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The only EV I'm even interested in is an Aptera. They're building a new class of vehicle that takes advantage of the affordances of full electric. I want a smal

by r14c 2y ago

The only EV I'm even interested in is an Aptera. They're building a new class of vehicle that takes advantage of the affordances of full electric. I want a small efficient car that can go long distances and nobody else is building anything like that. Even US capital markets don't understand the appeal of this class of vehicle, but luckily they were able to fill their funding in global capital markets. I'm pretty pessimistic about US EVs, but Aptera gives me a little hope.

underseacables 2y ago
I love Aptera! I just don't think it's ever going to take off. There's just not enough investment and demand. It looks ridiculous but it's an awesome concept of aerodynamics.
- burnt-resistor 2y ago
  Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless there is another solar option, the 100 kWh pack will take around 40 days to charge by solar at 700W from 20% to 80%. Otherwise, it seems like the solar part is greenwashing with a bit of '70's-style geodesic dome and Balans chair styling. I'm all for cheap(er) EVs that don't involve Tesla like Scout or BYD.
  - WorldMaker 2y ago
    The solar adds 40 miles roughly every 8 hours of sunlight. Of course it's not a way to get 100% charged regularly, but how often do you need the battery at 100%? 40 "free" miles a business day is still a game changer in fuel usage.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    it's probably greenwashing if you live in seattle or london, but lots of americans live in sunnier places and drive less (especially so now that people are WFH). I drive on the order of ~25 miles a day and supposedly the aptera will let me get that range on a day's charge, even though I live in a slightly less sunny place than say Texas, Arizona, or SoCal.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  People hated the prius too, when it first came out. But then Leonardo DiCaprio bought a Gen2 and pretty soon everyone wanted one. This is particularly funny because Honda built the insight first which looked crazy and nobody bought it, then Toyota built the Gen1 which looked like a normal car, then pivoted. Then Honda's Insight2 copied the New Prius vibe and this car ALSO failed, poor honda. Looking unlike anything on the road catches eyes. Yesterday I was walking through an outdoor mall and I saw a bunch of kids crossing the road that jumped up and down and shouted "cybertruck!" when a cybertruck passed by. Anyways, I happen to know the person who worked on the aptera's marketing campaign the first time around in 2009. Best Buy desperately wanted to get in on the EV market, and so they piloted showing Apteras at a few best buys, and they were laughed out of the room by all of the soccer moms walking in to store. It's pretty clear the market wasn't there in 2009... It's clear there is a huge vibe shift now, and the market is ready enough to at least launch the vehicle. Whether or not it will stick is a real question, but i think it would be silly to assume that the company can't get to say 100k cars on the road for lack of a market. Execution failure is, of course, still a possibility.
  - dangus 2y ago
    Something you have to understand is that the Aptera is bound to fail because it has two doors, two seats. That's why the Honda Insight failed. The car didn't look crazy, it looked like a Civic. It didn't sell because was a tiny two-seater. Look at the top 25 selling vehicles in America. Not one is lacking four door, 4+ passengers. The ceiling for two door vehicles is the Ford Mustang. Ford sells about 50,000 of them, it's the top selling two door vehicle. If Aptera could sell 10% of that in a year it would be essentially a miracle. I also think the kind of demographic that is so eco-concious and anti-automotive status quo that they would consider something like an Aptera are already switching to cycling. I see that buyer as someone like City Nerd on YouTube, who at this point isn't looking for a better and more efficient car, they're looking to live car-free in a lively walkable/bikable urban neighborhood. The kind of person who wants to buy an Aptera is probably already halfway done packing to move to Copenhagen.
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
kube-system 2y ago
Aptera is coming up on their 20th anniversary of being vaporware. It's a vehicle with a potential market of potentially hundreds of nerds. Unfortunately, an idea that appeals to so few will never be a viable mass-production automaker.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  demonstrably false. Unless you think they're lying, they have something like ~47k preorders registered. If even 75% of those preorders flake, that's something like 2 years of manufacturing pipeline and sales, if they manage to get the first stage factory they want.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    'Hundreds' was a bit of hyperbole, but it ain't far off. 47k in 100 countries, they say. These are $100 fully refundable 'preorders', so they're more like placeholders in line than anything else. They will absolutely have a high attrition rate because most of them are speculatory. And of small number that are serious -- how many of those are in a regulatory region where they will be launching? ...and in a way that they are normally registrable? I think even they'll be shocked to ship 10% of those preorders. For a bit of a reality check here -- the cybertruck preorder originally had the exact same terms (before it got more expensive), and had 2 million preorders. They've sold almost 30k of them, and it has already been reported that all waitlist reservations have been fulfilled. So at best, a 98% attrition rate. If the Aptera ever ships, and they are able to convert sales as good as Tesla did with the Cybertruck -- then yeah, the number will be measured in hundreds, not thousands.
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
      The cybertruck also went up in price by 50k? IIRC from promised. I bet a lot of the flakes couldn't justify the extra cost. Sure the aptera has gone up from 28k? to 37k? but 1. That's likely a high water mark estimate 2. An extra 10k is easier to come up with, not to mention generally cars in that price range going up by about 5k anyways
FooBarBizBazz 2y ago
It's neat, but it would require segregated roadways to be safe, and we're not going to get that. I'd love to live in that world though. Smaller, lighter, lower-speed vehicles. Bicycles. Walkable neighborhoods. It'd be great. But we can't have those nice things, because most Americans have atrocious taste -- and the ones who do have good taste, you can't afford to live next to.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  > it would require segregated roadways to be safe Why would it? It has a carbon fiber monocoq hull with a steel roll cage. The shape is pretty much egg shaped, which seems like it would be fairly structurally resilient (IANA MechE)
- r14c 2y ago
  Not really, its registered as a motorcycle. From what I understand they're going above and beyond on safety to meet standards normally set for cars, but there are other light vehicles that people drive all the time that don't get special lanes.

