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NeilBEN
Well-Known Member
The Aptera will have quick charging, and since it can go *much* farther per kWh than any other vehicle - as much as 10 miles per kWh - it will get more range in any given time than any other vehicle. The extremely low aerodynamic drag of the Aptera means that you only would have to do 1 quick charge in any reasonable day of driving. To drive more than 400 miles, and up to 600-700+ miles in one day is fairly infrequent. I have driven a ~250 mile range EV - the VW ID.4 - which has fairly quick charging, on several trips 450 to 675 miles in a day. These took 2-4 quick charges, and always were needed also to use the loo or have a meal - and the stops were almost always no longer than it takes to do the other necessary things.
The ID.4 charges at up to ~180kW and can charge 5% to 80% in 38 minutes. Doing the math, this is as much as 290 miles worth of charging per hour.
The Aptera should have at least 60kW charging rate, so to charge the same 5% to 80% might take about 35 minutes. So that is about 500 miles of charging per hour.
To put this in perspective, a 450 mile trip had two charging stops - and took about 9 hours and 10 minutes. That's 550 minutes to travel 450 miles aka 49MPH average. Those two stops were virtually exactly as long as it took to eat food, and use the bathroom twice along the way. So, even if you have an ICE vehicle that can drive 450 miles at highway speeds (say 70MPH average), I would imagine that you would want to stop for needed breaks for at least 20-30 minutes - and you might have to eat while driving in order to be able to arrive at the end of the trip in less time.
The Aptera would be able to do this trip with just one charging stop, of about 30 minutes.
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NeilBEN
Well-Known Member
They have built the production tools - they are making the largest carbon fiber body piece of any production car. The first production intent "body in carbon" has been built.
They have just secured a large capital investment that will allow them to build the 16 "BinC" production intent vehicles that will be the final Delta vehicles - for all the required testing purposes, including crash testing. And several of these will be their public show/demo cars. They will use the large investment to first build a special edition of 2,000 vehicles for private investors who bought at least $10,000 worth of stocks. And then they will continue to build the Launch Edition vehicles for all of their tens of thousands of reservation holders; that include me. I also bought just over $1,000 worth of stock. The expected price of the LE is around $34K.
It certainly seems plausible that they will deliver all or part of the first 2,000 Aptera's next year. Their initial production will be ramping up fairly quickly to at least 10,000 a year. They will be able to have additional assembly factories up and running fairly quickly. There are only 8 pieces in the main body.
They will be doing a 250 mile version later, that is supposed to cost about $27K. This is a smaller version of the 400 mile battery. Later they plan on a 600 mile version with better cells - and after that, a ~1,000 mile version, with ~100+kWh battery, using more energy dense cells.
spicer
Lunatic Member
Be quite the thing for many, hope it sees production. Does it have air-conditioning?
NeilBEN
Well-Known Member
Yes, for sure, and it has a heater - and air bags, traction control, ABS, etc. etc. The stereo in the LE has a transmission line sub, even.
Aptera is all about right to repair, and the solar cells on the vehicle - up to the ~700W of high efficiency cells will be able to cool/heat it while parked.
Pio1980
AK Member
Not mine, not an owner/driver, but pertinent;
www.notebookcheck.net
Tesla Model S that clocked 430,000 miles gets range tested, reveals a 40-mile range loss in unfavourable driving conditions
AutoTrader's YouTube channel has posted an update to the ultra-high mileage Tesla Model S, in which the car was range tested by presenter Rory. Although a substantial range loss was detected, the testing conditions weren't exactly ideal, and the car performed admirably well despite its age and...
www.notebookcheck.net
petes'picks
Super Member
The guy in the video made it 186 miles before it left him stranded feet away from the charging plug. In the video he stated he was going to drive at 70mph on the hiway to get a 'real world' range but he had traveled 62 miles after driving 1hr and 6 mins (4:18 mark in video) so he was only driving about 56.36mph up to that point and again at the 6:06 mark it shows 108miles after 110mins of driving. That was the last time he showed the mileage/time data but during the 7:30 to 8min time frame you can see cars flying by him so he slowed down quit a bit for the last miles so we are left guessing the average speed of this test which was not even close to 70mph.
Would of been nice if he stuck to the real world driving plan of 70mph. I was just on I-25 this afternoon and had pickup trucks pulling trailers filled with lawn care equipment and building supplies come up on my bumper and I was doing 82mph in the slow lane.
Would of been nice if he stuck to the real world driving plan of 70mph. I was just on I-25 this afternoon and had pickup trucks pulling trailers filled with lawn care equipment and building supplies come up on my bumper and I was doing 82mph in the slow lane.
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I think you're missing an important piece to the financial aspect of gas vs. electric. There will be a mileage tax on EV's. Gas owners pay a gas tax and if EV owners don't use gas then the government loses tax revenue. We all know they aren't going to lose out on more tax money they need to waste so make sure you factor that into the equation.
