Aptera 3-wheeled Eco-lovin' Vehicle Available for Pre-order

When traveling the Interstate at night a question or two:

Will those big 18 wheelers zooming along at 65/75 MPH see you in the dusky evening hours?

Will the (suction / draft) of those 18 wheelers flip you into next Tuesday?

Can you take it into the country side without some one pulling a shotgun on you?

Does it run on High Test, Regular, or Vodka?

You dont have to worry about all those questions at the back of your mind as this vehicle exists only in someone's imagination and still in Autocad. Not even on the drawing board.

The pre-order is just a joke, just like the vehicle.

Did you guys see the video of Aptera on youtube?

http://www.youtube.com/user/apteramotors There's one of it being passed by an 18-wheeleer.

How about San Diego news?

http://www.cbs8.com/video/ ....scroll down to 'Jetsons...'

It does exist. The first prototype was driving about 6 months ago. In the other thread on this same vehicle, I put in some links to similar vehicles -- which range from CAD to drivable.

I am not sure why such a comment was made ("...exists on in someone's imagination...Not even on the drawing board."). Certainly, any investigative mind would do a minimum of research before making blind comments of value and type equal to those uttered by "Bagdad Bob".

FACTS: The prototype has been running for six months. It was shown at a major public opening recently and is fully functional. News shows have featured it. If you bother to visit their site you will discover the video of the opening as well as pictures of the actual car. If you do a simple Internet search you will find videos of Aptera testing the car at night to avoid public eyes, including a run down the freeway being passed by a semi.

The car has already been live mileage tested and produced a 230 mile/gallon result running an ICE only. With its electrical pack, small diesel engine charging system and 'stealth' mode (only starts charging if the electrical storage demands it so it can travel perhaps 75 miles without aid from the engine) it probably will reach 300 mpg relative to the gallons of diesel fuel used in a cross county trip.

This is an exciting car with a high tech design based on state of the art aerodynamics. It cockpit instruments are unequaled in the automotive world. It's three inch thick composite sandwich construction creates a Formula 1 racer type of survival capsule. It's solar cells both run the air conditioner continuously and recharge the batteries when the car is idle. Its main charger is self contained such that the user just plugs it into their house current using a common extension cord. One of their financial backers who owns a McLaren was very pleased with its sporty handling. The front suspension uses a Formula car configuration with inboard coil-over-shocks and faired unequal length arms. It has a drag factor of 0.11. It will hold 15 bags of groceries or a couple of golf bags. It will easily fit two 6'2" adults (see news story with reporter sitting in car) and has a built-in jump seat for a child.

Most miles traveled in this country are covered in cars with two or less occupants. We can no longer afford to continue producing overweight, inefficient, poor-handling dinosaurs and suffer their excessive environmental resource consumption. The Aptera is a no holds barred design approach towards the best high mileage design possible. It will succeed, it will go into production, and I will get number 31.

It will succeed, it will go into production, and I will get number 31.

Congratulations! Their site says the plug-in hybrid will be gasoline (not diesel) powered. Are they planning to resurrect their original diesel idea?

The fuel efficiency numbers for the Aptera and my own Automotive X Prize entry are very close, but I would be loathe to claim 300 mpg, as they now are for their plug-in hybrid version. The Aptera is a motorcycle, so they do not have to submit the vehicle for EPA mileage ratings, but I think it would be wise to use the same dyno cycle to make comparisons fair: most buyers will be thinking of their Aptera as a "car". Otherwise, they will likely end up being sued, as Toyota has been. Toyota, at least, has always said that the (older) EPA figures (for the Prius) were not representative of actual mileage, whereas Aptera seems to be doing the opposite, making outlandish claims, as if they are representative of real world results.

At first they claimed 330 mpg, based on a Cd of .06. 9 months ago, I wrote, here in CR4, that a Cd of .06 was ludicrous. Anyone else with a moderately good understanding of aerodynamics would have found .06 outlandish. Sure enough, their claim was off by nearly 100%.

They claimed 330 mpg at 65 mph. Now they claim 230 at 55, which translates to about 200 mpg at 65. That figure is very close to the figure for my own vehicle (which is a bit lighter, a little leaner, but has a little worse Cd). But I would never advertise even 200 mpg as being a representative mpg figure. If I run my vehicle (or the numbers from the Aptera) through the new EPA cycle, the real day-to-day mpg figure is uncomfortably close to 100 mpg. In the X Prize race, we must race over varying terrain, while maintaining over 100 mpg. Even the EPA number is optimistic as compared to racing conditions, so I am not expecting any of the competitors to be able to go particularly fast. Last I checked, the draft rules favored full-electric vehicles strongly over hybrids (they were using plug/pump to wheels instead of well to wheels), so the Tesla has a large advantage, and has the ability to out accelerate and out speed most other contestants by a wide margin.

