It's $27k. It runs only on electricity. It goes 120 miles on just 10 kilowatt hours at highway speeds (that's $0.50 for the whole trip around these parts). Its only drivetrain moving parts are a simple motor, a belt, and three wheels. It has 1/5th to 2/5th the drag of a typical car. It looks like something from Blade Runner.
And it's available only to California residents, while I'm from the Midwest. Darn. As though that will stop me.
Aptera Motors, a small Carlsbad auto manufacturer, will see its first cars rolling off the lines late this year, with the current list of pre-orders scheduled to be completed by late summer of '09 (pre-ordering requires a $500 refundable deposit). The all-electric Aptera Typ-1e (and its cousin, the plug-in hybrid Typ-1h), are a revolution in vehicle design. Rather than creating a "look" and then optimizing the aerodynamics and safety around it, Aptera optimized the aerodynamics and safety around... well, aerodynamics and safety. The result looks soomething like an airplane with wheel pods, perhaps something Batman's girlfriend would drive. While the Prius is among the most aerodynamic vehicles on the road, with its low drag coefficient of 0.26, the Aptera, at 2/5ths the weight, has a drag coefficient of a mere 0.11.
I've wanted to go EV for a long time. The laundry list of reasons could pile to the moon: no direct emissions polluting cities. Indirect emissions lower on a joule-per-joule basis, even with dirty electricity, thanks to scrubbers. Using significantly less energy than gasoline engines thanks to the great efficiency of power plants and electric motors in comparison to internal combustion engines or fuel cells. Quiet operation. No getting out of your car at a gas station on a miserable weather day. No stopping at gas stations at all. Less CO2 emissions even with dirty power. The ability to use clean power and have no CO2 emissions. Energy independence (and all of the anti-war, social justice benefits that entails). Low maintenance. Very cheap travel. And on, and on, and on. And heck, one of our cars is getting old and falling apart; an EV would be a perfect replacement.
There was just one problem: a lack of EVs. When the Volt came out, it was the closest thing out there, and despite its unattractive styling, it seemed the only real option going into production as more than a prototype. Sure, there are NEVs (Neighborhood Electric Vehicles) out there, but paying car prices for something that topped out around 25-35mph and went only 40 miles or so, with a distinct lack of safety standards, wasn't exactly a realistic fit.
Then I ran into the Aptera. So did Popular Science, who did a great test drive video for it:
0-60 in less than ten seconds, top speed of over 85mph, and unimaginably miserly with its energy consumption. The plug-in hybrid version, running off of the gasoline engine alone, gets 130mpg. The extreme level of lightening and aerodynamics allows them to use a very small (10kWh) battery pack (lithium phosphate, which is safe and long-life), thus keeping the vehicle affordable. The cross-section of the vehicle forms an inverted wing, keeping traction on the road at high speeds. The low positioning of the battery and the two-wheels-in-front design resists rollover better than most passenger cars. It has very long crumple zones on all sides, plus a design to encourage it to ride up and over in an accident. In short, it was my dream car, except for one thing: it was only made available to California residents.
Darn. But then again, I have cousins in California willing to let me purchase it through them, so the worst case is that I pay sales tax twice.
It's a new company. It's a radically different design. There are hurdles to getting it to me. There's little charging infrastructure in this nation (however, I will cover on a potential goldmine of 12kW charging stations later). There are no maintenance centers nearby. And while $27k is affordable, to me, that's still a lot of money.
But let's make it happen. Let's change the world, one car at a time. Aptera Typ-1e, I'll see you next fall.
For more information, check out the unofficial forum at http://www.apteraforum.com/