In a world where sedans have been replaced by SUVs, I don't see how the market would react positively to this. But then again, Lime scooters are paradoxically also a thing. I guess maybe it's a matter of marketing?
Electric scooters are a walking enhancer in an urban area. Now you can go 20kph in a city and easily park your vehicle. They're also super cheap to own and operate (or borrow one when needed). That's a totally different animal than a $40k subcompact trike car that requires an actual paid parking spot
There are many cities in the US where renting a scooter to travel a couple miles is as fast as (often faster than) waiting for and riding in a car, and costs perhaps a third as much. But I can't speak for whether this solar car is anything other than hype; those are different matters.
The Aptera is the exact same height as the Toyota Camry, the #5 best-selling vehicle in the United States.
Other top-selling sedans:
#11 is the Honda Civic
#12 is the Toyota Corolla
#20 is the Honda Accord
#24 is the Hyundai Elantra
To counter your point, I'd say that sedans and cars are not at all "dead," and that the Aptera's primary buyer doesn't really care that the rest of the world is driving SUVs. This is an ideal California commuter appliance where you can park it on the street and never charge it for $28k. You pay basically nothing on maintenance on fuel which is huge, and unlike other EVs you don't even need to have any home charging.
I also don't think they need huge volume to be viable considering this partnership. They're building something that's a lot more similar to a Slingshot than it is to a full car.
So dumb. Build bike lanes and use ebikes, many of which already go 30mph+. The only hurdle is a weatherproof cover which together with an ebike would be way cheaper than this.
I mean getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars in many situations. But anyway this is a crazy niche product. Don't worry it's not going to have any effect on e-bikes whatsoever.
In Europe, the Fiat Topolino and his siblings are an increasingly common sight (while still being rare).
Relatively cheap, can be charged with a regular 230V socket, tops out at 45kmph. Not as compact as a bike for obvious reasons, but still a substantially smaller footprint than any modern car - and comes with proper weather protection.
My mum will buy one to work (home nurse) while keeping her big car around for larger travel. Especially with gas prices, I think you will see those more and more.
> getting wet/hot is a pretty big disadvantage of e-bikes compared to cars
I use an ebike as primary transportation 365 days a year in Vermont, and you'd be surprised how infrequently you have a day that is actually miserable to be out on a bike, even in a place with very cold winters and a lot of rain. By dressing properly (gloves/scarf when it's cold, rain jacket if the weather is not cooperating), you can eliminate 95% of the annoyances. Something I've learned as a year round cyclist is that most of the rain you experience from inside a car is actually not that heavy when you're out in it. There are maybe 10 days a year where I just have to suck it up (below 0F, heavy rain), and then I usually just skip a trip, take the bus if I can, or deal with it. I get stuck biking in real rain maybe 3x a year, and tbh I think it's probably good for people to encounter occasional friction like that.
And so taking on all of the disadvantages of depreciation, insurance, traffic, inspections, parking, gas prices, parking bans, worrying if that car alarm in the middle of the night is mine, is actually a much worse deal to me than putting up with a few uncomfortable trips per year.
I’d be worried about the safety of driving a bike in wet weather. You’d have to make sure the brakes and tires are really rated for that kind of weather or you’re going to be in for a bad time.
Nah wet weather is fine. The only time I've slipped off my bike in wet weather was going round a corner on a path covered in squashed leaves, which can get really slippy and really should have been cleared (which they actually did later, and resurfaced that section with grumpy surface so it clearly wasn't just me!).
Cycling in snow is when it gets really sketchy. I have done it (along with many other students in Cambridge) but you have to be very slow and careful and quite a few fell off.
I live in the UK and used to commute by bike every day. I had a waterproof, waterproof trousers, waterproof overshoes, waterproof gloves... And also I once had to soak my t-shirt in water to survive the heat. (I stopped commuting before this year thankfully otherwise that "once" would have been practically every day this year.)
I'd love if the roof and the hood of my plugin hybrid could have solar panels built in. I drive it very rarely and short distance. lf it could be topped up over few days, before next grocery or restaurant trip, I'd be delighted. I know there's not much energy to be gathered but it would suffice me. Instead I have glass roof for no reason, as if there was anything interesting straight up. Car manufacturers somewhat lost the plot.
