What should the person buying an Aptera as their first EV know and/or consider before buying?
The Aptera that I have on order will not be my first EV and I would guess that’s true for a large fraction of buyers. But I remember well enough the difficult paradigm shift that was required to find the functional comfort zone of a successful and satisfied EV user, now with over 100 thousand EV miles behind me. The Aptera will be alike in some respects and different in others. The vastly greater range and eased charging (more miles/kms per hour on any given charger) may well alleviate the need I have had to switch to a backup ICE car for long trips.
Every new EV owner has to sort out what kind of charging infrastructure is needed and available for their circumstances and use pattern. And how reliable is it?
Just how different is it to drive a three wheeler? I have heard the story of how Musk got behind the wheel of an Arcimoto and promptly drove it into something. Maybe that’s much like learning to ride a bike. You struggle a bit then you get the hang of it for the rest of your life.
The smooth and quiet acceleration of an EV is immensely satisfying. My family and I laugh now (or cry) when some smoke bellowing diesel or sputtering, souped-up subcompact accelerates by.
I am sure others here have more wisdom and advice to offer particularly to the folks thinking of buying an Aptera as their first EV. How about it?
EV owners often rate their experience with their cars higher than do owner/operators of ICE cars. That seems especially true for Teslas, but more generally true also.
The unfortunately rarer people who have a photovoltaic installation providing all or some proportion of the energy they use in their homes also tend to feel especially satisfied about it.
With the days getting longer again, and more often sunny too, I am reminded of this latter point. In the evening of a recent sunny day, I glanced at the metrics on my PV monitoring system and was smilingly off to brag to the rest of the family how many kWhs we generated that day. Feels pretty darned good to be making something useful just because I have this thing (a PV array) in my back yard.
That satisfaction is way out of proportion to any empirical value. "Couple of dollars worth of electricity? Big deal", the pessimist might say. But that doesn't make it any less satisfying.
Now I imagine heading off to work in my Aptera. Not only do I get the inordinate satisfaction of an EV, but I also know that mine is by far the most efficient EV on the road. And damned sporty too! When I get to work I park in a sunny spot and go about my business. Hours later I'm ready to head home and, low and behold,the PV on the vehicle has generated enough power to get me home again without having had to add anything.
The prospect of all that compounding satisfaction is enough to make me giddy with anticipation. Since I get bits of this already with the home PV and the current EV, I've a good notion of what to expect. I am so stoked for Aptera to pull this off!