by r14c 2y ago

underseacables 2y ago

I love Aptera! I just don't think it's ever going to take off. There's just not enough investment and demand. It looks ridiculous but it's an awesome concept of aerodynamics.

burnt-resistor 2y ago
Sorry to burst your bubble, but unless there is another solar option, the 100 kWh pack will take around 40 days to charge by solar at 700W from 20% to 80%. Otherwise, it seems like the solar part is greenwashing with a bit of '70's-style geodesic dome and Balans chair styling. I'm all for cheap(er) EVs that don't involve Tesla like Scout or BYD.
- WorldMaker 2y ago
  The solar adds 40 miles roughly every 8 hours of sunlight. Of course it's not a way to get 100% charged regularly, but how often do you need the battery at 100%? 40 "free" miles a business day is still a game changer in fuel usage.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  it's probably greenwashing if you live in seattle or london, but lots of americans live in sunnier places and drive less (especially so now that people are WFH). I drive on the order of ~25 miles a day and supposedly the aptera will let me get that range on a day's charge, even though I live in a slightly less sunny place than say Texas, Arizona, or SoCal.
throwawaymaths 2y ago
People hated the prius too, when it first came out. But then Leonardo DiCaprio bought a Gen2 and pretty soon everyone wanted one. This is particularly funny because Honda built the insight first which looked crazy and nobody bought it, then Toyota built the Gen1 which looked like a normal car, then pivoted. Then Honda's Insight2 copied the New Prius vibe and this car ALSO failed, poor honda. Looking unlike anything on the road catches eyes. Yesterday I was walking through an outdoor mall and I saw a bunch of kids crossing the road that jumped up and down and shouted "cybertruck!" when a cybertruck passed by. Anyways, I happen to know the person who worked on the aptera's marketing campaign the first time around in 2009. Best Buy desperately wanted to get in on the EV market, and so they piloted showing Apteras at a few best buys, and they were laughed out of the room by all of the soccer moms walking in to store. It's pretty clear the market wasn't there in 2009... It's clear there is a huge vibe shift now, and the market is ready enough to at least launch the vehicle. Whether or not it will stick is a real question, but i think it would be silly to assume that the company can't get to say 100k cars on the road for lack of a market. Execution failure is, of course, still a possibility.
- dangus 2y ago
  Something you have to understand is that the Aptera is bound to fail because it has two doors, two seats. That's why the Honda Insight failed. The car didn't look crazy, it looked like a Civic. It didn't sell because was a tiny two-seater. Look at the top 25 selling vehicles in America. Not one is lacking four door, 4+ passengers. The ceiling for two door vehicles is the Ford Mustang. Ford sells about 50,000 of them, it's the top selling two door vehicle. If Aptera could sell 10% of that in a year it would be essentially a miracle. I also think the kind of demographic that is so eco-concious and anti-automotive status quo that they would consider something like an Aptera are already switching to cycling. I see that buyer as someone like City Nerd on YouTube, who at this point isn't looking for a better and more efficient car, they're looking to live car-free in a lively walkable/bikable urban neighborhood. The kind of person who wants to buy an Aptera is probably already halfway done packing to move to Copenhagen.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago

kube-system 2y ago

Aptera is coming up on their 20th anniversary of being vaporware. It's a vehicle with a potential market of potentially hundreds of nerds. Unfortunately, an idea that appeals to so few will never be a viable mass-production automaker.

throwawaymaths 2y ago
demonstrably false. Unless you think they're lying, they have something like ~47k preorders registered. If even 75% of those preorders flake, that's something like 2 years of manufacturing pipeline and sales, if they manage to get the first stage factory they want.
- kube-system 2y ago
  'Hundreds' was a bit of hyperbole, but it ain't far off. 47k in 100 countries, they say. These are $100 fully refundable 'preorders', so they're more like placeholders in line than anything else. They will absolutely have a high attrition rate because most of them are speculatory. And of small number that are serious -- how many of those are in a regulatory region where they will be launching? ...and in a way that they are normally registrable? I think even they'll be shocked to ship 10% of those preorders. For a bit of a reality check here -- the cybertruck preorder originally had the exact same terms (before it got more expensive), and had 2 million preorders. They've sold almost 30k of them, and it has already been reported that all waitlist reservations have been fulfilled. So at best, a 98% attrition rate. If the Aptera ever ships, and they are able to convert sales as good as Tesla did with the Cybertruck -- then yeah, the number will be measured in hundreds, not thousands.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    The cybertruck also went up in price by 50k? IIRC from promised. I bet a lot of the flakes couldn't justify the extra cost. Sure the aptera has gone up from 28k? to 37k? but 1. That's likely a high water mark estimate 2. An extra 10k is easier to come up with, not to mention generally cars in that price range going up by about 5k anyways

FooBarBizBazz 2y ago

It's neat, but it would require segregated roadways to be safe, and we're not going to get that. I'd love to live in that world though. Smaller, lighter, lower-speed vehicles. Bicycles. Walkable neighborhoods. It'd be great. But we can't have those nice things, because most Americans have atrocious taste -- and the ones who do have good taste, you can't afford to live next to.

throwawaymaths 2y ago
> it would require segregated roadways to be safe Why would it? It has a carbon fiber monocoq hull with a steel roll cage. The shape is pretty much egg shaped, which seems like it would be fairly structurally resilient (IANA MechE)
r14c 2y ago
Not really, its registered as a motorcycle. From what I understand they're going above and beyond on safety to meet standards normally set for cars, but there are other light vehicles that people drive all the time that don't get special lanes.