300 MPG Here At Last?

Cool but when can I buy one in upstate NY and how does it do in the snow?

"and how does it do in the snow?"

Being a 3-wheeler, the single rear (drive) wheel would be running on the mound of snow between the tire ruts left by other vehicles.

Therefore, to say that fishtailing could be a problem would probably be an understatement.

I am very impressed with how close this efficient vehicle is to production but if I understand their claims right, the 300 mpg claim is COMPLETELY MISSLEADING. As I understand it, 300 mpg is obtained when the car is running on fully charged batteries (the energy came from your plug at home therefor the powerplant) PLUS the IC engine cycling on and off. When you deplete your stored battery energy and are solely on the engine the actual mileage is 130 mpg, BUT they never come out and forthrightly explain this. They should. One hundred and thirty mpg plus potentially less costly and less polluting stored battery energy is great, and they should be more forthright. But this vehicle doesn't get 300 mpg since it is using two energy sources at the same time.

What I got from it was that as long as you drive less than 100 miles the MPG rating was over 300, and at 50 miles it was more than 3 times that--somewhere around 1000MPG. I got this from the graph representation if you go to aptera.com and click the vehicle performance tab, and then scroll down and select the performance tab it hopefully will become more clear that, in fact, 300MPG is probably for most people(typical commuter) underrating the vehicle.

Those ratings you are looking at (300, 1000) is with the pre-charged batteries doing most of the work. A better way of saying it is at 300 mpg gasoline usage rate you are also using X watts/hour that you pre-charged from the electric company. Another way would be to say that you are using gasoline at a rate of 300 mpg plus coal at a rate of X lbs/hour that you pre-charged from the power plant.

Please understand the point I am making is this car (actually classified as a motorcycle) uses fuel from two sources at the same time. Early in the trip cycle it is using more pre-stored electricity and late in the trip cycle (as the batteries are depleted) it is using more gasoline. From their statement we can conclude that when the batteries are depleted the vehicle gets 130 mpg on gasoline with no pre-stored electricity. Read the comments on the side of the the graph you are talking about on Aptera's web site and you'll see.

I'm not downing the vehicle (I think its great) but the 300 mpg or 1000 mpg claim is not appropriate because it uses another power source at the same time that it is using gasoline at a rate of 300 mpg.

I believe that the point of the invention is to lower the use of gas used...so like many other hybrids electricity is also being used to move the car--electricity is not conventional "fuel" as in gas and diesel or ethanol... I don't understand if your problem is with the statistics or lack of understanding of Miles Per Gallon.

If you use the car for say 25 miles each way to work and then a 5 mile round trip to the grocery store, go home plug it in over night, the car charges for 2-4 hours for a full cahrge--maybe $1-2 more on your electric bill youre going to be getting an average of well over 500MPG... and I don't know about gas prices in Ohio but where I'm from in Vermont gas prices are well over $3 per gallon and for a buck and a hlaf every night I'd gladly avoid shelling out cash to quick stops for gas.

so like many other hybrids electricity is also being used to move the car

This may be the source of confusion. There are no manufactured plug-in hybrids on the American market (but there are a few converted Priuses). The Prius, and all other currently available hybrids get their energy entirely from gasoline. The plug in Aptera (like the plug-in version of my own vehicle) gets its energy from the grid, and that energy is stored in batteries. So, for the first X miles the car runs entirely off the batteries -- in other words it is running off (mainly) coal in the US. In my vehicle, if I choose 30 miles as X, then if I drive 29 miles, I use no gasoline at all. My gas mileage is infinite. Suppose that at 35 miles I have used 1/20 gallon of gas. Then, if I choose to advertise my mileage, I do the math and come up with 35/.05 = 700 mpg. These are actual figures I can acheive with my prototype. If I picked that figure, then my vehicle would appear to be more than twice as efficient as the Aptera. But my vehicle is actually no more efficient that the Aptera. I'd be using the same smoke and mirrors they are using.

Doesn't that seem inherently misleading?

$3!!! per gallon. You poor guys

Try $2.2 per litre.

I'm sure my brakes are sticking because £10 dosn't get me half as far as it used to.

Jim

I believe the only realistic way to categorize any of the claims made for these so-called high efficiency vehicles is to rate them on energy used/mile and cost for the energy/mile. I suspect they would not be such a great deal then.

