What happens if your are taking a trip, and WHOOPS! The battery runs out of charge?
I think the Solar only recharges and that is probably too slow to be of much value to limp to a charging station. What car was it that you opened up an emergency gallon or so Gas tank?
My guess is we start getting major Warnings when you have a guesstimated 50 miles remaining. Possibly, the software and GPS could also consider, 50 miles left but no charging station closer than a hundred.
Is the answer, "call a tow truck"?
Also, dependent upon when you may find yourself to be "out of power", if it happens to be within the day time, if you simply wait one hour under the sun, you will find yourself with approximately 3 more miles of range. These three miles are likely to afford you the opportunity to at least find a gas station or even an house with which to grovel about allowing you to plug into their porch socket, make sure to tip them. 😉 And a standard toaster or coffee-maker socket will yield you about an additional 13 miles of range per hour, which will most likely get you to a number of public charging facilities which provide at least L2 capability which will yield you approximately 30 miles of range per hour. Now, I have noticed in my cross country trip planning that L3 facilities which are capable of charging at a rate of up to 500 miles per hour are spaced an average of 50 miles apart from each other, sometimes less sometimes more, as these these to be clustered around more urban areas or important highway junctures. When they are the most spaced apart these fast-charging stations are seldom more than 75 miles apart. So, guess what? This means that no matter how irresponsible a road planner one may be, the Aptera, even with the smallest available battery capacity, will never leave you stranded. Now to aid in your responsible planning, here's a friendly site which should give you peace of mind and show you how close at hand so many charging opportunities indeed do exist, aside from the nookuler reactor that is the sun: https://www.plugshare.com/ They even make an app so it can conveniently be in your pocket at all times. If you are driving long distances you can even tell it to find stations along the way of your trajectory once your battery hits 20% capacity, which should afford you more than ample margin to never run out of electrons. At 20% capacity odds are you will be way within range of an official charging station, & most likely a fast-charging one. It's like the Aptera was also engendered to rid people of range anxiety due to the speed at which it will charge, even at the puniest of charging stations. Please enjoy the Aptera. Welcome to the Aptera, a vehicle which is apt at not leaving people stranded. 😁
Well, for less than $100, THIS will get you out of a bind.
Good luck! And drive responsibly, so that you will never need to shell out $100 for a portable 2.5kW ICE generator. ...because that defeats the purpose of a sustainable solar electric vehicle, no?
You can carry a backup battery in the trunk to recharge the main battery. A 30lb battery would give you about 25 mile added range. Batteries specific to EV's are more expensive but any camping battery will give you level 1 charging. You can also hook up larger solar panels to the camping batteries to get even more range (if Aptera doesn't let you hook up external panels directly). Plus the Aptera full solar package will give you ~5miles/hour in direct sunlight.
I thought electric vehicles can be programmed to not go below a certain point of charge such as 10%. If this is the case, which I think it is, the lower limit can be set at anything such as 15% or 20%. Then when stranded along the side of the road, you just enter on the screen a new amount such as 0%, and you can drive again. This is how you have your own reserve of whatever size you want it to be.
I bet you know of people who ran out of gas. Were they aware?
If it happens & you can get a 1000 mile charge in 10 min, problem solved ... if you have a 20 mile extension cord. Then you have to walk there dragging the cord to plug it in. Then back. Good exercise though.
Considering you can add 100 miles in 10 minutes at a roadside charging station you would have to be pretty unaware to completely run out of charge.
OOoo how about a Drone Delivery/Pickup.
1: The drone uses the a battery for power
2: Once at the destination, it is connected to the auto and delivers a charge
3: It leaves with enough charge for the return trip
Faster & cheaper! No worry about traffic jams.
How well would that work in not so good weather?
Maybe... whoever responds to a lo charge call .. throws a charge cell into the car and drives it to you. You know like a Uber call. It get hooked up and off you go driving to get a charge and return the battery to a pickup point.
The key is, there has to be design, for easy attachment and handling.
If the winds are favorable then you could probably mount a sail and get to your destination no problem.
Out of all the EVs in the world, this is the one that there's the smallest cause for concern for that. Points of note are that you can get 1,000 miles on 1 charge, can plug into a regular outlet, will likely use Tesla superchargers, but most importantly, if you let the car run totally out of juice, you can just get in the back of it and take a nap, wake up, and the car has given you enough juice to go somewhere for additional charging.
Do you know the old medical advice, if it hurts when you do that, don't do that. EV drivers plan their trips and make sure that they top up when they pass a convenient charger. The 600 mile Aptera, and 1000 if the really build that one, have so much range that you shouldn't have to worry about running out of juice in the summer, depending on how thy handle heat it could be a problem in the winter and you'll have to do planning.
I have 200 mile AAA towing that should be able to get me home and certainly to a charger. With a gas car AAA can bring you a can of gas. Something like that is possible for EVs,
I doubt this will be commonly available, the economics don't work. A gas can costs $5 so every tow truck driver carries one. These cost thousands of dollars, there is no way a towing company can make back their investment.
