that it's it's being used and that it's it's actually helping and and making a positive impact.

[00:11:15]>> Okay. So, I I felt really good after watching this video because you can see that they've developed their own software. They're using their capital wisely. They're not spending a ton of money on like these big software packages. and they have a very like nononsense utilitarian um program that they've created that specifically tests the vehicle and then they're like really cool. They keep that track of all that data for the every vehicle that they're doing and they run a comprehensive line of tests. You know, they're testing like every part of the thing and it makes it easy it seems like for the technicians to like hook in the laptop, start up the software and it just guides them through every single point so that like nothing is missed.

[00:11:56]So, really cool. Um, didn't re even realize they were doing something like that, but yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Tell me what you guys think in the comments below. Uh, thanks for watching, guys. Um, hopefully there's more stuff that we can talk about on this channel. Um, I'm back for a little while and so I should be a little more engaged over the next couple of weeks at least. All right. Hope everyone's doing well. Have a great day everyone.