I agree entirely. Using the same logic, they can claim any mileage. A plug-in Prius conversion can claim any mileage also: in the first 10 miles you use no fuel from the tank at all: infinite mileage.

As you say, you have to look very hard at the site to find that Aptera is essentially a 120 or 130 mpg vehicle.

The fact is, in the US, electrical power generation is 33% efficient, and gasoline production is 82% efficient. Conversely, electric drive systems are near 90% efficient, whereas ICE's are around 25%. So a typical electric vehicle uses less energy but not several times less.

Tesla claims 135 mpg equivalent, based on a DOE calculation which favors electric cars (for CAFE calculations) by using what used to be called a scarcity factor. Electric car advocates used to consider the GM EV1 (which has far lower aero drag than the Tesla) to be a 60 mpg equivalent car: That would be a very high estimate for the Tesla, but at least in the right ballpark.

My own vehicle will be sold in plug-in and full electric variants, but I certainly won't be claiming 300 mpg equivalent for either one. (I could arbitrarily call mine 600 mpg to suggest that it is twice as efficient as the Aptera.)

Confounding the issue is energy cost: electricity is cheaper per unit energy, so on a fuel cost basis, electric vehicles are a much better deal: coal is a cheap fuel.

For the Automotive X Prize, the draft rules use a pump (or plug) to wheels standard, which I have advocated against, (in favor of a well-to-wheel standard) because it does not acknowledge the real environmental cost of generating electricity. I think, especially for the X Prize, we need to be clear on where our energy comes from, particularly since coal burning creates more CO2 per hp than gasoline, diesel, ethanol, etc.

Neither the Aptera nor the Tesla need to stretch the truth. They are both very efficient vehicles.

Ranting on...

This sort of thinking was shown in the Fast Company November issue cover story, in which they describe a 100 mpg Hummer (H1!), running on diesel fuel and hydrogen. Several gases can slightly improve the efficiency of a diesel engine, when injected into the intake airstream -- but in this conversion the engine runs on 50% hydrogen! (Even then, 100 mpg is ludicrous -- even if you consider only the diesel fuel burned and think of the hydrogen as completely free.) Ignoring the environmental cost of the hydrogen is like ignoring the environmental cost of the electricity in the Aptera.

Taken to extremes: many vehicles are now dual fuel: gasoline and ethanol. Suppose you run on your last gallon of gas , refill and then run for 300 miles on ethanol. Then your fuel consumption is 300 mpg (of gasoline).

The Aptera (and my plug-in hybrid too) runs on coal when it is not running with it gasoline engine.

But if you add some solar panels, maybe WInd generator and stored the energy as hydrogen. Then used to Hydrogen to power fuel cells to recharge your car you wouldnt be using any coal at all. When the fuel cells are full you could push the excess electricity back on to the grid and even make a couple of bucks maybe

Definitely, solar and/or wind is the way to go. Even today, in many places around the US and elsewhere, the payback on solar cells is less than 10 years. It's hard to generate hydrogen at more than 75% efficiency, and today, fuel cells are 50-60% efficient, so simply charging batteries is more efficient and a tiny fraction of the price. And selling excess power back to the grid is a great deal -- most states now have net metering, so you can use the grid as a huge battery. Of course, have I done this yet? ... No, but I am thinking seriously about doing so. Unfortunately I think most people are just thinking about it, or unaware that it can be a good deal and a phenomenal improvement ecologically. The high initial cost is a intimidating, I guess.

In Jersey they had tons of rebates for solar and wind upgrades. But isn't it easier, more efficient and better for the environment to store hydrogen for fuel cells then it is to use batteries? Also you can store the energy you create instead of pushing it all back onto the grid. Plus its free anyway as far as energy generation goes not the hardware side

But isn't it easier, more efficient and better for the environment to store hydrogen for fuel cells then it is to use batteries?

Unfortunately, it is much harder, much less efficient, and much worse for the environment. In addition, fuel cells are hideously expensive, as are the tanks for hydrogen.

Had we been living with the hassles of dealing with hydrogen, and knew nothing of batteries, even a lead acid battery would seem like an absolute miracle. Imagine being able to charge a battery and retrieve 90% of the input energy. In real world applications, hydrogen is often about 10% efficient -- and in some it is even less efficient than that (as in BMW's hydrogen/petrol car which loses half its load of hydrogen in 9 days from the liquid heating and boiling off.) This article describes some of the difficulties in dealing with hydrogen.