🤔 EVERY (gas) motorcycle I know of has a reserve switch. That's really only because it's physically difficult for a sensor to measure the fuel level. Maybe BEV motorcycles don't have that, but maybe they should.
The way I interpret the founders' comments, FWD is 10% BETTER than the published specs which are all based on AWD 100kWh.
In other words:
- AWD 100kWh will get 10mi/kWh on the EPA test.
- FWD 100kWh will get 11mi/kWh EPA.
- AWD 60kWh or less will get better than 10mi/kWh EPA. (no, I'm not doing the math right now based on their announcement of X pounds makes X% range difference).
EPA runs it on a dyno from full charge, until the software stops the motor, then simply divides that distance by 0.7, making NO consideration of low aero drag or low weight.
For example, every user of a big, heavy Tesla who I've asked at all my public charger stops reports less than the EPA numbers, & every user report for my own small, light BEV is better than the EPA numbers. Aptera has even less weight & drag than that, so it should beat the EPA numbers even better.
My point is that there's a good chance the "400-mile" Aptera will exceed that in the real world, although "360 miles in mountains, Running Heat*." would depend VERY greatly on whether it's up AND down hills (where regen gains back nearly everything you lost on the way up).
*Mild A/C** makes NO difference to MY range, due to the battery being much more efficient at higher temps, offsetting the 0.25kW or so of A/C power.
**78F blowing on my chest with moderate fan speed, & unused passenger vents closed.
I think it will be difficult to run out of battery charge with as much mileage that an Aptera provides in any of the battery configurations. If it is like any other EV, one is given warnings of low charge and charging options automatically start populating in the GPS navigation. I am lucky that this will never occur in one of my EV's, the BMW i3 REx for a generator will kick in automatically while driving when the SOC gets below 6%. It can manually be turned on at almost anytime. Remember that any roadside emergency charging doesn't need to provide a full charge. You just need to get enough charge to get you to the nearest DC fast charger to either continue your trip, or to get you home to your main charger. Or one gets towed to the nearest fast charger. Hope this helps
Junk answered his own question with the most rational response, Get an Aptera with a larger battery pack if range anxiety will be a problem. I like AAA as well. They will adapt their services as EVs are aa greater share of the market.
I think Aptera drivers are smarter than the average bear and will come up with the solution that fits them best. This may not apply to me. I am a pilot and once ran out of gas in the traffic pattern and had to make a dead stick landing.
I also think that advanced planning routes/charging points would work pretty well
I suppose if you are very concerned about running out of juice then just pack a small portable generator to ease your mind. You can get one off Amazon for 190 bucks or a cheaper one at Harbor Freight.
Note that the 10% range loss stated in the recent webinar with AWD versus FWD, is with all engaged all the time. They will eventually have software on board to intelligently engage certain Motors, reducing impact
The point of this post... what if? And to make sure someone thinks about it.
Personally, I don't take chances. Ever have a low gas tank on the interstate and run into a 20 mile traffic backup. It is usually somewhere that you want either the AC or heat running.
My biannual trip is around 360 miles in mountains, Running AC or Heat. Hopefully, it makes that with the 400 mile setup. I doubt it. I may have to up to the 600 mile range. The all wheel version eats 10% of range. And no. I do not usually currently stop for food, or gas.
Will AAA even be carrying a charger. Yeah, to jump start a car, but for Recharging a battery? Or are they going to sit there for an hour charging the battery. Some supercharger option would be better.
I just checked. They claim 130miles/hr on 110. One could donate a charge to a stranded vehicle.
Ecoflow Delta, Jackery Explorer I found from a Google search of portable EV chargers. 120v charging, about 1.5KWh capacity + charging losses, would give you about 10 miles of emergency range.
If rang anxiety is a severe concern than leave a small gas generator in the back of your aptera. In one hour you can get 10 miles of recharge.
Nice. Only in three states, but... Need to follow this one!
There are portable charging solutions which are available or in development such as SparkCharge that can be carried in your vehicle to provide DC fast charging when required. For those that require a relatively low daily range, this could be a good solution for longer road trips, rather that carrying around a larger and heavier battery pack that is rarely needed
I have a '61 Porsche that has that reserve. Actually I think it is just a lower mounted pick-up tube on the gas tank. Yes it will be nice when tech puts forth an emergency recharger. More for the aftermarket product line! They do have jump starters now. At least with the Aptera a little goes a long way!
What happens if an ICE car runs out of gas? It dies on the side of the road and you have to call AAA or whatever.
What happens if you decide to drive your aptera for 3/6/9/15 hours straight without charging it - and it dies on the side of the road? You call AAA or whatever.
The difference is with an ICE you can walk to a gas station and bring back a handheld can. With an EV we don't yet have a little jump box that will do that, but I'm sure the technology will be there soon. In 20 years there will be electric jeeps running around with a bunch of yellow jump boxes strapped on the back.
Remember that you can gain range at any 110 volt wall plug.