The life expectancy of an EV battery is 10 years. When you factor in the carbon footprint it takes to mine the raw materials and manufacture an EV battery it takes 8 years of use to make that battery carbon neutral. Then in 2 years it starts all over. EV's are not better for the environment.
NeilBEN
Well-Known Member
How we pay for highways and bridges does need to be addressed, certainly. But the gas tax hasn't gone up in decades, and our infrastructure *in general* needs more maintenance and improvements. That's a whole other conversation. We all need better infrastructure.
Your not correct on batteries - they will and have lasted much longer than 10 years. They do take more energy to make *as we make them now* i.e. from raw materials. BUT the break even point of the carbon footprint is less than 2 years. ICE vehicles have a total carbon footprint that it MUCH higher at 10 years/same mileage - and fossil fuels will only get WORSE over time, because we have to use more and more energy to get oil. Fossil fuels are getting dirtier and dirtier.
And - we can and are recycling batteries. This is much less energy use to get batteries from recycled battery materials, than it does from raw materials.
The electric grid is getting cleaner and cleaner - because we are using the cheapest way to generate electricity - wind and solar. With more grid storage - partly from the batteries in EVs - we can get to zero carbon electricity.
Your not correct on batteries - they will and have lasted much longer than 10 years. They do take more energy to make *as we make them now* i.e. from raw materials. BUT the break even point of the carbon footprint is less than 2 years. ICE vehicles have a total carbon footprint that it MUCH higher at 10 years/same mileage - and fossil fuels will only get WORSE over time, because we have to use more and more energy to get oil. Fossil fuels are getting dirtier and dirtier.
And - we can and are recycling batteries. This is much less energy use to get batteries from recycled battery materials, than it does from raw materials.
The electric grid is getting cleaner and cleaner - because we are using the cheapest way to generate electricity - wind and solar. With more grid storage - partly from the batteries in EVs - we can get to zero carbon electricity.
Individual states tax gasoline. Here in New Jersey that tax on gas is 42 cents a gallon and it was raised in March and it will again in October. So gas taxes do go up, regularly . There is abundant information on the carbon footprint created to produce lithium batteries. I have not read anywhere that an EV battery is carbon neutral any less than 8 years. Lithium mining is devastating to the environment and transporting the materials needed to manufacture a battery is not environmentally friendly.
The bigger issue is the use of fossil fuels to produce everything plastic. Our hunger for plastic materials is excessive and until we don't stop building or packaging everything we consume in anything other than plastic the use of fossil fuels will continue. If anyone thinks otherwise they're fooling themselves.
So does the Fed Gov.
NeilBEN
Well-Known Member
Right - the federal tax on gasoline is about 18 cents / gallon.
I completely agree that we need to stop use of all consumer single use plastic - the fossil fuel companies are desperate to profit as much as they can - and their profits come at the terrible cost of so many parts of the environment that all life on the planet is totally dependent on.
Again - we can recycle all the batteries we have already made. Reusing these materials means that at some point we can stop mining/extracting materials to make them. We extract oil and methane gas - this is a total loss of energy *because* we *consume* that oil and gas. We mine for almost EVERYTHING that we don't grow.
ALL manufactured products need to be fully recycled - after it is repaired and reused as many times and as long as possible. Throwing things "away" is a MASSIVE problem. There IS NO SUCH THING AS "AWAY". Planned obsolescence and designing for the dump - are all very damaging. Concrete and steel and aluminum are all FAR bigger mining and energy uses than batteries.
I completely agree that we need to stop use of all consumer single use plastic - the fossil fuel companies are desperate to profit as much as they can - and their profits come at the terrible cost of so many parts of the environment that all life on the planet is totally dependent on.
Again - we can recycle all the batteries we have already made. Reusing these materials means that at some point we can stop mining/extracting materials to make them. We extract oil and methane gas - this is a total loss of energy *because* we *consume* that oil and gas. We mine for almost EVERYTHING that we don't grow.
ALL manufactured products need to be fully recycled - after it is repaired and reused as many times and as long as possible. Throwing things "away" is a MASSIVE problem. There IS NO SUCH THING AS "AWAY". Planned obsolescence and designing for the dump - are all very damaging. Concrete and steel and aluminum are all FAR bigger mining and energy uses than batteries.
Pio1980
AK Member
The roads don't maintain themselves cost-free.
The gas tax is supposed to pay for the roads but it never does because they waste it or give it away. Then they borrow the money when the bridges and roads fall apart. But that wasn't my point, regardless of how roads get fixed the fact remains that the EV mileage tax should be figured when making a comparison.
Our hunger for plastics will not go away. Everything is made out of plastic or plastic products.
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