A 330 MPG hybrid for everyone called Aptera

seeing is believing....SHOW ME THE MONEY!@@!

 

Er, how does it do in the crash tests?

Might sell a few in Sun City...

 

Fiber carbon composites have been proven by Trek, the bicycle maker who has supported the USA team at Tour De France the last 7+ years. I love my Trek 5200, the frame has a mass of 1 kilogram - very light.

The Rocky Mountain Institute has been promoting carbon fiber composite for vehicles for a long time. It is Detroit who is reluctant and stuck to sheet metal and plastic vehicles. Hooray for these folks to move forward.

 

Interesting....

more realistically, if it was to be made street legal with the DOT required equipment and specification - and for crash survivability, it would be more like 100 mpg (give or take). With the weight of all those required items, you'd see lower numbers.

But kudos for bringing this technology forward!!!

 

I want one!!!

 

are those even photos or just pictures

 

I agree. Neat concept, but this is a long way from being a real car. It is a 3-wheeled means of transportation, but I doubt few would want to drive it everyday. But, as you say, kudos.

 

Depending on details, this looks like my ideal commuting (every day) vehicle.

Hmm. No rear window or side mirrors.
Rear camera, perhaps?

 

After seeing and rereading the title of this post, I think you will need to change your name to Aptera. In the future, everyone will be called Aptera and will drive these.

 

Went to their website for details.
Pretty skimpy with large text to take up space.

Was wandering whether their 300mpg figure was for cruising or EPA.

 

It's pretty swoopy, all right. But, just to put things in perspective, it costs ten times as much as skruse's bicycle, and gets about a third the mileage.

 

I don't think those are windows. They're far too small to function as windows. Must be part of the paint trim. Which is fine - I would hope that this vehicle exploits ALL the available technology and makes a human driver superfluous, using radar, GPS and computers to pilot the thing to wherever its occupant has voice commanded it to go.

But several things here raise my skeptical hairs. I've seen this sort of promotional approach before, with the Moller personal aircraft: performance figures that require laws of physics from an alternate universe, sleek attractive styling to lure investors, a paucity of technical description. Moller's made a shady living for nearly 40 years collecting investment money in his craft, with nary a working prototype in all that time.

330MPG. Is that even possible? There are only so many ergs in a gallon of gas that can be extracted by combustion, and even the most advanced ICE wastes more than half the available ergs getting them out to do useful work. If Honda and Toyota, at the forefront of hybrid technology for the last decade, were able to suddenly double or triple the MPG of their cars, it'd be a colossal breakthrough. This gadget is being touted as being able to deliver nearly a tenfold increase in efficiency! That makes me skeptical.

Go back to the "windows." Unless the thing really does depend on a computer as its driver, no engineer could pretend that such "windows" are remotely adequate for a human driver. So who's responsible for the promo pictures? Marketing consultants with an eye to attracting a large flock of emotionally charged investors? Too much "Moller" in that for my taste.

And where, in that tiny fuselage, do the engine and battery and transmission reside? At 330MPG perhaps the fuel tank is an Evian water bottle bolted into one of the cup holders, but there just doesn't seem to be room enough in that gadget for all its internal machinery.

Finally, even were all my skepticims proven groundless and the gadget really is a breakthrough device that gets 330MPG, it's apparent current form is of little more utility than an enclosed motorcycle. For single occupant commuting - terrific. For any other purpose, not so terrific.

Remember the Segway? It was going to overturn every paradigm of personal transport. That was 6 or 7 years ago. You don't rememebr the Segway? That's my point. Technically, the Segway was impeccable. As a practical tool, however, it was something less.

Well, I guess that secures for me the grump of the month award. So I hope the Aptera - or something truly practical like it - succeeds. At least we're not seeing another incarnation of a Hummer!

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

3 wheels means it's a motorcycle. If you want a higher mileage vehicle than a Prius, go get an Insight.

Nate

 

I also think this guy is trying to bait ignorant investors. Way too many outlandish promises with way too little substance.

Look at the 3 horrible "production" photos. What a joke. No explanation as to what you're looking at. The pictures look worse than the ones I took of the fiberglass subwoofer box that I made for my Prius.

 

"Aerodynamics is only half the question..." How about visibility? While the car may be admittedly cool to some folks....it would also be a nightmare in downtown traffic on a rainy evening. The Prius is enough of a challenge on wet rainy Seattle commutes, but at least it has windows on all four sides.
Bob
p.s. and, oh yeah, I'd like to see the money numbers too.

 

Boiy, that's a pretty narrow view.

 

Me too!

 

Nice to see tail fins making a comeback.

 

Not necessarily - my 05 Prius got about 4 mpg better than my 01 CVT Insight....

could have just been age and miles though.