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Weird article. 1. It's a model in theory, nothing has been built yet. 2. The model is for a motor that's 88% efficient. 3. There's already motors built in ma

Weird article. 1. It's a model in theory, nothing has been built yet. 2. The model is for a motor that's 88% efficient. 3. There's already motors built in mass-manufactured cars (e.g. Tesla) >90% efficiency. 4. The objective is to have a car that doesn't need to plug-in 5. Such cars already exist, but if you don't plug in you just can't go very far 6. You'll never be able to go very far with such cars, even if they achieve their aim of 88% or even 100%. 7. There's absolutely no detail on why this is technically novel, other than the buzzword of the day 'AI algorithm' 8. There's no technical expertise by the writer, who is an uncritical mouthpiece of the researchers, but also offers no real context as to what competing technology offers in comparison Why is this deemed relevant or interesting enough for HN?

jackmott42 3y ago
regarding #6: The Aptera can do pretty well on just solar charging, enough that many people could commute every day and never plug it in (if they can park it in the sun every day, which you can't)
- NoLinkToMe 3y ago
  Agreed looks really cool. Would love to see this become the future of mobility. The one thing I hate about car culture is that people (logically) tend to buy the car that fits all their use-cases, even if some of those use-cases occur less than 5% of the time. For example, when I buy a car I want at it to be able to seat at least 5 people, ideally 6-8. And I want it to be able to carry my furniture if I want to buy some, and stuff I need for a camping trip. But if I look at the distribution of use cases: People: I seat 1 person 90% of my trips (e.g. daily commutes to work, groceries). I seat a single partner or friend 8% of my trips. And I seat a whole car 2% of my trips. Stuff: I buy on average 1 big piece of furniture a year, but typically can have it delivered. I buy 3 items 2nd hand online that I like to use a car for picking up. I move homes every few years and my car isn't really big enough. Camping: I spend 10 days a year hiking in nature, of which 2 travel days. So all in all I'd be completely fine with an Aptera type of vehicle for all but about 20 out of 365 days, or about 5% of the time. On those days I need something bigger, a car, or even a van/truck. I honestly can't wait till we get to a place of seamless renting of vehicles you happen to need that day. Economically it should fundamentally be the cheaper option: sharing production & maintenance costs across multiple users, and increasing average time-in-use vs idle-time, should decrease average cost-of-usage for users. Plus it means you can rent a smaller & cheaper vehicle for 95% of the time, and rent a bigger & costlier vehicle 5% of the time. This should certainly be cheaper than everyone having a fleet of large vehicles 100% of the time, which sit mostly idle 90% of the day, and are mostly empty during the hours you are using it at partial capacity. Of course renting vehicles isn't seamless. They're not always available, near you, expensive etc. But every 5 years it's getting better. And once self-driving really arrives (supposing it does, for 90% of trips), I think it'll accelerate the move away from the PC or 'Personal Car', to a 'Mobility Pod on Demand' type of model. Perhaps Aptera like vehicles will remain as the minimum personal car for those 95% of trips that you do with 1 or 2 passengers.
- rasz 3y ago
  Aptera cant do anything because it doesnt exist yet, the only thing this comapny accomplished to date was go bankrupt and sell itself to Chinese investors.

jackmott42 3y ago

regarding #6: The Aptera can do pretty well on just solar charging, enough that many people could commute every day and never plug it in (if they can park it in the sun every day, which you can't)

NoLinkToMe 3y ago
Agreed looks really cool. Would love to see this become the future of mobility. The one thing I hate about car culture is that people (logically) tend to buy the car that fits all their use-cases, even if some of those use-cases occur less than 5% of the time. For example, when I buy a car I want at it to be able to seat at least 5 people, ideally 6-8. And I want it to be able to carry my furniture if I want to buy some, and stuff I need for a camping trip. But if I look at the distribution of use cases: People: I seat 1 person 90% of my trips (e.g. daily commutes to work, groceries). I seat a single partner or friend 8% of my trips. And I seat a whole car 2% of my trips. Stuff: I buy on average 1 big piece of furniture a year, but typically can have it delivered. I buy 3 items 2nd hand online that I like to use a car for picking up. I move homes every few years and my car isn't really big enough. Camping: I spend 10 days a year hiking in nature, of which 2 travel days. So all in all I'd be completely fine with an Aptera type of vehicle for all but about 20 out of 365 days, or about 5% of the time. On those days I need something bigger, a car, or even a van/truck. I honestly can't wait till we get to a place of seamless renting of vehicles you happen to need that day. Economically it should fundamentally be the cheaper option: sharing production & maintenance costs across multiple users, and increasing average time-in-use vs idle-time, should decrease average cost-of-usage for users. Plus it means you can rent a smaller & cheaper vehicle for 95% of the time, and rent a bigger & costlier vehicle 5% of the time. This should certainly be cheaper than everyone having a fleet of large vehicles 100% of the time, which sit mostly idle 90% of the day, and are mostly empty during the hours you are using it at partial capacity. Of course renting vehicles isn't seamless. They're not always available, near you, expensive etc. But every 5 years it's getting better. And once self-driving really arrives (supposing it does, for 90% of trips), I think it'll accelerate the move away from the PC or 'Personal Car', to a 'Mobility Pod on Demand' type of model. Perhaps Aptera like vehicles will remain as the minimum personal car for those 95% of trips that you do with 1 or 2 passengers.
rasz 3y ago
Aptera cant do anything because it doesnt exist yet, the only thing this comapny accomplished to date was go bankrupt and sell itself to Chinese investors.