The only benefactors of the "hydrogen economy" thrust have been the car companies and oil companies, because all the spin, research money, and tax breaks has gone into something with the least possible near term hope of changing the status quo... and the status quo has been very profitable for the car companies and oil companies. The last thing they want to see is small highly-efficient cars running on ethanol, electricity, biodiesel, etc.

This is from http://www.aptera.com/details.php select the "performance" tab near the bottom. They actually come right out and forthrightly explain it.

The real deal about Aptera's Milage
---------------------------------------------------------
With the All Electric Aptera, it is very easy to figure out the mileage range. The mileage is determined by the distance you can drive, under normal circumstances, until the batteries are effectively drained. In the case of the first Aptera typ-1e, we have calculated the range to be about 120miles.

With the Plug-in Electric Hybrid version of the Aptera(typ-1h) the mileage of the vehicle is difficult to describe with one number. For example, the Typ-1h can drive 40 to 60 miles on electric power alone. Perhaps for such a trip, the engine may only be duty-cycled for a few seconds or minutes. This would produce a fantastic number, an incredible number that, though factually true, would have no useful context, i.e. it's just a point on a graph.

An asymptotic decaying exponential is an accurate way to describe the fuel mileage of the Typ-1h. For example driving say, 50 miles, one might calculate a MPG number that's 2 or 3 times higher, say, 1000 MPG. As battery energy is depleted, the frequency of the engine duty cycle is increased. More fuel is used. at 75 miles, the MPG might be closer to 400 MPG. Again, we're using battery energy mostly, but turning the engine on more and more. Just over 100 miles we're just over 300 MPG, and just beyond 120 miles, we're around 300 MPG.

So why pick a number at 120 miles? Well, it's more than double of most available plug-in hybrid ranges that achieve over 100 MPG. It's three times the distance of the typical American daily commute. It's a meaningful distance that represents the driving needs of 99% of Americans on a daily basis. Sure, it's asymptotic, after 350-400 miles it eventually plummets to around 130 MPG at highway speeds where it will stay all day until you plug it back in and charge it up.

If you Google for "asymptotic decaying exponential" (in quotes) you will get 5 hits. 3 relate to the Aptera, and 2 relate to a patented method for statistical analysis. If you were trying to explain something in a forthright and simple manner would you use those words?

My Pod One and the Aptera are remarkably similar in performance. They are both basically 120 mpg to 130 mpg vehicles. As they say, they run out of battery power in 50 miles or so. The Pod One runs out in 40. Either will handle average commuting distances without having to fire up the gasoline engine. Both use regenerative braking to improve efficiency in stop and go traffic. In the Automotive X Prize races, beating the Aptera will be anything but a slam dunk: mine is slightly lighter, mine has less frontal area, but theirs has a somewhat lower aero drag coefficient. In terms of performance they can be considered identical.

When I begin advertising, I won't claim "300 mpg", or the "700 mpg" that Pod one gets under the condition I mentioned in an earlier post. Both figures are silly and deceptive. Their 300 mpg is arbitrary, and my 700 mpg is equally arbitrary.

Here's a simpler, more concise explanation that applies to both vehicles, but I'll use Pod One as the example:

• Pod One can run on gasoline, stored electricity, or a combination of the two. When it is running on electricity it gets about 30 miles for 3 kWh of electricity, or 1/10 kWh per mile. On Long Island in New York, that would mean you'd pay 2 cents per mile. In Georgia, you'd pay 1 cent per mile. When Pod one runs on gas, it gets about 120 mpg. If gas costs $2.40, then you'd pay about 2 cents per mile, just as you would for electricity on Long Island. Obviously, running on electricity in Georgia is a great deal, and as gas prices climb in either location, electricity becomes even more attractive.

Short, simple, no deception. That single paragraph tells the story without creating smoke-and-mirrors-ultra-high arbitrary "mileage" claims.

I'd probably go on (in promo material or owner's manual), because many people are concerned about the environment, as well as cost.

