I've ridden in a pre-production one. They're pretty big inside. The hinges and whatnot were a bit creaky.
We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
11–20 of 27 posts
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#12I've been following Aptera for awhile and they are one of the very few companies looking at the electric car as a clean-slate design. I can appreciate the benefits of taking our current idea of "a car" and swapping out the traditional powerplant for an electric one, but we won't see the true potential of electric drive until we abandon our preconceived notions of what a car is and design one from the ground up using…
I applaud their innovation, but it looks like a cut-up Cessna in a pair of roller skates. I can only imagine how much interior room you lose on account of that, and even though it's as "big as a Honda Civic", it looks to only seat two. Plus, it's another battery-powered beast... slow to charge, quick to accelerate, but heavy as hell compared to either gasoline or a fuel-cell vehicle. Not to mention the huge amount of…
Almost all of your comments could be (and have been) applied to the original Honda Insight. While it seemed radical at the time, ten years later, hybrid cars are almost commonplace.
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#13100 miles in great. But gasoline is one hell of an energy dense and convenient fuel. It will go several hundred miles and "recharges" in minutes.
Hydrogen could be as energy dense but transporting it is a pain.
That's why I've been wondering about a sealed tank with water, which would use electrolysis to split it into hydrogen and oxygen.
The gas stations could keep huge capacitors which continually recharge slowly from the gird. When a car pulls up the capacitor would dump enough juice in it to split the water in minutes. Then while you drive you "burn" the hydrogen and turn it back into water.
But the whole system is sealed and there's no need to worry about the infrastructure necessary to ship hydrogen all over the continent.
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#14100 miles in great. But gasoline is one hell of an energy dense and convenient fuel. It will go several hundred miles and "recharges" in minutes. Hydrogen could be as energy dense but transporting it is a pain. That's why I've been wondering about a sealed tank with water, which would use electrolysis to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. The gas stations could keep huge capacitors which continually recharge slowly f…
The gas station could also directly split the water which is easy to transport. The only advantage to on bard electrolysis is home charging. Anyway, the real problem is storing enough H2 to drive a useful distance.
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#15"The 2e doesn't place form over function, form is function."
Replace 2e with anything that you admire and you will most likely find that statement to be true. I think that is incredibly important and the answer to the false dichotomy that is "form or function?". When you do it right you end up with both.
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#16Now THIS is a useful electric car. To hell with the Peapod crap from Chrysler.
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#17100 miles in great. But gasoline is one hell of an energy dense and convenient fuel. It will go several hundred miles and "recharges" in minutes. Hydrogen could be as energy dense but transporting it is a pain. That's why I've been wondering about a sealed tank with water, which would use electrolysis to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. The gas stations could keep huge capacitors which continually recharge slowly f…
The gas station could also directly split the water which is easy to transport. The only advantage to on bard electrolysis is home charging. Anyway, the real problem is storing enough H2 to drive a useful distance.
Good point the stations could certainly split the water. I was under the impression that fuel cells to have range comparable to gasoline. Here's a wired blog about Toyota's fuel cell claims: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/516-mile-range.html
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#18I've ridden in a pre-production one. They're pretty big inside. The hinges and whatnot were a bit creaky.
Were they still planning on having on-seatbelt airbags that deploy in the event of a crash? Or have they adopted more traditional airbag configuration?
Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#19I've been following Aptera for awhile and they are one of the very few companies looking at the electric car as a clean-slate design. I can appreciate the benefits of taking our current idea of "a car" and swapping out the traditional powerplant for an electric one, but we won't see the true potential of electric drive until we abandon our preconceived notions of what a car is and design one from the ground up using…
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Re: We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car
#20I've ridden in a pre-production one. They're pretty big inside. The hinges and whatnot were a bit creaky.
Were they still planning on having on-seatbelt airbags that deploy in the event of a crash? Or have they adopted more traditional airbag configuration?
Dunno. It just had regular seatbelts, though.