We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car | Hacker News Reader

We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car

blog.wired.com

53 pointsvaksel25 comments

I've been following Aptera for awhile and they are one of the very few companies looking at the electric car as a clean-slate design. I can appreciate the benefits of taking our current idea of "a car" and swapping out the traditional powerplant for an electric one, but we won't see the true potential of electric drive until we abandon our preconceived notions of what a car is and design one from the ground up using parameters established by this drivetrain.

Aerodynamics and style aside, the construction techniques used in the Aptera have been proven in both aircraft and automobiles (at the racetrack) and, while new to production automobiles, have a proven history and a lot of engineering behind them. These vehicles have the potential to not only meet the performance and safety requirements of existing automobiles but exceed them.

I applaud the effort of every manufacturer (honestly) attempting to bring an electric car to market but I hold a special respect for those willing to take the risk of re-imagining the American automobile.

My only regret is their focus on "fair-weather" states, if they ever come to Wisconsin, I'll be the first in line.

I applaud their innovation, but it looks like a cut-up Cessna in a pair of roller skates. I can only imagine how much interior room you lose on account of that, and even though it's as "big as a Honda Civic", it looks to only seat two.

Plus, it's another battery-powered beast... slow to charge, quick to accelerate, but heavy as hell compared to either gasoline or a fuel-cell vehicle. Not to mention the huge amount of pollution required to make LiOn batteries in the first place.

So, it's interior dimensions are a bit better than a Smart Two-Two, it has a bigger environmental impact (including manufacturing) than pretty much any of the small city cars you find in Europe, is twice as expensive, and will be a fashion statement in California to show how 'environmentally conscious' people are.

So, I don't like it. Watch it sell like a KFC next to a Weight Watchers. :)

I think they also have a hybrid and a hyper-efficient internal combustion version in the works. (The prototype design makes the powerplant pretty modular, which may have changed for the production model.)

If it's a fashion statement, it will sell like hotcakes, providing the economy recovers. I'd buy one as a commuter, if I still commuted by car.

No, it'll sell like hotcakes just because I don't like it. :)

Yeah I didn't follow that statement in the article either, about as "big as a CRV on the inside ... it seats two". Last time I checked, the CRV is a small SUV, with 5 seats and plenty of cargo space.

Not sure I follow your "heavy as hell compared to either gasoline ..." statement. The car weighs 1700 pounds. That is more than 1/2 the weight of most modern vehicles. I'm with you though, the current state batteries for electric vehicles leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm guessing it's a typo, and they meant a CRX.

Almost all of your comments could be (and have been) applied to the original Honda Insight. While it seemed radical at the time, ten years later, hybrid cars are almost commonplace.

My only regret is their focus on "fair-weather" states, if they ever come to Wisconsin, I'll be the first in line.

That and I'm waiting for the plug-in hybrid model. Actually, what I'd really like is a direct-drive diesel version, like their very first prototype. It got 230 mpg. Still, the hybrid gas-electric prototype supposedly gets 120 mpg starting with an empty battery. The battery in the hybrid will be smaller, holding a 40-mile charge.

I already have five gasoline-powered vehicles (two cars and three motorcycles) capable of good mileage and long range, so I'm looking for something with the simplicity and elegance of pure electric drive.

100 miles in great. But gasoline is one hell of an energy dense and convenient fuel. It will go several hundred miles and "recharges" in minutes.

Hydrogen could be as energy dense but transporting it is a pain.

That's why I've been wondering about a sealed tank with water, which would use electrolysis to split it into hydrogen and oxygen.

The gas stations could keep huge capacitors which continually recharge slowly from the gird. When a car pulls up the capacitor would dump enough juice in it to split the water in minutes. Then while you drive you "burn" the hydrogen and turn it back into water.

But the whole system is sealed and there's no need to worry about the infrastructure necessary to ship hydrogen all over the continent.

The gas station could also directly split the water which is easy to transport. The only advantage to on bard electrolysis is home charging. Anyway, the real problem is storing enough H2 to drive a useful distance.

Good point the stations could certainly split the water. I was under the impression that fuel cells to have range comparable to gasoline. Here's a wired blog about Toyota's fuel cell claims: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/516-mile-range.html

You can burn hydrogen in a normal car engine the issue is the fuel tank. Pound per Pound Hydrogen has a higher energy density than gas, but high pressure tanks are costly and take up a lot of space.

Fuel cells have a higher efficiency which let's you store less fuel, but they are even more costly. You can even make a hybrid, fuel cell, hydrogen car like the FCHV-adv, but few people are going to want to pay the full cost of such a beast. Ok, they could do a small production run like the Bugatti Veyron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Veyron at a loss.

PS: Toyota, is getting people to road test their prototype, but don't think this is any where near being cost effective in mass production.

I wonder what's an easier engineering task, affordable fuel cells, or affordable high pressure hydrogen tanks?

There's some problems with that concept based on how fuel cells currently work. The hydrogen feeding into the fuel cells needs to be very dry and pure, necessitating ultrapure water. Furthermore, the hydrogen would need to still be stored on the vehicle. Storage on the vehicle is actually not that big of a problem. Hydrogen is explosive, but people forget that gasoline is also extremely explosive... and yet we drive around sloshing tanks with very few issues (unlike the movies where the slightest fender-bender results in a fireball). The fuel cells are the hard part. The cheap ones are fickle, with narrow active temperatures and intolerance for contaminants. The most efficient ones run at very high temperatures, are heavy, and involve nasty chemicals... very useful for sealed stationary applications, not so for cars.

"The 2e doesn't place form over function, form is function."

Replace 2e with anything that you admire and you will most likely find that statement to be true. I think that is incredibly important and the answer to the false dichotomy that is "form or function?". When you do it right you end up with both.

I have to admit that it's pretty. I used to think it was a dumb idea, but it looks cool and seems quite usable. I'd buy one if I had that kind of "play money."

It's by no means practical and I'm sure the first few 1,000s will be purchased like the comment said "as a fashion statement." But realistically, except for the crappy range, it's as "useful" as my 350Z: which is to say, not very - you buy these things for fun, not practicality!

The range is a price thing. Tesla has shown you can squeeze serious range out of an EV - and design a commodity car for quick battery swaps. But all of that costs money. Aptera is undercutting Tesla's second car with their first, they can't afford to gold plate it, so they have to make the best of old tech.

Economies of scale acting on EV battery packs should make their jobs easier after 2010.

History is littered with the wrecks of car companies who tried to do something different. We all admire radical car designs, some of us even like them. If there is one thing we can learn, though, conservatism in car design is the way to riches. Just ask Toyota.

The only caveat is if the design truly fits the times. BMW built it's post-war balance sheet by selling Isettas to cash-strapped Germans. However, since the Aptera was conceived and planned, energy efficiency has fallen a distant second to cash efficiency. And this will ultimately prove to make it a historical oddity, fodder for motor curiosity collections and little else.

I've ridden in a pre-production one. They're pretty big inside. The hinges and whatnot were a bit creaky.

Were they still planning on having on-seatbelt airbags that deploy in the event of a crash? Or have they adopted more traditional airbag configuration?

Dunno. It just had regular seatbelts, though.

Can one drive it on a freeway? The article doesn't really say that, although the comparison to Honda Civic suggests that the answer is yes.

The article also mentions a top speed of 90 mph, so I would assume so.

Now THIS is a useful electric car. To hell with the Peapod crap from Chrysler.

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