> I'd love if the roof and the hood of my plugin hybrid could have solar panels built in. I drive it very rarely and short distance.
An old neighbor of mine had a Prius with a factory-installed small solar panel, definitely 50W or less, that IIRC was connected to the 12V battery. So one of the benefits would be in counteracting draw from various always-on computers in modern vehicles.
Is this so Aptera can pass the buck when it flops again (“it’s Launch’s fault, we swear”)?
This really doesn’t answer any questions. $44 million (and worthless paper stock warrants) is also immensely low for new vehicle tooling as a whole.
(I'll point out that an article about Slate's frugality[1] still shows some massive costs involved here. They scored a $200 million assembly line component originally from GM for $12 million. Uh, if that kind of seven-figure investment is required for a single component of an assembly line, how far does this $44 million go for Aptera?)
Charging is easy in dense cities. The problem is more that property managers are reluctant to get with the beat. Some legal intervention might be needed (e.g. make it a legal requirement to have at least 1/3 the amount of chargers as residents, in preparation for an electric car future) and let the unwilling property managers shut down.
This is clearly not a winning idea if you're a spreadsheet-loving engineer that can run the numbers, and is interested enough in clean tech to do so. But that's 5% of the population, tops.
To the 95% of people without the inclination or knowledge to check the figures, this looks great! It's a car with zero fuel costs, it's EV charging for people who don't have off-street parking, it's a fix for EVs sitting in workplace car parks at times of peak solar output, and it's most of the benefits of covering car parks in solar panels.
So there's a company in China, Launch, to which you can outsource making cars. Like Flextronics for electronics. So you can have a "fabless" car company.
The economics of that are interesting. Launch just makes cars. They don't take the market risk of having to sell them to consumers.
As for Aptera, "We are committed to commencing production and delivery as soon as possible. However, the exact timing remains uncertain and is dependent on several key factors..." So it's a Kickstarter for cars. At this point you have to ask whether the product is the car or the next financing round.
Also, it may have too much China content to be sold in the US. They may have to pay off Trump to get past that.
I work in this space. Took one look at Launch and instantly recognise the type of company they are (aftersales/paper pushing) and that this will probably fail due to lack of actual engineering experience with DfM, control software, etc.
How much effort/legal/heartache is involved in building an after market add-on for commercial vehicles?
Some comforting assumptions
- internal customers. no sales.
- good software talent. can work around anything.
- almost no moving parts - mostly electronics
- can accept cost overrun on the components - each unit is >$10K
- gradual scaling to 1000s units/annum
- daily return to hubs if needed
Not legal advice: If you don’t change steering or brakes then virtually no compliance is required. You are of course liable if your widget causes an accident.
I am a big booster of both solar power and electric vehicles, but boy, Aptera’s trying to thread a needle I just don’t think we’ve got the technology to thread yet. The efficiency of solar panels isn’t high enough to consistently generate enough power to propel a vehicle made of currently practical materials that meets modern automotive safety standards far enough fast enough to be useful, and I suspect they’re going to have to get esoteric enough in the materials, electronics, and manufacturing that the price is going to be prohibitive at the scale of the market willing to make the sacrifices the vehicle will require.
I don’t know if it’s theoretically possible to do what they want to do at some point - I don’t know if enough energy is present in the sunlight that falls on the space available on a normal car to power something that meets what the average person would consider their mobility needs - but I just can’t see it with the current state of the art, unless I’ve missed some big shifts in the last few years.
I’d love to be wrong, I prefer to be an optimist, but my inner engineer is just sadly shaking his head no.
Have a look at the solar endurance cars; they are pretty interesting on their own, and have had some "functional" designs over the years.
It's possible to make a sedan sized car that can be power positive at highway speeds in summer; even with modern safety and features. It's the rest of the year...
And they've been through significant financial and organizational chaos for probably 10 to 15 of those years. I really do hope they succeed and get a product out there. It would be a big win for a large group of people.
42 comments
[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 15.3 ms ] threadThis finally answers questions that have hounded the company for years about their plan for scaling and fulfilling the thousands of reservations.
