I pre-ordered the 600mile to be able to do road trips, i.e. Toronto to Montreal, 385 miles. But on a road trip, the vehicle would be parked in a garage and any chargers would be HighVoltage DC (?) and not 110volt like Aptera needs. If you can find 110v, 20amp, it would take 2 evenings (200mi per night) to charge enough so I could drive home!?
@anash The Founders have stated - repeatedly - that the Aptera will be able to be charged like any other electric vehicle and that it will accept 50 kW DC (CCS) charging, 220 V (Level 2) charging and 110 V (Level 1) charging.
People became very flustered when the first Aptera prototype was fitted with a Tesla charge port but, even if Aptera does strike a deal with Tesla, the vehicle will still accept high-speed DC charging.
I would not worry: I sincerely doubt that they intend to produce a vehicle that would be crippled by ultra-slow charging.
Sorry... guess I haven't read all the facts. Most recent I read talked about overnight home charging, and getting 200 miles... Slowly going through forum, and getting more facts.. thanks for info..
Aptera's light weight also reduces rolling resistance, which helps it even more at low speed than high, proportionally.
Aptera's hub motors avoid drivetrain friction loss, so they have more efficient regen, which helps much more in the city than highway.
Aptera says that even if it doesn't come with a J1772 socket, it will come with an adapter, just like Tesla does, in order to use all the great many public J1772 chargers. Nearly all of those are 6.6kW, but Aptera says it may come with only 3.3kW capacity, adding about 33 miles every hour in an Aptera. 6.6 adds about 66 miles/hour.
The High Speed test still has an average speed of 48mph, so it is not entirely applicable to longer road trips. But the low drag of the Aptera means that this estimate should be much closer to real life than most cars. The Aptera should be twice as efficient at high speeds than most EV's but only 10-20% more efficient in town, so I see it more as a road trip cruiser. This is also why Aptera have emphasized the long-range, camping, AWD, and off-road capabilities. The very wide front wheels are also better in the country than city. There are a lot of EV's that are good for short trips around town, but very few that can do road trips. The low mass doesn't help that much for efficiency around town, since most of that kinetic energy is recovered through regen, but the low mass does allow for the 3 wheel design that greatly helps the aerodynamics (important at higher speeds).
EPA's highway mpg estimates are primarily derived from a separate "high speed" test cycle, which has a top speed of 80 mph. The remaining three tests are designed to simulate stop-and-go city driving, high air conditioning use, and driving in cold temperatures.
After over 5 years with a BEV as my only vehicle, the one thing that seems to matter most for range is simply average speed. Basically the slower you go, the further you go.
The worst range I ever got was floored on the freeway. The best range I ever got was in "bad" traffic on the freeway, going steady 10mph.
That's no surprise, since apparently air drag goes up with the square of speed, but for some reason that's beyond me, POWER required goes up by the CUBE of speed!
HOWEVER, where I drive there's relatively little change in temperature (or elevation*), but when there IS:
- Moderate A/C (78F with recirculate) makes nearly no difference in my car. Apparently higher temps make the battery more efficient. Aptera's published numbers indicate less-efficient A/C though.
- Even with heat off, cold weather temporarily reduces battery capacity. If you don't believe me, get a free phone app like AccuBattery that shows voltage, put your phone in the freezer for a few minutes & see how the voltage plummets. Also, cold air is more dense, & air drag is the primary range factor. SO, even with NO heat, range drops significantly.
* ROUND-TRIP hills make nearly no difference, since you gain nearly as much on the way down as you lost on the way up. HOWEVER, if you can't make it to the top, ONE-WAY hills kill range like crazy!
Power is force x speed, so if the drag force goes as the square of the speed, the power goes as the cube. But power is work per second and what we actually care about is work per km, so velocity squared is the appropriate factor.
The first thing I can tell you is that the 600 mile range is based on the EPA highway schedule, which I think averages around 48 mph, with a peak up to 67 mph. If you are on a road trip with an average speed of 65 mph, you might be looking at an average of something like 148 watt hours instead of 100 per mile. This might be more like a 450 mile range. However, Aptera will charge on 230 volt sources, and probably other available EV charging stations, even though we don't know yet exactly which ones.
450 real world is also my assumption for the 600 EPA, based upon my Tesla S experience. "Any" kind of DC charging should be more than adequate with the 60 kWh battery pack.
@n.bruce.nelson Actually, I think the range estimates are based solely on computer modeling that indicates Aptera using 100 Watts (or less - from the engineer interview) to travel one mile. @ralenz2009 Remember, too, that we have no idea of planned battery pack capacities - we're just guessing, based on that same 100 Wh/Mi estimate.
Personally, I'm hoping for only a 20% variation and not the 25% you're suggesting! 🙂
@Kerbe #12705 Indications are that the under 100 watt hours estimate has been confirmed in the real world experience with Noir. (the prototype) Jason Hill has said that the models today are so good that the real world results are seldom different. My 148 watt hour per mile figure at 65 mph came from a report on calculations that Aptera did for ABRP for modeling highway speeds in their software. Of course, at altitude or in hot weather, you could expect to do better than that.
Another question based on my initial quesiton.
A lot is made of the the low drag coefficient. That implies Road Cruiser.
BUT drage coefficient wont apply much in town, around a city at low speed.
Will the "mileage" suffer, and be more like other EV's in town???
Aptera is still quite a bit lighter and the wheel motors are a more efficient way of transmitting power to the road, than a motor that has to operate through shafts or other power transmission means. The wheel motors can sense and adjust for changing traction conditions 32 times per wheel revolution, much faster than with remote sensing traction control. All of these factors help with efficiency in using the available power.
@anash EVs use less electricity and produce more regen when driven in town: Their mileage usually goes UP, as opposed to high-speed, long-distance driving which is a constant drain.
My PHEV, during the recent cold weather, told me that I had 39 miles of electric range available. I drove 24 miles to the next town at an average speed of 35, not going faster than 50 - on back roads with many stop signs - and returned home with 4 miles of range to spare.
Well, I'd definitely confirm, that my Prius Hybrid, certainly gets better "mileage" IN town, than out, because of the motor being shut off at each red light, and the use of "some" electric power when starting up... but wasn't sure same for an electric.
Yes, regenerative braking on hybrid AND all-electric, and yes, no electric motor running when at a stoplight, but unlike my hybrid, it will use electric ALL the time in the city.
But as you'll say.. it will use electric ALL the time on the highway, with out as much regenerative braking, so I guess I'll agree.. Great mileage IN-town.
Going back to the original question, for me while I will use it as my "daily driver" ( whatever that means these days) my main interest is road trips. My road trips are as much as possible on blue hiways, the back roads of the country. And frankly, at the moment this looks like the only ev capable of this. If you just travel the freeways, the infrastructure is good enough, but it will be years before that infrastructure is installed in the boondocks.
@glen Even the freeways and interstates in parts of the country don't have non-Tesla charging infrastructure...
@Kerbe #12705 I agree, though that should change in the next couple of years if you have 250 or greater range. But it's going to be a long time, if ever, that you can do highway 50 in nevada in anything that's not Aptera like. I took that road a few years back on a "vintage" honda cx500 motorcycle that had only a hundred miles range, which meant I traveled with an aluminum tank full of gas strapped to the back so I could get to Ely