What feedback can the vehicle give the user about its operating efficiency, and what instrumentation is needed to measure it? I think reliability should also factor in because failing parts have their own environmental cost.
Vehicle skin friction
Windscreen dirt sensor (Camera)
Vehicle Weight
Suspension load cell (Load Cell)
Rolling Resistance
Tyre Pressure (Wireless TPMS)
Drivetrain losses (Travel vs theoretical)
Wheel alignment sensor (ultrasonic? Accelerometer?)
Bearing/CV issues audible sensor (microphone)
Wind speed and direction (ultrasonic array)
Fleet reliability
MTBF data correlated (Fleet data connection)
Driving styles
Cornering speeds (Accelerometer)
Throttle position (Digital)
Cabin vibration/impulse (Acclerometer)
Ambient Temperature (shielded rtd)
Max/min battery levels (Digital)
Parked in Sun/Shelter (PV Cell)
Tyre degradation / tread depth (laser, ultrasonic, accelerometer inferred)
Brake degradation (digitally inferred, ?)
Auxiliary energy use
Entertainment system (Digital)
Climate controls (Digital)
Other (Digital)
Aptera should make transparent the equivalent CO2 costs for their vehicle production and individual parts. This should include the CO2 cost of the production facilities as an overhead aggregated across their produced vehicles. On their website I think they should show the best estimates of per-capita CO2 targets required to avert climate disaster and demonstrate how their mode of transport fits into this puzzle. This would create meaningful segregation from vehicles like Tesla. Their design choices should also follow this philosophy, repair-ability and upgrade-ability being two big ones.
Leaf has some visual display feedback while driving but I found it somewhat distracting.
I think something subtle and simple to encourage better driving should be done.
1) an optional tiny color changing LED
2) optional SOUND that is off when doing well and gradually increases the sound of a fake engine working harder and harder. including over any music being played.
3) optional sound for regen vs brake use.
I would like to see lots of data and info available to display while driving, it would be cool to have gauges or something for Regen/Power use, Solar power, Aux power use, Regen efficiency, Wh/mile over time graph, graphs for energy produced by solar, battery temp? stuff like that would be cool, even better if we could customize the display with widgets to choose what we want to display
I'm a former test engineer. My reaction is most will have no interest in much more than basic data like range, tire pressure warnings, and power consumption overall and maybe HVAC and entertainment separately. My next reaction is much of this data might be interesting to more with technical interests, but is potentially a dangerous distraction from the task of driving.
could be used while at a stop light, parked, or charging. its always been up to the driver to not stare at whatever data set that's in front of them, whether thats an instrument cluster, gps, radio, whatever. for instance regen efficiency would only be something you glance at every time you come to a stop, to see how you're doing. lots of things like that would be useful feedback. don't need to be technical to understand it, most people don't understand evs because information isn't presented to them properly. It would also be nice to get a log over time, maybe being able to back it up to a simple phone app after every drive, so you can see how the vehicles performance changes over time. solar generation gauge would be useful so you could park optimally for sun exposure, you shouldn't be staring at it while you're driving...
All good points except for "CV" joints mentioned in the 1st post since Aptera has none due to hub motors.
Even though my Fiat EV always shows an efficiency graphic on the edge of the speedo, personally I prefer its real-time kW number display, showing negative during regen, & jumping to zero when the friction brakes kick in (below 6mph). A few clicks & it can show my current drive's average, & the overall average since the last time I reset it.
I have a phone app that shows a rather intimidating amount of data, including things like the temperature of each battery cell. However after monitoring & discovering that everything I've seen stays well within ideal operating range, the only thing I use it for daily is battery voltage, so that I can keep it at around it's ideal level when parked, because the car's own % display is not as accurate for that. Ideally, Aptera would allow setting the daily & "road-trip" max charge voltage. Teslas have a setting, although I think it only goes by the less accurate % reading.
Yes, very nice if the car itself stored data for you, for future access, in case for example you suddenly wonder if the vehicle has become less efficient than when you bought it several years ago.
I noticed that as well. Did the poster mean CV joints? Doesn't look like there are any.
I still see people driving and playing with their handheld cell phone pretty often and it's actually against the law here. Drivers should be but are often not being responsible. I'd feel better about all that data being available when the car is parked (Not at a stop light!) and not real time driving. Some of it is useful real time, but let's not tempt too much distraction from the main task.
YES! it's illegal here but I still see it often. Multitasking is a proven MYTH! Not only should you not display tons of info but you shouldn't move any images on the screen; that is, minimize the area in motion.
