What Charging Standard Will You Use and What Rate

correction: ioniq 5 and ev6 do 10-80 in 18 minutes, 70% range total... ie regain 210 mi in 18min or 700 mi/hr charging speed

The network isn't my main objection, I don't expect that I'll be able to get an Aptera before 2023, I want the 600 mile version and they are producing the 400 mile version first, by 2023 the the CCS network will have reached a usable state. As I've said before the problem isn't day trips, the groundbreaking thing about a 600 mile range is that it eliminates the need for any charging on day trips, the absolute longest day trip that we've done is 450 miles and that's leaving at 9AM and coming back at 11PM. The problem is multi-day road trips, unless your hotel has destination charging you'll need to do full battery DC charging. Because of the range of the car you won't have to do as many but when you do it will take at least an hour with the 600 mile battery and two hours with the 1000 mile battery. 20 minutes is a comfortable charging time, it's just right for going to the bathroom and grabbing a donut. But an hour will be painful and two hours a nightmare. For me, because I already have both a J1772 EVSE and a Telsa EVSE, it's only multi-day trips that would be a problem. But for anyone who lives in an apartment the car will be unusable if it only has 50KW charging. The long range will reduce the frequency of charging stops but when they happen the time will be way to long. I also doubt that there will be enough CCS chargers to handle local charging. Looking at EA's plans by 2023 they will have reached the coverage level that Tesla had in 2019 which is when I bought my Model 3. That coverage rate is good enough to get anywhere in New England but it wasn't close to being good enough for daily use. Tesla is now reaching the daily use coverage threshold, where I live in MA there is a Supercharger 10 minutes South of me and by next month there will be one 10 minutes North of me. There are no CCS chargers anywhere near me, the closest is 30 miles away. By 2025 EA might get to the coverage that Tesla has this year but before that it will mean that people who live in apartments won't be able to charge their cars without a long trip. California will be the exception because they are five years ahead of the rest of the country.

I think you re right. I hardly believe it will have ultrafast charge because it doesn t have a proper cooling system

@Joshua Rosen The charging situation is not as bad as you make it appear. Unlike for a gas cars, you don't typically say "fill 'er up" at a rest stop on the road. As you said, you never have gone more than 450 miles in a day, and I'm sure you needed to take multiple stops in those 450 miles. A cheapo, often free Level 2 destination charger will give an Aptera a full battery overnight. A 50 KW fast charger will give you 250 miles in a half hour rest or lunch stop - enough for another 3.5 to 4 or more hours of driving.

I'm happy about day trips but I'm not happy about long trips which are rarer but still happen. Day trips will be easier than they are in a Tesla because we can do our stops anywhere, we won't have to plan on using a Supercharger. But multi-thousand mile road trips, which we do once a year, won't be doable because then we'll have to do either unacceptably long charge stops or frequent short stops but frequent stops in a CCS car aren't doable because the CCS coverage is so terrible.

@Joshua Rosen I modeled a multi-day trip scenario after a 3 week commuting cycle in Excel. I posted over here about it:

Copy-pasted here:

I did a spreadsheet for multi-day, cross country trip up to Lake Oswego, OR.

Excel scenarios were: commute Monday through Friday for 3.5 weeks, including date days on some weekend days with the wife, and then charge fully in order to leave on Friday of the 4th week for one 1352 mile road trip to Lake Oswego.

Results were:

250 mile version makes it through 10 days and never gets to road trip

400 mile version makes it 18 days and never gets to road trip (without charging a 3rd 'extra' time). Took three L2 charges during road trip

600 mile version makes it 33 days. Took three L2 charges during road trip

1000 mile version makes it 45 days. Took three L2 charges during road trip.

By 'makes it x days', I mean before dropping below 20% state of charge and needing an 'at home full recharge'.

Now this is quite the challenge case. It's a very LONG, multi-day road trip after 3 weeks of commuting and pleasure driving. All of these versions have their purpose and I could live with any of them by just modifying my behaviors, drive type, and road trip planning.

If you've got an L2 charger at home, the 250 would even be good for one or 2 day road trips up to 482 miles, driving a maximum of 4.2 hours per day, with appropriate charging en route. The 400 mile version can easily do 361 miles per day, driving 6.7 hours per day, for as many days as you can stand it. The 600 mile version can cover 521 miles per day, driving 9 hours, for as many days as you can stand it. The 1000 versions exceed anyone's realistic road trip requirements, covering 841miles per day, driving 14.5 hours. If you're a die-hard road tripper, you could cross the country in a little over 3 days.

So after having thought through all these practicalities of road tripping and charging, the key question for me to ask myself is: Is this a good road car, or would I rather use an ICE vehicle for the fairly rare road trips I do and just buy a 250 mile Aptera to save money? Thus, it becomes my commuter car. It'd replace my Vstrom motorcycle.