The Tesla is effectively coal powered (in this country) with a little oil and natural gas thrown in (and only 9% renewables used). Contrary to popular opinion, coal-fired plants are not cleaner than road-worthy ICEs, so I and others would like to see the X Prize rules a little more realistic, environmentally, which would put our vehicle, the Aptera, and others on more equal footing.

I once achieved 75 mpg with a friend's old (newish at the time) Lincoln Mk7, on a perfectly flat road in Florida. This was realistically, a 19 mpg vehicle. Had Lincoln advertised it as a 75 mpg vehicle, there would have been many unhappy customers.

Nevertheless, you've made a great choice, and I suspect you'll be very happy with the Aptera, as long as you are not expecting to get anything close to their claims in real world terms. My hope is that pioneers like you will show that we don't need to drive 5000# vehicles to get a 170lb person back and forth to work. If people ask you what happens when you get hit by an SUV, remind them that the Chevy Blazer is the most deadly vehicle on the road, to its drivers.

While I can't speak to the effectiveness of crash engineering on the Aptera, my hope is that it does well in crash testing: small vehicles need, effectively, 10 star ratings, to compensate for the mass disadvantage: in other words, they should be engineered to submit the driver to 1/2 the accelerations typical in small 5-star crash-rated cars, because they are likely to collide with a vehicle of much greater mass, leading to very high accelerations. Most of the basic hybrid issues were dealt with back in 1903, with Porsche's first hybrid (equipped with wheel motors -- now the "high tech" rage). Crash engineering is the tougher issue, and in our budget, at least, is the largest single r&d task by at least an order of magnitude.

Ken,

Thank you for your informative reply. I have experienced similar results with commerical vehicles relative to excellent gas mileage. My 1968 SAAB Sonnet II achieved 55 MPG/55MPH with a FORD V4 engine and a simple carburator (I was breaking it in as semis zoomed past me at 70 MPH on the Kansas freeway). It had a drag factor of .29, not much lower than my BMW, however, it had a very small frontal area. It was very sleek. If a ski rack was attached to its roof, the mileage dropped from 37MPG/70MPH to 32, so shape is obviously a factor and they did their homework. Recently, I ran my 2000 BMW 328i from the Ohio River to Columbus, OH at 60 MPH and recorded 36.5 MPG. My only change was to increase the tire pressure to 41 and use extreme mileage techniques. I think this is excellent for a car of .31 drag factor and 3500 lbs. The advances in engine technology are, in part, responsible for this achievement, but, of course, ICE technology still only functions at a relatively low efficiency rate. Too much energy is converted to heat rather than motion.

I can forgive them for their enthusiasm. I don't know if their initial 300 MPG projection was based on a purely ICE powered vehicle, but I think I can accept 230. Their new projection is about 300 MPG for a diesel hybred environment over long distance. Of course, this doesn't include the energy required to charge the batteries in the first place. Their system would not kick in the engine until the battery pack required attention (probably about 75 miles) and the solar cells are constantly contributing to the effort.

I am concerned about crash worthiness. Racing car engineers, in their approach to protecting a driver subjected to extreme crash forces, have developed two successful protective mechanisms: stiff box structures (roll cages) and monocoque survival shells (carbon fibre and aluminum honeycomb sandwich construction). Watching a NASCAR crash (rollcage) or an Indy car self-destruct leaving only the survival capsule intact are proofs of concept to the divergent designs. The Aptera uses the later with its structure composed of a composite of some sort (they're not telling, yet) with a hard foam core. There is probably a vacuum process in there somewhere (similar to that used to make racing sailboat hulls) to insure proper material density control. The other factor, of course, is driver skill-avoiding bad situations in the first place.

