Flying on the plane back to Amsterdam yesterday, I picked up a copy of Newsweek. Inside, there was a mention of a new vehicle that I had never heard of before, the Aptera:
7. The Aptera: A funky new hybrid-electric car gets 300 miles per gallon of gas.
The dirty secret of automakers, says Jib Ellison, CEO of BluSkye Sustainability Consulting, is that most of the energy used by a car comes from moving the vehicle itself, not the people in it. “That’s because cars aren’t designed to be as aerodynamic as they could be, and because we have this obsession with heavy vehicles, even though there are now lighter materials that are just as safe,” he says. But a prototype car from upstart Aptera Motors in Carlsbad, Calif., could help change all that.
The Aptera is not like any vehicle on the road today. It’s made with ultra-light (but superstrong) composites, and it has just three wheels to reduce its weight still further. It also has a funky shape—a cross between an insect and a flying saucer—that was designed in the computerized equivalent of a wind tunnel to minimize drag. By next year the car will be available in two models—one hybrid electric and the other purely electric, which can be plugged into any outlet—”even a solar carport,” says cofounder Steven Fambro.
Not that a $30,000 two-seater that requires eight hours of recharging will be everyone’s ideal car. But Fambro isn’t worried. He’s presold 1,300 Apteras without spending a dollar on advertising (although he’s selling only in California at first to minimize distribution and repair issues). “It’s selling itself,” he says. “And $100-a-barrel oil doesn’t hurt.” Are you listening, GM?
Anyway, I thought that was interesting. You can read more about it at the company website: http://www.aptera.com/
The website and details are a little sketchy, but it’s very 1960’s PopSci of where we were supposed to be by now.
I spent the first part of my career building electronics and then several years designing and building furniture and cabinets. I think the world needs a plug-in electric car built out of Titan wood! It should have a deployable sail and be amphibious, so I can drive it to the lake, and then into the lake. Deployable solar grill would be an option.
“I think the world needs a plug-in electric car built out of Titan wood! It should have a deployable sail and be amphibious, so I can drive it to the lake, and then into the lake.”
Don’t forget wings so you can take to the air and avoid traffic completely.
Far more significant than the news about all these small fish is coming from the heavyweights at impressive pace.
-BMW, Mercedes and Magna likely collaborating on a small car to be electric, PHEV, diesel, and even motorcycle engine powered
-Nissan launching electric cars in Japan and the U.S. in 2010 and globally by 2012, aiming to create a full line of electric cars (straight from CEO Carlos Ghosn)
Make fun if you want, but this is the car design that makes sense for our peak oil future, not driving a 4-ton brick as Americans are used to. I am proud to have made a deposit on one.
Look a bit deeper, esp. at the YouTube videos with tours of the factory and interviews with their engineers. These guys are for real. While Detroit fights tooth and nail against 35 mpg in 2020, Aptera gets almost an order of magnitude better this year.
“Make fun if you want, but this is the car design that makes sense for our peak oil future, not driving a 4-ton brick as Americans are used to.”
You are certainly right about driving bricks around. Very few people actually need the 2- and 3-ton bricks they commute in.
Someday people will look back and wonder why we wasted so much fossil fuel just pushing tons of steel, rubber, plastic, and glass back and forth to carry such a small cargo – a few hundred pounds (at most) of human flesh.
We burn an abnormally large part of our energy budget pushing the car to carry what in percentage terms is a very small payload.
It really is irresponsible.
Whats up with the Google Ad at the bottom of this article? That kind of thing should not be on your site!!
http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/?hop=sipboy3000&gclid=CInhiITFkpMCFSJ3lgodXVX6gw
heres a good excerpt “Our easy conversion guide will show you how to use electricity from your car’s battery to separate water into a gas called HHO (2 Hydrogen + 1 Oxygen). HHO, also called Brown’s Gas or Hydroxy, burns smoothly and provides significant energy – while the end product is just H2O! HHO provides the atomic power of Hydrogen, while maintaining the stability of water.”
Whats up with the Google Ad at the bottom of this article? That kind of thing should not be on your site!!
I don’t have any control over what Google puts there, but I can try to block specific ads. And I have put in a block on that specific URL. Don’t know why it is still coming through, but that’s not the first time that’s happened. For some reason, a while back I started getting ads for Polly Pocket. I have no idea why, and I tried several times to block them without success. Eventually, they went away. Hopefully, fuel from water will go away. I absolutely do not endorse it.
RR
“Are you listening, GM?”
Yes, they are. In fact, the Volt (introduced as a concept in 2007, due for production in 2010) is a direct reaction to the Tesla.
Things are happening.
Why is GM waiting on the Volt? AFS Trinity claims their plug-in system will work on any vehicle in mass production. They claim the added cost is about $8000,and all parts are “off the shelf”. Either they’re full of crap,or no manufacturer really wants such a system. The plug-in SUV they showed off at the NY Auto show got 150MPG. At least they claim…
Transportation uses 70 percent of the world’s oils. And we can double mpg’s.
Just like Alfred E. Neuman, and George Bu$h jr., I say “What Me Worry?”
I’ve been following the Aptera for a while now, and it looks to be for real. There have been several writeups in Popular Science and I think also Wired.
There’s another similar concept caled the Loremo.
The problem with these is that it will be tough for them to pass “the wife test”.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/05/04/aptera-crushing-lots-of-its-cars/
AFS Trinity claims their plug-in system will work on any vehicle in mass production. They claim the added cost is about $8000,and all parts are “off the shelf”. Either they’re full of crap,
They’re at least partially full of crap. Their conversion with off-the-shelf parts costs a lot more than $8000, and that’s only for vehicles like the Vue Green Line which have electric power steering and brakes plus an A/C system that runs when the engine is off.
The $8000 is based on what it might cost an OEM to build plug-ins in large volumes. It’s a reasonable number if you ignore R&D and such. Incremental cost of Chevy Volt is running higher than $8k, but that’s because they’ve overengineered and not fully cost-reduced Gen1. The Gen2 car should be less than $8k incremental cost. But even that’s probably more than the market will bear without generous tax incentives. Which I fully support, BTW.
If the aptera does what the company is saying that is will, hooray! I am a fan of the concept, but having fiddled with EVs some, I have my doubts here… Let me just say that you throw in a hill or two, and want to maintain more than 35mph, you really start to suck down the amps.
Winelover, Aptera’s 30 kW motor should be sufficient to maintain 70 mph up long freeway grades. You will drain the batteries faster going up, but with regen you refill them going down.
The hybrid version has a problem, though. Say you decide to exercise that 600 mile range with a road trip. After 50 miles your batteries hit minimum SOC and the gasoline engine kicks on. You motor on for a while, quite content, until you find yourself at the base of a 20 mile grade. That 10 kW gas engine can only sustain about 35 mph up a long grade. That’s unacceptable for a $30k car. The gasoline engine needs to be more like 25 kW.
For city commutes, This might be something people would buy.
I like the Air Car which might be a great idea for people willing to rough it, No AC, You won’t get much for 12,000.
Least of all, it won’t make Federal Highway Safety standards. I think a waiver should be put out for people willing to pay the higher insurance rates such a vehicle would require.