A SOUND or a simple colored light is plenty to encourage good driving. Me, if I'm driving aggressively it's satisfying to hear the car roar and I'm not even a motorhead. My brother is and he wants a roar! You'd win him over with a fake engine sound INSIDE the car. He'd waste energy but it would be electric (and don't think you can win over such people by telling them what to do.) The rest of us would strive to not hear the roaring engine sounds and driver better.
looking at an in vehicle display is a lot different from handling a phone. its no different from taking a glance at your vehicles fuel gauge or efficiency reading. again its up to the driver to discern when the right time to do that is. one shouldn't be staring at an instrument cluster while driving through an intersection, for example.
@Osimmac Sure it is. Looking at a bunch of parameters on a screen is still a distraction though even without playing with the touch screen.
Touch screens are horrible UI while operating a car but they are cheap. If the car is doing more of the driving then it's not so bad.
They should have some REAL buttons to pause music; skip song/radio; cruise control/autopilot. You should never need to touch the screen while driving.
Seriously though, if you want to be safe, you'd not allow access to most controls while moving, avoid animations. If we could trust drivers to be competent we'd not need car insurance.
THANK YOU!! Smooth, flat User Interfaces suck for driving. The subsequent update of my car intelligently replaced its nearly-flush dashboard volume buttons with a knob you can grab without looking.
Critics mentioned "outdated" REAL tactile knobs/switches in the Ford GT, which is made primarily for actually racing on a track. Duh! It's safer/easier to be able to feel a control without even glancing away from the road. That's why the horn is on the steering wheel! & why they moved many other switches there, or on nearby stalks (lights, wipers, volume, etc.)
Not a big fan of everything being on a touch screen either.
I often say you should pick a UI primary target demographic but it could be a counter intuitive one like BLIND people! Design primarily for them on cars! Blind can not drive; however, the user's vision has things to do most the time so that sense should be considered missing. Touch, sound, spacial and avoid modes/complexity because IQ divides when multitasking. Buttons, Knobs, Switches, Sliders with different shapes / sizes in various locations.
Right, & it's not even "just" a matter of vision. Even as a passenger with no need to see anything else, I reach to touch a screen control, there's a slight dip in the road & I hit the wrong place.
Back to driving, in my car & most others I've driven, I can, for example, clear mist from the windshield in a split-second, without looking at anything. In my friend's Tesla 3, I feel for the stalk which doesn't do it, look at the screen, hit something like "car", then "wipers", then "on", then "off". Granted, they're supposed to come on by themselves, but they didn't, I suppose because mist had covered it while parked.
Now back to the subject line, my preferred efficiency feedback while driving is to have the option of displaying a power use number right on the speedo. Others may prefer a graphic &/or sound, so those would be nice options to have available.
More data should be made available while stopped, however Aptera has SO much efficiency & long range that I have a feeling I wouldn't care about most of it as much as I do with my current EV. It would be like switching from a gas-guzzler to a car that got 100mpg, & keeping track of when I got 101, or "only" 99.
Yes, my friends Telsa 3 looks nice but I find the whole UI to be horrible to actually use. It's more marketing "UX" than proper UI design. Like the whole thing was designed by a graphic artist for a movie.
Gamification: simple live feedback of good/bad driving but when you stop moving that is when you show a summary score. Many people will want to get high scores simply from that... and it means customers get greater distances; especially if estimated ranges are for a D-level driver; then most people feel great.
Some will want to tap on the thing for all the picky details. It's mostly software updates so the details can come later on.
Seat-belt usage; if you have an internal cam, even head tracking would "nudge" proper behavior. Even more so if you present scores in a relative context; comparing to other people has a huge impact. I certainly want an internal cam... to catch a thief; or make sure the driver is not falling asleep... don't even have to use the camera right now; but having a cheap one now makes ideas possible later.
I agree! Flat screens are “cool” looking, but are really a horrible interface for most interactive things in a car, like radio volume control or heating controls, and I especially don’t like them blasting light at me while I’m driving. I also don’t like the idea of my speed and power in and out being displayed to the right rather than right below my usual direction of vision where speedometers have been for decade. Just because Tesla has a big obnoxious screen to the right of the driver doesn’t make it the best choice for user interface.
It's cheap and versatile. Personally I don't mind using a touch screen, I also appreciate the fact that buttons and features can be added without having to physically modify the dash. It's not just cool looking, there's many good reasons why it was chosen.
On another thread here, someone had the brilliant idea of an optional clip-on strip of user-programmable tactile knobs for those of us who appreciate their advantages. I'd pay a couple hundred bucks for that, especially if it was offered by Aptera instead of aftermarket.