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its main offering will be a single 9-week course of study over the summer for 120 students, each of which will pay $25,000 for the privilege

Well, that should help them get rid of that surplus cash. It's really in the spirit of TED, though. How much are the tickets to get into the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference -- $4k? $6k? It's basically an event where you pay for the privilege of schmoozing with famous people, be they celebrities, scientists, politicians, etc.

Still, some interesting news has come out of the conference (re. Aptera).

its main offering will be a single 9-week course of study over the summer for 120 students, each of which will pay $25,000 for the privilege

Well, that should help them get rid of that surplus cash. It's really in the spirit of TED, though. How much are the tickets to get into the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference -- $4k? $6k? It's basically an event where you pay for the privilege of schmoozing with famous people, be they celebrities, scientists, politicians, etc.

Still, some interesting news has come out of the conference (re. Aptera).

Now, the info on safety is a little sparse from my quick look at Aptera's website, with the faq saying "It will match other commuter vehicles". Faq here. Safety Here

The old version of the website was more detailed; it's kind of in transition right now. Yes, they have a full compliment of airbags, ABS, etc. Crash testing has been modelled by the same software BMW uses. It's a layered composite, like exotics (ever seen an exotic wrecked at 100+ mph, and the driver walks away? Composites are great that way). Here's a copy of an article whose author was introduced to the Aptera by its manufacturers handing them a sledgehammer and letting them wail on a shell. They nearly knocked their teeth out on the rebound and couldn't even scratch it. Roof and door crush strength have been reported to be over double the NTSB standard for cars.

First up is the single back wheel. Won't that make the vehicle a rollover hazard?

No. Here's excerpts from a great Road and Track article on the subject of three wheel stability. Net results of their testing of various delta (one-wheel forward), tadpole (one-wheel backward), and four-wheel vehicles? The deltas were always prone to oversteer and rollover, and no amount of tuning could change that. The tadpoles, like four-wheelers, were prone to understeer -- even a bit more than the four wheelers -- and were just as stable. Plus, they had a lower moment of inertia, and thus had a faster reaction time. When you think about it, it makes sense. When you brake, your CG shifts forward, putting it between the wide front stance. There's not much weight on the backside of a four-wheel vehicle when braking/turning.

I presume the front wheels are extended to help mitigate this issue, but one good blowout looks like it could send that sucker fishtailing right into roll. (And for that matter, how servicable is that tire?)

The panels on the side come off. Same with the front wheels.

My second issue is the power-train. Generally you want as much weight sprung as possible, and electric motors are heavy. Aptera seems to understand that as it appears there is an axel linkage on the front wheels. Presumably this is how power is transmitted.

Correct, except for the "electric motors are heavy" part. Electric motors are exceedingly light for how much power they produce. Batteries are heavy.

Is having that axel exposed going to cause any safety and reliability issues?

Driveshafts are typically exposed on the underside of a 4WD vehicle, right where rocks are getting kicked at them. Anyway, if there was any problem, they'd just shroud it.

Could'nt the steering be accomplished by swiveling independent pods rather than linking them?

The pods do swivel. The entire front of the car doesn't turn at once. There are CV joints at the wheels.

It should also be noted that it's been reported that the batteries are mounted low, as is the passenger seating, so your CG is low. Anyone who's not familiar of the gains of mounting batteries low should take a look at videos of a Commuter Cars Tango ;) Tall, narrow little vehicle, looks like the most unstable thing in the world, yet it barely budges side to side on turns.

Actually, no, it doesn't unless you're referring to cartoony images, but that's beside the point. The optimal aerodynamic shape is a teardrop. The Aptera approximates that as closely as possible within the constraints of traffic regulations and highway-speed safety. To make up for the ever-so-slightly blunted tail, they fill in the partial vaccuum with air from a vent fan.

That's because you ... can't. Right.

I will tell you that in the future, if you don't understand a post you're replying to, and get told so and corrected, it's incredibly pathetic to play stupid semantic games in an effort to gloss over your previous post.

And I tell you that I find it incredibly pathetic when people resort to insults when their attempts to get through with junk science (or junk engineering, in this case) are spotted.

However, there IS a difference. The fact that you don' understand what it is doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that you're ignorant.

Unless you can tell me, I take that as a proof that you just suck at HVAC engineering and thermodynamics. But that's okay, I hated the thermo and advanced thermo classes too, so don't feel too bad.

Hey, the question is even answered here:

http://www.apteraforum.com/showthread.php?t=626&highlight=conditioning

I'm cheering for Aptera not just because I'm in line to buy one (indirectly, through a California intermediary), but because technologically, they really deserve it. A drag coefficient of only 0.11 (Prius=0.26), combined with a low cross-sectional area -- i.e., they let physics dictate the shape. Speaking of the shape, it's an inverted wing, so more downforce the faster it goes. That, combined with a wide (~7 foot) front wheelbase and low-mounted batteries for a low CG, lead to strong stability against rollovers. The design is a tadpole trike for stability, weight reduction, and drag reduction. Long 45" crumple/deflection zone, in-seatbelt airbags, with roof and door crush strengths double the NTSB standard. Composite construction for light weight and safety (stronger than steel). Lithium phosphate batteries, which should last the life of the vehicle. The ridiculously low drag and rather light weight approach allows them to use only 10kWh of batteries, meaning faster charges, charges on only wall current, lower potential maintenance/repair costs, and a whole host of other benefits (uses only 80Wh/mi @ 55mph, 140Wh/mi @ 85mph). I could go on for hours; it's an impressive piece of work. I'm simply not as impressed by the other contenders.

