Is Aptera Blowing Their Chance?
 

Is it really a good idea to have the beautiful and efficient design held hostage by batteries? No matter how slick it is, the vehicle simply won’t go very far on a charge. As a practical matter that makes it a strictly urban car. Slow speeds, stop and go.

In such an environment, the Aptera’s excellent aerodynamics are nearly neutralized. An electric xBox or Smart would be just as good in an urban environment – if not better.

The Aptera would really shine at freeway speeds. But freeways are for the guys with the long commutes. 30-40 miles one-way. The Aptera simply would not go that far on one charge and batteries simply need to recharge overnight. People who buy them as commuter cars are gonna be really bummed when the thing is out of juice three quarters of the way home. Poor battery performance is what killed the EV1.

The beautiful and effective aerodynamics of the Aptera did not come without paying a price. The thing cannot be cheap to make. Bodywork repairs will be exorbitant. Everytime a Civic or xBox hits an Aptera, the Aptera is probably totaled. It is certainly not capacious.

Aptera should be pushing the ICE (preferably diesel) version first instead of the electric. If a diesel Aptera could routinely get 125 MPG in commuter service, I would think there is a hellacious market for cars that could handle a 50 mile one-way commute with four gallons a week.

An Aptera powered by an ICE would be the least expensive version, and the most versatile version.

An Aptera with an engine could have a heater and proper AC and you could sell to a much wider area.

I still wonder about calling it a motorcycle. Will Ohio buyers have to wear helmets while driving an Aptera?

As we’ve seen, the auto biz is a rough neighborhood. Totally Darwinian. You can prosper for a century and still disappear overnight. One mistake is too many for a startup.

First, interesting post.

According to Jay Leno's video, it's like driving the helmet.

The businesses did not disappear overnight at all. They had been having problems they didn't confront, while paying enormous pension plans. They also weren't producing cars people liked as much. They're still going down slower than I'd like them to

I, too, worry about this, Dave. My wife has a 37 mile commute (each way) and it's 90% highway. If Aptera made a 4 door 2x2 seater, she'd probably be persuadable to buy one. I would love one, but my commute is 15 miles each way, my car already gets 40+ mpg, and I ride my bike once a week. Hard to justify.
Also, I thought the design could be altered a bit to include some bumpers for small crash protection of the body with a minimal aero hit.

Big Dave -

I wish the Aptera was an ICE too. They did look at a diesel, but they stated that they couldn't meet CA emissions standards.

I speculate that their motivation was to go for the Automotive X-Prize. I think they wanted a slam-dunk home-run in terms of MPG, so they went for an electric or hybrid. This detail in their brochure supports my claim :

http://www.aptera.com/brochure/APTER...E_BROCHURE.pdf (page 4)
From an incremental-step POV, I'll bet they could have used a Kei-car 660cc drivetrain as a base for a Gen-1 version. Or, how about a Smart drivetrain? Then, use the success from that to move to the hybrid and electric drivetrains.

I wonder what a small ICE from a pre-existing car would have done for their UMC (unit manufacturing cost)?

CarloSW2

Hello Dave,

I don't think that it is the battery that is holding them up -- it is more likely to be the roll down door windows, and the associated changes in the aerodynamics. They have increased the battery capacity -- it will be between 17 and 23 kWh, but I'm not sure that this is adding unduly to the delivery time.

The gas version is supposed to be a ~600cc engine from an undisclosed Japanese microcar, and so things like cooling the radiator, and the transmission setup are new design issues -- and they would still have to solve the roll down windows, too.

I thought the aptera was also going to be available in a plug-in hybrid. Or was that scraped?

Obviously the aptera is a niche car and most people will think it is strange. It is not the car for everyone.

Hi,

No, the 2h is still going to happen...

Do you have to have roll down?

It's a pity they dont have a diesel on the cards. A small diesel doing hardly any work would need almost no radiator. My yaris has a mobile phone sized opening to the radiator. The yaris, i'm sure, requires much more energy to push it that an aptera. So the radiator opening on a diesel aptera would be tiny. Maybe smaller than the cabin vent?
Regarding the battery life of the aptera, i don't know the figures but given how little energy it takes to move it, it should do well. The likes of the EV1 or the tesla are reasonably conventially shaped cars. They have four wheels too, not three like the aptera. So the range of the aptera should be much better than other current ev cars. Unless the battery pack in the aptera is smaller?

ollie

According to Jay Leno, the battery didn't decrease like other electric cars while he was driving so the claims on distance are accurate at last

I argued with Aptera about making a diesel or a 3 seater, they are only focused on CA at the moment, if they would start selling outside CA they should definately make the diesel version they made initially prior to this hybrid nonsense.

The diesel overall did better than their hybrid long term.