I once did a double endo with a half gainer (6.0, 5.9, 5.9, 5.6 (the slovian judge), 6.0, 6.0) at 50 MPH in my Sonnet II after hitting a culvert during a 1000 mile rally. There was no damage to the interior and only a small cut in the fiberglass (The car was easily repaired), a broken windshield, and some light damage to the front crumple zone (a technology unheard of in this country in 1968). The wife of the owner of the Berkeley SAAB dealership rearended a still garbage truck in a Sonnet at speed without damage to herself. The car crumpled nicely and her shoulder belts worked perfectly. I only mention these incidents as examples that small cars, when properly constructed, can take severe abuse and protect their passengers. Like the SAAB, the front of the Aptera is designed to crumple (42" before the passenger compartment is compromised), the tubular front suspension subframe is attached to the composite body at an angle such that it would be thrust under the car rather than through it.

The motorcycle/car designation controversy is indicative that the current laws relative to vehicle type designation need modification. Certainly, if I took my BMW and replaced my rear suspension with an Aptera style structure, it would not become a motorcycle. On the other hand, the ZAP Xebra is not much bigger than a Harley, has a motorcycle sized engine and resembles a glorified golf cart. Perhaps the designation should no longer consider the number of wheels but rather the construction. Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion car was definitely not a motorcycle. Perhaps an open design or one with no passenger protection would constitute a new class wherein a vehicle with a protective shell and seatbelts would be classified as another. But, then again, there is the Venture One. It certainly acts like a motorcycle, yet it has a protective steel cage, seatbelts and air conditioning like a car. I guess, in my quick and dirty designations, it is a car.... Perhaps, the type of skill required to operate the vehicle would determine its classification. More thought needs to go into this mud.

Is it possible to get a picture of your X car entry? If you live anywhere near Ohio and need some help with construction, I would be glad to offer free labor almost any time, especially during the weekday. Resume available....

Larry

The Sabb Sonnets were neat cars. When I was in college, I routinely worked on a Sabb Monte Carlo (based on the 96 or 93, if I remember), which was a two stroke, and great fun to drive -- it performed quite well, and sounded much different than the average car.

Is it possible to get a picture of your X car entry?

Yes, sort of. There are pictures of the current prototype here -- although even it will be getting wheel fairings before too long. The production version will look somewhat similar, but will be larger, and will also, of course have faired-in wheels.

I appreciate your extraordinarily generous offer, although Atlanta, GA is quite a long way from Ohio (the state of my birth, incidentally).

The Monte Carlo - I remember it well, and, if I remember it well, it was a SAAB 96 (an improvement of the SAAB 93, really the same body with improved rear end and front grill) with their 3 cylinder two stroke and the triple carb system. Sven Karlsson said that he raced it mostly looking out the side windows. The SAAB Sonnet was really a 96 chassis chopped to 85" wheelbase with few changes to the monocoque floor structure. and a very sleek body, although a bit quirky. I won SCCA gymkhana races with no modifications to except Koni shocks (usually top time of the day), much to the chagrin of the semi-professional teams that arrived with two or three cars on a truck.

Your x-prize racer looks to be coming along nicely. I examined the X-prize rules. There is only a distinction between mainstream and everything else. However, although they are clear that the number of wheels is not a factor for the alternative design category, the side-by-side seating requirement seems anathematic to the spirit of the event. Either it is an oversight, there were no vehicles of significance available or announced to be in development with a tandem seating configration, or it is a direct attempt to restrict the entrance of vehicles that license as motorcycles (regardless of the wheel configuration). Letters need to be written to the organizational committee pointing out that vehicles such as yours and the VentureOne are being designed with the creature comforts and safety factors of a car but in a tandem configuration. I think it is a cultural standard that we associate tandem seating with motorcycles and side-by-side with cars. Such a standard needs rethinking.

...the side-by-side seating requirement seems anathematic to the spirit of the event.

I agree completely, and a number of us protested strenuously. In the current draft, tandem seating is allowed.

It would be a shame to see the Venture One excluded -- I think it is a vehicle that will certainly attract attention and show that you can have fun and be very green at the same time. My Pod One started on two wheels, and although it was not terribly hard to learn to drive it, it did require just that: learning. I decided there would be too many people crashing on test drives, giving the vehicle a poor reputation right off the bat. Even the Ecomobile, with its computerized control of the outriggers, lurches a little on the transition to two wheels. The Ecomobile people are very careful about giving people test rides, as a result. Three wheels is such an easy transition from four, that I decided to go that way. In the US, I think the market is not crying out for narrow vehicles in the way it is in Europe.

I think the Venture One, for the most part, will not require learning, because the dynamics are largely handled by computer. Nevertheless, when fully banked, I'd hate to drop a wheel over the edge of the road: one could find the resulting bank angle out of synch with the required centripetal force. I'd also hate to hit a curb while drifting wide on a curve: seems there is the potential for a high side flip. But if they've sorted that stuff out, it's very cool. Banking through turns is a great way to go: I've spent many pleasant and exciting hours doing just that on land and in the sky.