• Which mode is is better for the environment -- gas or electric? That question is independent of cost, but dependent upon how the electricity is generated. Across the US, 50% of our electricity is generated from coal, another 25% from other fossil fuels, and the rest from other sources such as nuclear and hydro. Almost none is generated from sunlight, the one thing we have most of. Coal emits about 50% more carbon dioxide per kW than gasoline does, and because generating efficiency is low (33%) the carbon footprint of your Pod One is about the same, whether you run it on gas or electricity. Either way, you are getting 6 times better fuel efficiency (and emitting 1/6 the CO2) than the fleet average in the US. If your electricity is generated with green technology, so much the better.

Ken great stuff, you obviously know what you're talking about. I know the 300mpg claim was just a wild marketing claim to get my attention and I hate having to wade through all the marketing claims that we are bombarded by on every product, service and especially our politicians. But still even at 120 mpg that is much better than my current Toyota Matrix which gets ~34 mpg which was a big step up from my last car, an Audi A6 which got only 21 MPG and it had to be premium gas. So I figure if I and everyone can just start buying more efficient cars when we buy new cars even if we only get to 120 mpg cars we're still in a much better place. So yes let's be accurate about our claims and get rid of the marketing hype but more importantly lets just get to higher mpg ASAP. Again great discussion, I like what your saying and I hope to see both your car and the Aptera on the road in mass in the future.

I hate having to wade through all the marketing claims that we are bombarded by on every product, service and especially our politicians

Amen!

So I figure if I and everyone can just start buying more efficient cars when we buy new cars even if we only get to 120 mpg cars we're still in a much better place.

Definitely. The Auto X Prize site makes a good case for the 100 mpg car -- going substantially above that is simply too costly to be workable -- and at 100 mpg the cost of gasoline (or electricity) is so low that it becomes a non-issue economically. The Prius is wonderfully engineered with hundreds of millions poured into development, and gets close to 50 mpg. 120 mpg is extremely high efficiency for anything that seats 2 people, and I know from experience that such vehicles do not simply and easily fall into place on the drawing board.

Ludicrous claims undermine the real engineering that goes into these vehicles, I think: the Fast Company cover story makes it sound as if any garage mechanic can achieve 100 mpg with a Hummer. They also undermine appreciation for science. (If you run the numbers, you find that the energy efficiency of the engine of this Hummer must be substantially better than 100%: If 20% efficiency gets you 10 mpg, then 100% would get you 50mpg.)

When the Volt comes out, GM will try to claim over 100 mpg for it, in the hope, I suspect, that people will think GM is really making ecological progress, while continuing to turn out the gas guzzlers they want to sell. Just as Aptera can claim 300 mpg, and I could claim 700 (if I could bring myself to get with the act) GM can claim 150, 200 or 300mpg for the Volt. That makes the same-old-same-old very attractive: We can have our gas guzzlers, and a Volt for commuting, and we've "solved" our ecological problem while running our cars on coal and oil (buttressing the oil companies, auto companies, and the status quo in power generation).

If only most of us were driving cars like your Matrix, we'd have a better world.

I saw that article in Fast Company and never actually ran the numbers but my gut said he must be violating the law of physics to get 100 mpg out of a Hummer. I don't want to sound snobbish but sometimes good background in engineering helps keeps your feet grounded in reality.

Unfortunately I have a fairly long commute, 45 miles each way (and yes I should move closer to my job or get a job closer to my home) so I'll be in the market for a new car soon and a Prius is definitely on the list. Although I really would like to jump all the way to a pluggable, at a reasonable cost of course.

I'm not sure what everyone means by "wild marketing claims". Is what they are saying false? They way I read it, if my wife drove one of these, she'd only plug it in once a week (very short commute), so the gasoline usage would be next to nothing. On the other hand, I drive 58 miles one way. I would get around 300 MPG, plus whatever the cost of plugging it in every night would be. Are my assumptions wrong? (By the way, I consistantly get 31-32 MPG in my '03 Sentra, which has 88K miles on it.)

I think they they were being pretty clear in stating that the mileage would vary with the individual. Please correct and instruct me if this is not the case.

My Pod One and the Aptera are very similar in a mechanical and electrical sense. As they say, theirs is a 130 mpg vehicle when running autonomously on electricity generated by the engine. Mine may be a tiny bit less efficient, at about 120 mpg. They are advertising their vehicle as a 300 mpg vehicle, and then writing up a three paragraph long disclaimer with wording like "asymptotic decaying exponential" to justify that claim, based on 120miles/day (30,000 per year in commuter use or 43,000 if used every day.)

