Aptera on Jay Leno's Garage.

[Christ]

So which one of your "not an ecomodder" friends do you think would buy the "Rocket Car"?

THAT'S why they don't do it. We think it's cool, but read the general consensus anywhere else, and people think much differently about it's streamlined shape. The average person (which we do not represent in this case) would probably not drive it, buy it, even consider it as a second car.

No offense, basjoos, I personally think what you've done is a great advancement, but there's a reason that not many have followed.

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by basjoos

A hybrid system gives little FE benefit (and can actually hurt FE a bit due to the added weight of the hybrid system) if most of your driving is highway miles.

Only if you're GM and you're doing it wrong. The right way to do it is, if your car had a 2.2L gas engine, replace it with a 1.6L + electric motor that provides the same acceleration around town, but gets better mileage on the highway due to the smaller displacement.

Or, in the case of an Ecomodder with a lightweight, aerodynamic car, you really don't need more than 20HP on the highway and short bursts of 40HP around town, so a high-tech, 0.3L gas engine and a 15KW electric motor should do you.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Christ

The average person (which we do not represent in this case) would probably not drive it...

Allowing that, how many non-average people do you think there are in a country of 300 million? (Plus more in Canada, Europe, etc.) Enough to make a market for such a car? Well, how many advance orders has Aptera got, just from California?

This is one of the places Detroit went off the rails. They designed cars for the average person, so only average people bought them, and there just aren't that many really average people out there.

[Christ]

You're right, there aren't that many median average people. So few, in fact, that the term average is probably a misnomer in and of itself, since the average person isn't "average" at all.

That was kind of beside the point I was trying to bring to light, though.

As an experiment: Take a picture of basjoos' car to a public place, like a mall. Poll the people walking by with a sign that says "Would you buy this new?" without telling them about mileage figures, aerodynamics, etc.

Don't say a word, just have them point to a "Yes" or "No" on the sign. I'd bet you the latter wins.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi folks,

On the Aptera, I think that many folks have a negative reaction to a photo, but I think that for people who see it in person, a majority are blown away with how good it looks.

It looks the way air flows.

[fidalgoman]

Originally Posted by Christ

So which one of your "not an ecomodder" friends do you think would buy the "Rocket Car"?

THAT'S why they don't do it. We think it's cool, but read the general consensus anywhere else, and people think much differently about it's streamlined shape. The average person (which we do not represent in this case) would probably not drive it, buy it, even consider it as a second car.

No offense, basjoos, I personally think what you've done is a great advancement, but there's a reason that not many have followed.

True to a point, but there are ways around public resistance. It's not so much that people know what they like, they just like what they know. We all know how badly things turned out for the German and Japanese small economy car companies. Americans want "Yank Tanks" as our English brethren liked to call American cars.

I will not argue that car makers tend to take small practical vehicles and keep gilding the Lilly until they become so obese it's time for a new model (it's all about profit margins). And true as long as there is no incentive to change larger cars will always find a place where people see the size of their vehicles as a sign of armor protection. Apart from that however there has always been a place for cars like the Mini, Lotus, Miata, Tercel, Civic, Porsche and a host of others. A huge example is the Insight and Prius. How extreme is that.

What basjoos has done is create a proof of concept vehicle that could be easily adapted to current production. Think how easy it would be if car makers started with the concept of a truly aerodynamic vehicle instead of we few trying to adapt aerodynamic curves to vehicles to which they were never intended. If you started with a Civic size vehicle and started the inward curves earlier in the design it would make good aero with very little if any penalty in length.

One of the key things needed is the wow factor. I don't think it would be too hard to take basjoos basic design and give it to a gifted design team with the instructions “make it a thing of beauty without ruining the aero and adding weight or too much cost”. Audi, BMW, Mercedes or Lotus could get the job done with understated elegance. It just needs to be done in such a way that all the high tech aerodynamics is blended into the design from the beginning.

If you want to talk marketing strategy that's a different topic. It's just that it could be done, and if done well would look more like high performance rather than the economy that it truly is.

[Christ]

Nix - it would not look high performance at all, because high performance tends to "look" aero, without actually being aero. Well, not in the sense that we're bringing to light here, anyway. Performance cars take an aggro look and turn it into an upside-down airplane wing, to create downforce, which isn't necessary. Most of those cars, smooth as they are, are anything excluding aerodynamically slippery.

Now, that said, it would be pretty neat if someone could make basjoos' car look more cleanly refined and built, as though it were supposed to be that way from the OEM, and actually retain the aerodynamically slippery profile that he's created, still making it look like a sportier model of itself.