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New Company Set To Resurrect the Aptera
Zothecula writes "Ever since it was first unveiled in 2007, many people were captivated with the sleek, futuristic looks of the Aptera. When Aptera Motors went out of business in 2011, not having commercially produced a single vehicle, those same people were understandably disappointed. Now, word comes that a new company may be manufacturing and selling Apteras as soon as next year."
Says the article: "Aptera USA has most of the original company’s prototypes, equipment, patents and designs, so it wouldn’t be starting from scratch. Given that fact, Deringer hopes that Aptera USA could be making cars as early as the first quarter of 2014. He’s currently in the process of hiring engineers, and the company has already put in an order for 1,000 bodies from its Detroit-based supplier." Until there really is a super-charger network from central Texas to California, I wish I could get one of the gas-powered (or gas-electric hybrid) Apteras. Why should Tesla have all the fun?
Oh my. I'm very enthused by this news. I really hope that it rolls. I think they need to stay away from the all-electric pitch and go for the hybrid angle first. I hope also that they are permitted to borrow, perhaps with some government assistance, to get the product launch going.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Or how easy it is to fall out of or off the vehicle in an accident.
c++;
What do you mean run the other direction?
A tadpole trike is a pretty common layout. The most common one I see is on the following website http://www.spyder.brp.com./
The tadpole layout is way more stable than the other direction. This is an engineering decision, not one done for appearance.
US standards say that a convertible has to have pylons, roll bars, or something so when the car flips it does not crush the people inside. In theory, if you have your seatbelts on, you should just hang there. Older cars are grandfathered in.
Dude, I've driven the 'tad-pole' design for a while. It is WAY more stable than the single wheel forward three wheelers. Stop being a dick.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
What a lame ass piece of junk
She'll make point five beyond the speed of light. She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts, kid. I've added some special modifications myself.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You do realize the traditional trike design is an extremely unstable platform?
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
You can claim these are the same things, and Libertarian and Republican fat cats will totally agree with you, but they simply aren't. Let me explain.
A government can use empirical data of existing damage and cost externalization to guide taxation - thus picking losers or it can make uninformed decisions based on hypothetical projections - thus attempting to pick winners.
Notice that one of these two processes is easily manipulable by nearly anyone - when you aren't using empirical data, it's all just handwaving and shouting and the loudest sociopath wins. Tax breaks for Solyndra and Fiskar? Please. Those companies never had a chance in the market regardless of taxation because they had no customers or business plan. Giving them money was a political handout even though the clueless, technically ignorant politicians doing it had no way to know that.
But when Congressman Whitenose can look up and actually see smokestacks belching filth into the sky, and his staffers can analyze real data showing who is driving up healthcare costs in the Congressman's district, he doesn't have to guess at a mythical future, he can examine the past and present and know the truth.
So picking losers is not the same as picking winners. It's the difference between creating harmful market distortions and creating a fair market - not a totally free laissez faire market (where Murder Incorporated always wins) but a FAIR market, where cost displacement onto taxpayers by favored entities is not permitted.
Semantic quibblers and corporatist meme-shoppers will always claim that taxing known bad actors is the same as funding hypothetically good actors. Don't fall for it. You could also claim that Achilles can never outrace the tortoise, because the Greek continually has to cover half the ground and then half of that et cetera ad infinitum. But Achilles kicks the tortoise's armor plated ass in the real world. Future prediction is fundamentally different from acting on empirical data, and government should always favor the latter.