I can claim 700 mpg for my vehicle with a more realistic rationale, namely a normal daily commute. But would advertising 700 mpg be fair? Is advertising 300 fair, for a 130 mpg vehicle? It's not absolutely false... nor is 4000 mpg -- it is simply deceptive. Ignoring the environmental and economic costs of the electricity that fuels the vehicle is deceptive.

The same sort of thinking is used to claim that e85 produces mileages of 500 mpg in plug-in hybrids. Those who claim this are talking only about the gasoline portion of the fuel, ignoring the fact that the other part of the fuel also has environmental and economic costs. The electricity you use to fuel your plug-in hybrid has environmental and economic costs too -- and those costs can be about the same as the gasoline costs, depending upon where (and when) you live.

I've changed my quote. To a non-engineer, my 700 mpg claim (which is perfectly true) certainly suggests that my vehicle is more than twice as efficient as the Aptera (using their 300 mpg claim). To me that seems deceptive, because I know the two vehicles are like two peas in a pod. Suppose I drove around with a glass of water in my cup holder. I could get 1000 miles per gallon of water! True, perhaps, but deceptive. Reading the fine print should not be a requirement.

OK, let's say for my use, 120 miles a day, I would get the advertised 300 mpg. According to their FAQ, the cost for overnight charging in southern California would be $1 to $2 per night. So, 10 bucks a week in house power, plus 7 bucks a week in dino power, that's still a savings of over $200 a month for me. Not bad for a vehicle that costs about the same as a Prius. The Prius would only realize me a monthly savings of about $80.

I know you can't really compare the two, but I only use my Sentra for commuting, that's why I bought it, and I paid less than $18K for it. For the small amount of monthly savings in fuel, if I had bought a hybrid, it would take over 10 years to realize a savings. I could recover my investment in just 4 years with the Aptera/Pod One!

I'm not just looking and saying "OOH, 300 mpg, cool!" I'm taking everthing I can into account within my sphere of knowledge, limited though it may be. Exactly why I didn't buy a hybrid - took too long to make back my money. How much longer until your product gets to market?

P.S. I got 80K miles on a french fry that fell underneath my seat.

What you say here makes perfect sense. There is no question that you'd save money on energy with an Aptera. And please don't think I was questioning your ability to understand the actual fuel and electricity usage.

Here's the way 600 miles would work out with Pod One, at 40 miles on grid power, 80 miles per day on gasoline, in Georgia. Grid electricity consumed: 20 kWh over the week: $2.00. Gasoline: 400 miles at 120 mpg = 3.33 gallons @ 2.75/gallon: $9.16. Total cost $11.16.

Your electricity is probably 20% more, so you'd spend $2.40 on electricity. It looks like you were figuring gas at $3.50, so 3.33 gallons would cost 11.65. Total cost: $13.05

The Aptera should have similar costs -- I think the $1-2 per day estimate is too high. If your figures are correct, then you would have spent $17 per week, or the equivalent of 4.85 gallons of gas. 600 miles / 4.85 gallons = 123 mpg equivalent.

I seriously doubt that the Aptera is that much worse than Pod One. And the Aptera will be available for delivery in early 2009, whereas Pod One won't be ready until mid to late 2009.

Thanks for your candor, Ken. And don't think that I was advocating the Aptera, specifically. I'd drive a Yugo if I could save that much money on my commute. I think that the Aptera and the Pod One are a long time in coming, and hopefully will change the way the world looks at commuting. I did use a higher number for gas, because San Diego County is notoriously high. I used the dollar amount for electricty from the Aptera's website, because it didn't say what the kWh actually was, but I don't think that it will be far off.

Well, by 2009 I'll have around 130K on the Sentra, and I'll be in the market for something new. Do you have a target price on the Pod one yet? Hmmm.... A trip from Atlanta to San Diego sounds like fun.

... and hopefully will change the way the world looks at commuting.

I hope so. As you probably know, the average car occupancy in commuter traffic is 1.1 person. Driving around 2 tons of steel to move 200 lbs of people makes little sense.