Oh, and they recently brought on the head of production for the Ford GT, Dodge Viper, and half a dozen other high end cars to head up their manufacturing. First cars go out the door this December; mine should be late next summer. Can't wait!

Oh, missed something. Re, the Aptera:

Oh sure, they may have a prototype or a small pre-test run done by then.

The Mk0 prototype has been done since March of 2007, and the Mk1 pre-production prototype since September of 2007. That's what you see tooling around in all of the YouTube videos. Check out the Popular Mechanics one; it's one of the more thorough vids. The guided tour is another good one. And they don't just take it for quick runs around the block. Over on the forum, people have been watching it pretty closely, and the car sure has been getting around. There are lots of places the Aptera has been photographed on the far side of LA, for example, almost a hundred miles away from Carlsbad (where their old place is; not sure where the new factory is).

Well, I can't point you to a vehicle a tenth as efficient, but this car due out later this year comes in two models -- the Aptera Typ-1h, which gets 130mpg plus has a 40 mile all-electric range, and the Typ-1e all-electric with a 120 mile range. Since power plants have a higher thermodynamic efficiency from burning fuel than gas engines, while battery, charger, and transmission losses are very small, you're looking at almost 200mpg equivalent for the Typ-1e and for the first 40 miles of the Typ-1h's range. So, you're looking at roughly a 20th as efficient, give or take in either direction. The price is a bit steep for a two seater ($30k for the Typ-1h and $27k for the Typ-1e), but when you're nearly or completely eliminating a couple thousand dollars in money spent on gasoline per year for a hundred dollars spent on electricity, and cutting maintenance (the electric drivetrain only has the following moving parts: three wheels, one drive belt, one sealed brushless electric motor; not even a transmission), you can hit payback pretty quickly, and certainly pay off the difference over a normal car in several years. Not to mention, it's all sorts of crazy neat features like in-seatbelt airbags (like small planes use -- they don't explode toward you, but upwards to be between you and the dash, shielding your whole body), StreetDeck (a nifty nav/entertainment system), camera situational awareness displays, and so on.

They're currently moving into their production facility, and plan to offer test drives and factory tours in 30 to 60 days.

* NiMH has significantly less energy density than even the "safe, long-life" li-ion chemistries
* Even in bulk production, they're not much cheaper than the "safe, long-life" li-ion
* NiMH wastes 30-50% of the electricity you put into it when charging/discharging (li-ion loses a fraction of one percent)
* The wasted energy is dissipated as heat, so you have to actively cool the batteries (using up even more power).
* They fundamentally cannot fast charge
* They leak energy like a sieve
* NiCd is worse than NiMH in almost all respects.
* Texaco-Chevron owns only 20% of the company with the patent (Cobasys)
* Cobasys only has the rights for US use of NiMH in vehicles.
* Cobasys *has* relicensed with PEVE to allow them to produce large NiMH worldwide (it was in 2006, I believe). It's a lack of demand for NiMH EVs among the manufacturers that's kept them away (except for the Vectrix)

Some people put way too much stock in "Who Killed The Electric Car". Here's my summary of the conspiracy theory, which I posted on the Aptera forum:

Let's take a look at where your conspiracy stands. In 1990, GM had a prototype EV that was already incredibly advanced. Nonetheless, with this incredibly advanced EV, it still took them six years after the new CARB standards to bring a vehicle to market. GM was really serious about it, even though they only made a little over a thousand of them. All of the other manufacturers were also really serious, even though they made even less. The vehicle only cost $34K and wasn't a loss leader, despite that, ignoring profit and liability, GM spent $80K on each of them (meaning that profit would require selling them for ~$100K). There were 5,000 people who wanted to buy them, even though there weren't really, as the vast majority of them didn't follow up after being informed of the stats and (subsidized) price. Then, in 2000, Chevron-Texaco bought Cobasys. Panasonic stopped paying the licensing fees, and they were in the right for doing so. Cobasys tried to get the money for the licensing fees for the patent that they spent a fortune on, and they were in the wrong for doing so. Chevron was trying to sabotage this obviously profitable vehicle by pressing suit in 2001, yet not a single EV manufacturer stopped making EVs until, out of sheer coincidence, the CARB rules that required zero-emission vehicles in California were overturned, wherein they *all* stopped making them. This obviously was due to oil company repression, having nothing to do with the CARB rule changes. GM had already shut down almost all of their part lines, but somehow it was the lack of batteries that killed it (once again, having nothing to do with the CARB rule changes right before they all discontinued their EVs). Despite the tens of billions of dollars that go into facing lawsuits, and the fact that waivers don't begin to eliminate lawsuits, liability was just a cheap excuse. And keeping part lines open, who cares? The fact that GM was leaking money like a sieve was irrelevant. GM was so enthralled with the profit potential for their revolutionary EV1 that they sold the patent for the vehicle's batteries to a third party. Apparently Chevron had paid GM, so that even though GM saw electric cars as having huge profit potential, the potential to replace gasoline cars, and the fact that GM's income is in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year, Chevron apparently had that kind of disposable income for a big enough payoff that GM would sabotage trillions of dollars of future income. Big, big payoff! And they made these billions to trillions of dollar secret deals without the SEC or IRS noticing. Chevron not only did this with GM, but also with the other major auto manufacturers. So in the pocket of Chevron was GM that they actively continue trying to repress the EV1 to this day. Of course, they had a moment of insanity and instead of destroying them all, they outright donated several dozen to universities and museums where everyone could see them. Bu