Other top-selling sedans:
#11 is the Honda Civic
#12 is the Toyota Corolla
#20 is the Honda Accord
#24 is the Hyundai Elantra
To counter your point, I'd say that sedans and cars are not at all "dead," and that the Aptera's primary buyer doesn't really care that the rest of the world is driving SUVs. This is an ideal California commuter appliance where you can park it on the street and never charge it for $28k. You pay basically nothing on maintenance on fuel which is huge, and unlike other EVs you don't even need to have any home charging.
I also don't think they need huge volume to be viable considering this partnership. They're building something that's a lot more similar to a Slingshot than it is to a full car.
Relatively cheap, can be charged with a regular 230V socket, tops out at 45kmph. Not as compact as a bike for obvious reasons, but still a substantially smaller footprint than any modern car - and comes with proper weather protection.
I use an ebike as primary transportation 365 days a year in Vermont, and you'd be surprised how infrequently you have a day that is actually miserable to be out on a bike, even in a place with very cold winters and a lot of rain. By dressing properly (gloves/scarf when it's cold, rain jacket if the weather is not cooperating), you can eliminate 95% of the annoyances. Something I've learned as a year round cyclist is that most of the rain you experience from inside a car is actually not that heavy when you're out in it. There are maybe 10 days a year where I just have to suck it up (below 0F, heavy rain), and then I usually just skip a trip, take the bus if I can, or deal with it. I get stuck biking in real rain maybe 3x a year, and tbh I think it's probably good for people to encounter occasional friction like that.
And so taking on all of the disadvantages of depreciation, insurance, traffic, inspections, parking, gas prices, parking bans, worrying if that car alarm in the middle of the night is mine, is actually a much worse deal to me than putting up with a few uncomfortable trips per year.
Cycling in snow is when it gets really sketchy. I have done it (along with many other students in Cambridge) but you have to be very slow and careful and quite a few fell off.
So as I said... in many situations.
An old neighbor of mine had a Prius with a factory-installed small solar panel, definitely 50W or less, that IIRC was connected to the 12V battery. So one of the benefits would be in counteracting draw from various always-on computers in modern vehicles.
Others might follow because a company that makes glass roofs figured out how to manufacture them with solar cells embedded. Supposedly 720 W peak.
This really doesn’t answer any questions. $44 million (and worthless paper stock warrants) is also immensely low for new vehicle tooling as a whole.
(I'll point out that an article about Slate's frugality[1] still shows some massive costs involved here. They scored a $200 million assembly line component originally from GM for $12 million. Uh, if that kind of seven-figure investment is required for a single component of an assembly line, how far does this $44 million go for Aptera?)
[1] https://www.autoline.tv/automotive-insight/slate-a-mastercla...
Batteries exist. Solar panels add weight and design constraints. Why is this a thing? What am I missing?
That’s one reason electric cars are a bit of a luxury item right now.
To the 95% of people without the inclination or knowledge to check the figures, this looks great! It's a car with zero fuel costs, it's EV charging for people who don't have off-street parking, it's a fix for EVs sitting in workplace car parks at times of peak solar output, and it's most of the benefits of covering car parks in solar panels.
And now they won't to power the entire car with energy from solar cells on the car? I have my doubts.
The economics of that are interesting. Launch just makes cars. They don't take the market risk of having to sell them to consumers.
As for Aptera, "We are committed to commencing production and delivery as soon as possible. However, the exact timing remains uncertain and is dependent on several key factors..." So it's a Kickstarter for cars. At this point you have to ask whether the product is the car or the next financing round.
Also, it may have too much China content to be sold in the US. They may have to pay off Trump to get past that.
But i would like to ask.
How much effort/legal/heartache is involved in building an after market add-on for commercial vehicles?
Some comforting assumptions - internal customers. no sales. - good software talent. can work around anything. - almost no moving parts - mostly electronics - can accept cost overrun on the components - each unit is >$10K - gradual scaling to 1000s units/annum - daily return to hubs if needed
I don’t know if it’s theoretically possible to do what they want to do at some point - I don’t know if enough energy is present in the sunlight that falls on the space available on a normal car to power something that meets what the average person would consider their mobility needs - but I just can’t see it with the current state of the art, unless I’ve missed some big shifts in the last few years.
I’d love to be wrong, I prefer to be an optimist, but my inner engineer is just sadly shaking his head no.
It's possible to make a sedan sized car that can be power positive at highway speeds in summer; even with modern safety and features. It's the rest of the year...