Given the right economy of scale, we can sell Pod One, in plug-in hybrid form, for $15,000. It is an inherently light and simple vehicle, so even though some materials are costlier than the norm for cars, the amount of materials used is small. We want to price it so that is is easy to cost-justify for an average commuting distance. At that price, it's directly competitive with any of the very small cars: you lose two seats, but you gain a tremendous amount in terms of reduced fuel costs, better resource use, reduced environmental impact from manufacturing, reduced carbon footprint, etc. We'll put a lot of effort into ensuring that production is as scalable as possible, so that if actual sales numbers fall below projections we can continue production at a lower level without immediately going belly up.

A trip from Atlanta to San Diego would definitely be fun!

dang what an ugly car. Have you seen the one from Tesla Motors? It goes 300 miles on a charge and can out perform a Ferrari!

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Well first and foremost its of no use to me because I cant haul my kids around in it so its useless for day to day work which is the bulk of my gas consumption. Second I don't know where they plan on driving that thing but for 5 months out of the year I could drive it in jersey thats for sure. The Aero dynamics look great but in high winds, flooded street, And snow drifts that thing would skid for miles. Nope giving that I live in the most densely populated section of the US that vehicle is USELESS for more then half of the people that live here.

Not only that, but if I could afford to spend $100K on a car, I don't think I'd be too concerned about how much I pay for gas.

Why not take a one gallon bottle of gasoline and leaving the lid off, peddle the bike at ten miles an hour, and see what the mileage is? And peddle it across Death Valley. What would your mileage be?

This Hybrid Vehicle is powered by oil even though it is fired in a boiler. The real question is how many barrels of crude oil you use per 10,000 miles? More, the same, or less than a conventional gasoline or diesel powered vehicle?

The last study I read gave the clean diesel powered autos the edge over gas or hybrid vehicles.

What is the cost per 100,000 miles, if you count the cost of the battery, replacement, and the barrels of oil used generating the power to charge the battery?

Three Hundred Miles Per Gallion, Ha Ha

While not trying to denigrate innovative products, I see utter confusion here over its performance! Let me add to it.

Watching my car computer and my throttle foot, I can get over 300 mpg from my 1.9 litre diesel car - downhill. Accelerating back up the hill I can get it down to 12 mpg. Depending on what speed I cruise at I get between 70 and 50 mpg.

So, I can claim my car does 300 mpg? And as I bought this one second hand I can claim it only cost £2500.

It's all hidden in the wool over your eyes.

'Your tyre is flat. Yes, but only at the bottom'

From the small picture in Ken's posts, I can see a lot of plastic (likely a lot less than the average car), plastics used in components that are hidden from view exist as well.

Where do we get plastics and countless other manufacturing materials from? Petroleum of course.

If reducing the dreaded "carbon footprint" is the goal, we also need to take into account the energy consumed during design, manufacture (which includes carbon from the energy consumed by the workers), replacement parts, driving and eventual scrapping of a vehicle. That being said, what would be the total carbon output of this vehicle assuming a life of 100,000 miles? Do the batteries contain Ni or Cd? nasty stuff for the environment.

If cost effectiveness per mile driven is the goal, it seems to be about the same as a small car.

If reducing gasoline use is the goal, its on the right track.

If coolness is the goal, I want to park one next to my Ducati !!!

These life-cycle issues can be fairly complex. Avoiding things like Ni and Cd is certainly a good rule. Ordinarily, lead is a no-no , but lead acid batteries recycle very well. Plastics are a pretty good deal, with roughly two pounds of petroleum used per pound of plastics. Aluminum consumes the energy equivalent of about 6 pounds of petroleum per pound, making it not as good a deal as steel, but the light weight pays for the difference fairly quickly in the life of the car.

Simply using less of everything is the best deal environmentally.

I'd love to have a Ducati parked next to my Pod One! I've had a great time racing 15,000 rpm four cylinder bikes, but for me, there is nothing that matches a Ducati for visceral appeal.

Actualy, 1000 mpg (of lube oil) is fairly easy to get, if you use solid fuel, not measured in gallons. A simple steam car is easy to build, and it can be fueled with remaindered romance novels, raked up leaves, or junk mail, all more or less carbon-neutral. Of course, you might have to take your wife with you, to fire the boiler, unless you invest in some automatic fuel feeder.