After doing some calculations, negating any rolling resistance of the tires, using an efficiency of .4 for the diesel, I come up with a theoretical maximum of around 150mpg. I don't know the frontal area of the aptera but I think I'm conservative at 2 square meters.

I happen to have a spreadsheet set up to do such calculations. Using:

• 800 lb as the empty weight,
• 170 lb as driver weight,
• 14.9 sq ft as frontal area,
• no generator and electric motor losses (because their test run was with a diesel engine in direct drive),
• speed of 55 mph (as in their test run)
• Cd of .11 (as claimed, and about right per my eyeball)
• .43 lb/hr/hp diesel fuel consumption,
• .95 transmission efficiency,
• and .013 rolling resistance

then the figure is 233 mpg on a perfectly flat road, with no wind and no acceleration of any kind. So I think their test result claim is about right. However, in real day-to-day usage, that translates to about 120-140 mpg, depending upon where you live, and how you drive.

As a hybrid, with generator losses, motor losses, controller losses, (I'm assuming they weighted the test run vehicle to account for battery weight, motor weight, generator weight, etc.) the steady state efficiency would be lower, because a 55 mph cruise already puts the (tiny) engine at very near its torque peak where it is most efficient (so the hybridization advantage is lost). But the real world (stop and start, accelerate-decelerate, regen braking) efficiency would remain fairly high in the hybrid.

A pet peeve regarding plug-in hybrids regards mileage claims. Any mileage is valid, given the right (usually unstated) disclaimers, and many companies seem to simply pick a very high but plausible figure. Aptera picks 300 mpg. They could just as well say 1000 mpg, given a commuting routine that uses the plug-in power almost all the time, and engine-generated power about 1/10th the time. If you never went beyond the plug-in energy range, then you'd get near infinite (save for a tiny bit of evaporation) mileage. I think these claims need to have the disclaimers and conditions much more clearly stated.

I also think that considering electric vehicles to be zero pollution vehicles is both naive and deceptive. Today, in the US, electricity is created mainly from coal, natural gas and oil at 38% efficiency. (Renewables account for 9% of capacity, and that is not projected to change appreciably over the next several decades.) Electric motors and controllers, however, are very efficient, with 85% or better combined being typical. Gasoline is created with 82% efficiency, but burned with low efficiency: 30%, or lower. So the overall efficiencies are very close, but the pollution created is probably a little higher for the electric car -- because many coal burning plants are out of date, with the average NOx emissions being at least twice Bin 5 standards for cars, (once you do the math to convert kWh's into miles down the road) even if the electric car were recharged right at the plant, without any line losses. CO2 emissions are also probably slightly higher for the electric car, because coal is very high in carbon. To avoid shooting ourselves in our collective feet, we proponents of electric vehicles should be a little more honest about pollution and efficiency.

Despite all that, I think plug-in electric hybrids are a good idea, because it gets us headed in the right direction. There is no reason we cannot generate electricity cleanly -- we just need the will. Renewables cost more now, but running a car on electricity is so much cheaper than running it on gasoline, the cost of electricity could be much higher and still be a relative bargain.

Although I applaud your effort to calculate a theoretical MPG there were a number of variables not listed relative to your final value:

Displacement of engine - Remember, they are using a very small unit that only drives a high efficiency charging device and only upon demand. The first 75 miles are driven without the diesel's activation. If a hybred unit was used in the city for work transportation, the total round trip was under 75 miles, and the car sat in the sun all day such that the solar cells were charging the storage units, it is possible that the engine would never be used.

Can I assume you used a drag factor of 0.11 in your calculations?

Do your calculations reflect a theoretical steady state speed without the effects of accelleration (the bane of ICE engines) and, if so, what speed was used as the basis of the calculations?

I am beginning to think that a new view is necessary relative to energy consumption. Whether the car is electrical or ICE powered, uses a massive spinning flywheel or contains a large tank of compressed air there is an amount of energy usage associated with its function. The negative effects on the environment could come from ICE exhaust or from the pollution of an electrical power plant. Perhaps a new value is required that reflects the total Earth energy consumption/mile and total environmental impact/mile. Obviously, cars that are designed to gain energy without using Earth consumables (solar cell charging, for example) would have a low consumption factor and those that emit no chemical waste would have a low polution factor.