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Take a look at the Aptera .... not exactly a direct competitor to Bolt, but at $25K with 250 mile range, fascinating

14579 Views 277 Replies 44 Participants Last post by GJETSON, 11 d ago

ComputerDoc

Discussion Starter · Apr 20, 2022 (Edited)

Aptera Motors

Aptera is the world’s first Solar Electric Vehicle that requires no charging for most daily use - giving you the freedom to do more with less impact on the planet.

aptera.us

They started development of this several years ago, but were too far ahead of their time, and closed down.
Recently resuscitated looks like they might actually get to market this time.

It can apparently really be significantly charged but its own solar panels in many climate zones, and in one configuration has a 1000 mile range.

I actually put a $100 deposit on one to hold my place in line.

---- added notes FWIW after seeing others' comments ---
I ordered one with the 400 mile range. In truth with our pattern of use and the fact that the 250 mile version can be fully re-charged in an hour at a level-2 charger 250 would be plenty.
Of note and interest to me is that it has no drive train. The motors are right in the hubs. That means no CV-joints, etc, to fail.

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Packard V8

· #73 · Apr 22, 2022

If I could test drive one to confirm the ingress/egress/driving position comfort and ride comfort, I'd reserve one today.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #83 · Apr 23, 2022

A fact which can be confirmed anecdotally, mothers, and some fathers, intentionally choose mass. Talk to the columns of Escalade/Suburban/Expedition/Range Rover/Lexus/F350 quad cab, et al, waiting to pick up kids after school. Ask, "Why, since you only have one child, did you choose this large vehicle as an errand-runner?" Answer, in various ways, "When there's a collision, I want my child sitting in the center of the biggest, heaviest one."

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #100 · Apr 25, 2022

It all depends on their business model and the break-even point. As much as I'd like to have one, the Aptera is far-out-lunatic-fringe.

Also, necessary at this juncture for me to again quote Ramond Loewy:

The M.A.Y.A. Principle – Most Advanced Yet Acceptable.
“The adult public’s taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.”

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #143 · Apr 26, 2022

OneEV said:
60 Million people in the USA live in APts... (since APT dwellers have no place to charge at home). Most apt complexes dont have Garages so the residents vehicles are always parked outside

That many apartment complexes don't have garages is a long stretch from most. Back in a former life I lived in apartments with garages where adding chargers would have been possible.

While the data is unavailable, those who live in apartments without garages are by your definition lower income who are usually driving a used car and it will be fifteen years after the larger charging questions are answered before those outliers will be driving EVs. As mentioned previously, EV charging won't be answered all at once and on the first attempt. It will evolve. Solar may be the answer, but I'm not betting on it or on Aptera.

RacerX00 said:
You drive for ride-shares, right? These people are already spending more money for you to drive them places than it would cost them to own an auto themselves. That was the most depressing thing to me while I did it was seeing these people pay more for me to drive them for 20 minutes then they make in an hour at the grocery store or Walmart. What these people need, because many of them can't drive, is automated driving. I had a fare who used me to pick up his dinner because it was cheaper than the Grubhub fees and he had his license revoked. Had to make his 5 year old come with him. How the heck is that guy supposed to ever get ahead?

Probably never; he started too far behind and/or had bad luck. My grandfathers and my father packed a lunch and my grandmothers and mother cooked dinner. Even after I educated/worked my way into white collar jobs, I pack a lunch and cook dinner when I get home. The idea of DoorDash/GrubHub/Dominos, et al, would have seemed so ridiculous they/we wouldn't have believed anyone would choose to spend their food dollars in that manner; that it's become a thing is an excuse. That people today are too busy to shop and cook is simply untrue. Read the journals of women and men from past centuries to understand what busy really looks like.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #156 · Apr 27, 2022

NortonCommando said:
If an owner knows it doesn't pass all the safety testing required of a typical 4 wheel car, and, they are fine with that, "auto regulation reform" would be great to allow this highly efficient vehicle on the road!
I like being surrounded by air bags. But also like ultra efficiency!

When air bags first became a thing, a contrarian friend maintained it was exactly the wrong solution to vehicle safety. Don't make it safer to be careless behind the wheel. His design would install a 12-gauge shotgun shell loaded with buckshot in the center of each steering wheel; a crash would fire the shells and blow away the drivers. Then defensive driving would become a very real imperative.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #161 · Apr 27, 2022

Back to Aptera content, a family member who closely follows the EV market and orders every new introduction, is of the informed opinion Aptera is still very much vaporware and is willing to bet against their published timelines. He's still waiting for his Rivian.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #195 · 12 mo ago (Edited)

LectricBill said:
I had a custom setup on a set of premium Wilburs shocks on a BMW R1200R that transformed the ride: the suspension made the bike corner on rails AND absorb potholes like they weren't there. So there's hope!

Just asking, how much did you pay for the custom Wiburs setup installed? Last quote I got was almost two grand.

Reason for asking, I did a similar but different custom suspension setup of which I was justifiably proud. There was an occasion to show it to an OEM engineer and his take, "Yes, we know about those and how to do what you did. However, it could never make the cost-benefit cut. Our suspension parts essentially have to be ten dollar parts and yours are a thousand-and-ten dollar parts.

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Packard V8

· #223 · 10 mo ago

redpoint5 said:
The ride quality is going to be so poor that nobody is going to travel 1000 miles except for a stunt to prove it can be done.

The guy with the sport bike avatar is certainly an expert on poor ride quality, cramped positions and the futility of taking one on road trips. BTDT(many years ago)NA.

But agree, my younger self would have been hot for an Aptera, but not as a road trip car.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #241 · 10 mo ago (Edited)

For true, youth is wasted on the young. My person record of sportbike-like masochism was in 1971, 1225 miles in 20 hours in a Sunbeam Tiger. That would have been relatively easy out here in the open roads of the west, but I did it from Hartford, CT to St. Paul, MN. That's some gnarly traffic and shite-for-interstates in that corridor.

jack vines

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Packard V8

· #269 · 4 mo ago

GJETSON said:
This is THE Catch-22! As long as mass wins, all vehicles will just get bigger and less efficient. There are smarter ways to make vehicles safe, but that will never happen..

Rmay635703 said:
The trouble is that once you have decent safety systems mass doesn’t actually make things safer, the opposite in fact. Why weight makes things safer is only in a situation where one object is heavier than the other hitting head on. In glancing collisions many times the lighter vehicle is more survivable.

Yes, the common misconception is bigger is better. A friend who is facility manager at an elite private school directs pick-up-and-drop-off traffic sometimes. He chats with the parents and grandparents who are nearly all driving Suburban/Denali/Escalade/Range Rover/Bentayga/Cayenne/QuadCabTrucks. During the casual discussion about, "How do you like your new Xxxxx?" almost always it comes up, "We bought it because when there's an accident, we want our child to be belted into the biggest one."

He says it never seems to occur to anyone a smaller, more agile vehicle might be able to stop or turn and avoid the accident.

jack vines

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