As one of the 4400 Californians who plopped down a $5000 (refundable) deposit for purchase of an Aptera, I was saddened when their super-efficient three-wheeled electric vehicle (with ultra-light carbon/plastic composite body) made a disappointing showing in the $10 million Automotive X-Prize in 2010, and then liquidated in 2011 before delivering a single vehicle to a customer (they refunded all deposits). An image of their original design for the Aptera 2e serves as my avatar on this forum.
On 28 August 2019, IEEE Spectrum "Cars That Think" posted a new article on a "reboot" of Aptera, under the leadership of its original owners/innovators.
I remain delighted with my Model S, and feel gratitude every time I sit in it -- it is the right vehicle for my current lifestyle. The original (and new) Aptera is not aiming at the same market as Tesla. It's compact two-seater design is more suitable competition for something like the BMW i3. And if I needed to shift to such a vehicle I'd still want to see how it fared in crash tests, and how it handled (for example, how would it do on high winds on Bay Area bridges?). But as a huge booster for electric vehicles, I cheer on their effort, which has consistently demonstrated bold, original, and creative engineering thinking. Their current designs suggest an efficiency of something like 2.5 times that of the most efficient variant of the Model 3. This is good competition, and we should all wish them well.
On 28 August 2019, IEEE Spectrum "Cars That Think" posted a new article on a "reboot" of Aptera, under the leadership of its original owners/innovators.
I remain delighted with my Model S, and feel gratitude every time I sit in it -- it is the right vehicle for my current lifestyle. The original (and new) Aptera is not aiming at the same market as Tesla. It's compact two-seater design is more suitable competition for something like the BMW i3. And if I needed to shift to such a vehicle I'd still want to see how it fared in crash tests, and how it handled (for example, how would it do on high winds on Bay Area bridges?). But as a huge booster for electric vehicles, I cheer on their effort, which has consistently demonstrated bold, original, and creative engineering thinking. Their current designs suggest an efficiency of something like 2.5 times that of the most efficient variant of the Model 3. This is good competition, and we should all wish them well.