Bottom line for me is: if this turns out to be a GREAT road car, I'll buy a 600 version. If it's an 'okay' road car, I'll get a 400 version. If it's not great, I'll buy the 250. The 250 would have the same 'feels like' refueling frequency as my motorcycle, and the 400 would equate to my BMW 228xi.

Short summary version:

Do you have a house and an L2 charger, and you like to road trip?

Get the one that fits your road trip requirements and budgets. Sell another vehicle to offset the upgraded cost for the version that suits you best.

Do you live in an apartment or condo with no easy charging access? Get the 600 mile version because, excluding road trips, you only have to refuel every 44 days (64 mile commute). You get the example; justify the more costly version because its more practical for you, and besides you're saving money not owning a house.

NOTES ON MY MODEL ASSUMPTIONS: Range calculations are for my solar insolation values in Phoenix, AZ, and summer travel to road trip. I've also assumed I can find hotels/motels with L2 charging so it charges while we sleep. I only modeled one charge to 95% SOC prior to departure, but kept subsequent L2 charges to 85% SOC max, and never let battery drop below 18% SOC.

For anyone who doesn't charge at home or for anyone on a multiday roadtrip without destination charging 50KW is hopeless. The 60KWh pack will take over an hour to charge, the 100KWh pack will take two hours, that's not acceptable. Those are the only scenarios that matter with a car that has 600 miles of range, 1000Km to you in Switzerland. The only type of charging that 50KW can handle is top ups where all you want to do is add a 100 miles while you go to the bathroom, but with that kind of range top ups are unnecessary. We do day trips around New England every weekend. Since I went electric I've closely monitored the mileage of our trips, the absolute longest is 450 miles, it's not possible to do more than that in a day if you are driving 50% on back roads, stopping for sightseeing, shopping, lunch and dinner. The 600 mile version won't require any charging assuming that the car can deliver an honest 500 miles. When I had a Chevy Volt, 53 miles of electric range and 400 miles of gas range, we were able to do those trips without any fuel stops, our bathroom stops were at Duncan Donuts which in New England are on almost every corner. The same will be true of Aptera for the 600 mile version. We've also done 2000 mile trips in my Tesla Model 3, because of the Supercharger network and the fact that even on V2 chargers we can charge at 130KW for a long enough period, the stops were only about 20 minutes which is ideal because that's the time it takes to go to the bathroom. One hour stops are not acceptable, ever. The Tesla also benefits from having Tesla destination chargers at hotels, there are far fewer J1772 chargers at hotels. In Europe Tesla uses the CCS2 standard like everyone else so all destination chargers are compatible with all cars. In the US that's not true, Tesla's use the Tesla standard and everyone else uses the crappy CCS1 standard. Tesla has a far better fast charging network and they also have far more coverage at hotels than the industry standard J1772 chargers because they've worked at it for years and they give destination chargers to hotels. Chances are Aptera will be stuck with CCS1 which means that you can't count on destination charging, you will have to use DC charging. Electrify America has 350KW CCS1 chargers so fast charging is available for CCS1 cars but with far worse coverage (outside of California) than Tesla. With the Aptera's range you will be able to make it to a CCS1 charger but when you get there you'll have to spend an hour charging if they stick with 50KW. For me 50KW is a showstopper, no way will I buy a car with 50KW charging.

One more comment, Switzerland is the size of a small US state, all of Western Europe would fit in a corner of the US. The US is three thousand miles long and 2000 miles high, so is our neighbor to the north Canada. We think nothing of doing very long road trips.

@Joshua Rosen I agree totally with your charging parameters. Many people are getting confused with daily overnight charging vs. quick DC charging on a road trip.

@Joshua Rosen My wife hates taking my Tesla on road trips because of the 20 minute stops every couple of hours and then only at certain places. Her point is that gas stations are on every corner, no planning needed.

The Aptera with 600 miles (or better, 1000), the number of stops needed will be fewer, hopefully you can go a bit longer between needed charge stops and then, remember because of the efficiency, that 50KW charge is the equivalent of the 150 KW charge that you get on your Tesla currently. So, 20 minutes is still all you need. Also, Tesla destination chargers can be used by anyone. You need an adapter to convert to J1772 but there is no need to have a Tesla to use them.

With CCS chargers becoming more popular and more plentiful, I would prefer the car to have a CCS charging system. Tesla is a wall gardened system, you would be at Tesla's mercy for pricing, which based on supercharger rates in CA, can start to become more than gas pretty quickly if you charge at the wrong times. Most CCS providers are pretty equivalent in pricing, for now, but with CCS, you have more options.