Aptera Puts Its First Production-Intent Vehicle On The Road – CleanTechnica

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Whenever I hear about Aptera, the song The Long And Winding Road by the Beatles begins playing in my head because it truly has been a long and winding road for the company. Let’s begin by saying the concept for the Aptera is brilliant — a light, exquisitely aerodynamic, incredibly efficient electric vehicle that can squeeze as many miles out of kilowatt-hour of electricity as any production car in the history of the world. Add in solar panels integrated into its carbon fiber skin and you have a marvel of engineering that puts every other EV pretender to shame.

In essence, the Aptera resembles the cockpit of a small airplane but without the wings. That’s not surprising. An airplane has to have excellent aerodynamics or it won’t fly as a commercial proposition — pun intended. Airplane design takes much of its inspiration from birds, and the Aptera deliberately takes the lessons learned from the avian world to make a vehicle that slips through the air with a minimum of drag. Aptera says its car has a drag coefficient of 0.13 — almost half that of a Tesla Model Y.

The Achilles heel of the Aptera is that it looks completely different than any other vehicle. That’s great for early adopters who want to stand apart from the crowd, but it may not matter much. Selling millions of them was never part of the company’s plan. So far, more than 50,000 people have raised their hands to say they are interested in buying an Aptera. That’s a pretty good start. If the car fits your needs — it will never tote a sheet of plywood or haul your boat up a mountainside to the lake — it may be just what the doctor ordered.

In the heyday of combustion-powered cars and cheap gasoline, nobody cared about aerodynamic efficiency. It only cost 5 bucks to fill the tank, so just put the pedal down and go. A gallon of gasoline has about 33 kWh of energy, which means a Chevy Bolt with a 66 kWh second generation battery has to make do with the equivalent of two gallons of gas. And yet it can travel 250 miles or more on a single charge, which is kind of amazing when you think about it.

Horsepower was the defining metric for gasoline-powered cars, but efficiency is the key to making competitive electric vehicles. The Aptera is, without a doubt, the ne plus ultra in efficient electric vehicles today. If it ever makes it into production, it will blow away every other electric car in the market in terms of making the most of every electron it has available. In an email to CleanTechnica this week, the company says it is getting closer to that goal.  It has successfully driven its first production-intent vehicle, which will be used for real world validation and testing. This vehicle has been engineered to rigorously test Aptera’s production-intent design, production components, and critical performance metrics such as range, solar charging capability, and efficiency. This first vehicle incorporates the Vitesco Technologies EMR3 drivetrain, an inboard electric motor powertrain announced earlier this year.

This initial test drive has validated Aptera’s proprietary battery pack, which is now functioning with the EMR3 powertrain — a critical combination that is now being tested together for the first time in real world conditions. This represents a milestone for Aptera’s composite body structure, also known as its Body in Carbon or BinC, and the production drivetrain that uses computer code developed in-house. The battery pack is also proprietary, which is a further testament to the company’s engineering agility and innovative manufacturing approach.

Aptera’s production-intent models will continue to evolve, with additional production parts and functionality being integrated and tested over time. As each feature is validated, Aptera will continue to test the vehicle’s systems in progressively challenging and high speed settings, paving the way for a fully tested, validated production vehicle ready for deliveries to the company’s nearly 50,000 pre-order reservation holders. Here is a video of that first low speed test drive.

More Aptera News

There’s other news that affects Aptera. California is proposing to expand its zero emissions vehicle rules to include motorcycles. The Aptera is classified as a motorcycle in many jurisdictions, even though it has doors and windows, windshield wipers, and things like that. A final vote on the new regulations is scheduled for November 7, 2024. According to CapRadio in Sacramento, the regulations would impose a credit system for manufacturers so that 10% of motorcycles sold in California would be zero emissions in 2028 and 50% in 2035, according to the state Air Resources Board. At the same time, the California Air Resources Board said a tighter standard for new gas-powered motorcycles would ratchet down their emissions for the first time in more than 25 years.

Under the proposed rules, more than 280,000 new electric or hydrogen motorcycles would be sold in California by 2045 —  roughly eight times more than the total on its roads now. Electric motorcycles make up only 1% of current motorcycle sales in California at the present time. Motorcycles are used more for recreation than daily commuting, and they collectively emit far less pollution than gasoline-powered cars and diesel trucks, but a gasoline-powered motorcycle emits far more pollutants per mile than a new gasoline-powered car. For the reactive gases like nitrogen oxides that contribute to the formation of smog, it’s a whopping 20 times more per mile, according to CARB.

How does that help Aptera? As a solar electric vehicle classified as a three-wheeled motorcycle, Aptera’s design aligns directly with California’s vision, the company said in a subsequent email. That means Aptera stands to earn credits in the proposed zero emissions motorcycle credit trading system, which could be a profitable opportunity for Aptera much like Tesla’s revenue model in the zero emission vehicle market. Tesla has qualified for more than $9 billion from regulatory credits since 2009. In Q3 2024 alone, Tesla’s zero emissions credits accounted for $739 million — about 34% of its net income.

For Aptera, each vehicle sold in California will generate multiple credits, creating a significant new revenue stream for the company through the sale of credits to other OEMS. Aptera anticipates that CARB will approve the new regulations at its next meeting, which will make it possible for the company to generate important additional revenue once its groundbreaking new solar-powered electric vehicle goes on sale to the public.