Also something the diesel folks never touch is the fact that diesel exhaust can be cleaned up to CO2 & water using tapwater to clean the exhaust, even more effective with driveway salt mixed in, it would be irritating to change water but heck its cheap? My father had to change water for years on the diesel orecars he drove underground.

THeir overall design and cost should be cheaper with a diesel, too bad they lost interest.

It doesn't do you much good to win the X-Prize if your company goes the way of the Bricklin, DeLorean, or Tucker. In fact, deliberately pursuing some goofball prize at the cost of corporate survival is a betrayal of the concept.

One thing that killed those three marques was the fact they could not get an acceptable engine at reasonable cost. Things are more competitive these days. With demand way less than capacity, Aptera could get a small engine at a reasonable cost.

ice
 

I thought the whole premise of the Aptera was to be a diesel-powered high-mpg vehicle.My apology for not keeping current.In the Air Force I used the term "assumed" in front of a 1st-Sargent and I thought I'd never hear the end of that.Looks like I can no longer "presume" that anything will turn out as mentioned in the press.My hope was that Aptera would push the public mind into a new paradigm,embracing rational commuter vehicle design.Has Aptera lost the pair-of-dimes necessary to underwrite that?

aerohead -

I never assumed it would be a diesel. I thought "hybrid first", but capable of any drivetrain that could fit into the engine bay. It's original RWD configuration screamed for a (Tri-Magnum style) motorcycle option.

I agree with the paradigm shift, but I think it's mostly a shift in terms of no-compromise aerodynamics that can (eventually) translate into "pretty" in the mind of the consumer. To me it's basically a wingless Beechcraft. Even the front wheels look like fixed "aero-covered" landing gears.

Also, if you satisfy California emissions, you satisfy *all* markets. The company's based in California, after all.

CarloSW2

I don't understand the concern about a 30 or 40 mile commute with a vehicle like this. Eight years ago I had a US built vehicle (GMs EV-1) that had a range of 120 miles. My commute was only about 40 miles per day but I could have easily commuted 90 miles each way with the car. On my longest day my boss and I went off to an out of town meeting in the car and that day I covered about 240 miles in the car. (We drove off to the meeting and charged the car while we talked and drove back after charging. Granted it was a long meeting.) It is a bit of shift in thinking but the EV-1 typically had a 120 mile range every time I got into it because it was typically on the charger either at work or at home. Now, it is common for me to get into a car with only a 30 mile range and have to stop to fill up. I wouldn't hesitate to use a car like the Aptera for a long commute.

Only if we ignore the extra $30,000 in cost, of which a small part, maybe $5,000 or so, could probably upgrade the Aptera to a larger pack.

Besides, it isn't as if we're talking about a huge difference in range. An eBox weighs in at a bit less than twice what the Aptera weighs, and has twice the drag coefficient as well as ~1.5-2 times the reference area, so even with a 35kWh pack, in the city it's probably equivalent to a ~13-15kWh pack in an Aptera. The stated pack sizing for the Aptera seems to be ~10-13kWh, so you're really splitting hairs IMO. The only place it would make a huge difference is when the vehicle isn't moving w/ the AC and accessories on, and even then the Aptera may fare well since it's composite body won't transmit as much energy to the cab and it has to heat/cool less than twice as much interior.

Hi,

The current spec on the Aptera battery pack is 17-23kWh, and the stated range is 100+ miles with two adults, luggage, on the highway, and the A/C on. So, 120 miles should be easy with one adult and no A/C; and more if speeds are lower or ecodriving is employed -- who knows?

Shoot, w/ a 17-23kWh pack they'll blow stuff like the ebox out of the water in terms of range. A vehicle with about half the weight, one less wheel, and less than half of the CdA will still perform better than something like the ebox with half the energy all other things being roughly equal, basic physniks.

An even greater problem for Aptera, and for that matter any other competitor in the FE race is what do you register it as. If it's a car then they have to deal with all those pesky government regulations such as crash standards, etc. I know of one person in the Seattle area creating an all electric kit car that will be registered as a motorcycle (1200# empty) to avoid regulation. You notice Aptera calls it a vehicle and not a car.

Back to the question, gasoline would be about the easiest conversion to make. I hope I'm wrong, but I fear "unusual" designs like the Aptera will suffer a similar fate as the Segway. People as a whole are mostly conservative when it comes to parting with large sums of money.

The practical side to FE is that with the growing standard of living globally and the increase in automobiles, there is just not going to be enough oil to power them all. It doesn't take a genius to know that with future fossil fuels being in short supply electricity is the only real solution. Which by the way is right where Aptera is situated. :cool:

Having three wheels is not a savings. Rolling resistance is almost linear with weight. A trike is theoretically a bit lighter, and usually more streamlined, but the wheels all have to break trail on wet or soft surfaces, and they don't draft behind each other.