We all know the Aptera is a two-seat automobile that may approach perfection as personal transportation.
We also all know that folks discount Aptera's utility as a family vehicle because of its two seats.
Now imagine that 'family of four' contemplating camping at some state park a couple of hundred miles away. This family has two Aptera's, neither of which can get the whole family where it is going.
SOL? Not really.
Why not take both Aptera's. You'd have oodles of extra space for camping gear. Certainly power at the camp would be more than covered (120vac outlets on each car) and I suspect with a little hacking here and there you could rig a zoom session between the vehicles for that 'togetherness' thing. (The advantage of zoom is mean Little Suzie can't bite sweet-Bud in a backseat altercation:)
"But that is so wasteful; taking too cars! your Aunt screams.
Think about it. The Aptera is the world's most efficient EV traveling over 10 miles for every 1000 watts consumed. That means taking both on the trip lowers the efficiency of the Aptera duo to somewhere above 5 miles per KWH ... which is still more efficient than your average EV.
I can only proclaim this revelation with the term Sarah Hardwick used when using the name "Paradigm" in relation to Aptera. It takes a leap of the imagination to grasp that taking two Aptera's on a road trip is more efficient than taking one EV of any make or model. Having two vehicles available for use at your destination is a luxury even Bentley owners can assert.
But what really excites me is how such family caravans might actually adapt the Aptera in the future.
Presumably, there exists a way for one vehicle to invoke a routine for following another vehicle even without full self-driving. For instance, what would be really cool is a 'follow me' app that empowers a driverless Aptera to follow a specific distance behind, for example, a key fob. Yes, I can imagine an owner with this follow me app, slipping their key fob in their pocket as they walk along the empty beach followed by their driverless Aptera which creeps behind the fob five feet, following the owner like a dutiful dog.
Now, slip that key-fob in a special holder on the back of the 'lead' Aptera and the second Aptera, electronically tethered to the first, follows five feet behind the first ... and so on, up to a four or five Aptera caravan. Yes, a caravan with five Apteras would travel from coast-to-coast carrying up to ten people safer and with less aggregate energy expenditure (and greater payload) than a single ten-passenger Van.
Indeed, I wonder if the configuration of two, three, four and five Aptera's in caravan mode might not be more efficient overall than a single Aptera traveling through the same space. If so, and if this follow me technology were an available option, one might see such caravans of Aptera's running down the freeways, the drivers enjoying full self-driving in caravan mode.
I know this sounds far-fetched but do know that the Aptera, with its inherent ability to act as a radio-controlled vehicle through torque vectoring, is technically, quite close to being able to pull off such a stunt. There would need to be some AI written into the follow me app for safety reasons but in general, compared to the typically unbuckled riders in a ten-passenger Van - we've all seen the tragedies when team vans and buses crash - passengers in these 'caravans' would be individually buckled in air-bag restrained formula 1 cockpits with most likely 5-star safety ratings.
If and when the four-seat Aptera makes it debut, you're talking about five of that model accommodating 20 souls in a five Aptera Caravan able to go coast to coast for less 'energy' cost than a even one 10 passenger van.
With this kind of follow-me technology, you can even imagine car-trains of five vehicles forming ad hoc for the daily, lower stress commutes.
There are a lot of obstacles to this idea actually being accepted - state laws about following too-closely are an obvious impediment - but the idea that you can take two Aptera's on a trip for less out-of-pocket fuel cost than any other four or five seat sedan on the market remains.
It's worth noting that for applications like that, it might also make sense to just use a bigger car.
Remember, Aptera is planning a four-wheel 4/5-seater.
For an idea of the efficiency of that...
Two 100 Wh/mi Apteras each with 2 passengers would get 50 Wh/passenger-mi. (Platooned, they might be a bit more efficient than that, but they're already very low drag.)
Lightyear One is targeting 100 Wh/km (WLTP, which is a more gentle cycle than EPA, but that's 161 Wh/mi - quite a bit under the 200 Wh/mi that would match two Apteras) with a full-size sedan - with 4 passengers, you're at 40.2 Wh/passenger-mi. I'd expect an Aptera sedan to be in a similar efficiency ballpark.
Please keep in mind it's a moot point since Aptera will test & choose, since they have both options available.
I haven't yet tried to imagine your seemingly "apples to oranges" comparison of a 4-wheel RWD car to a 3-wheel FWD Aptera. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.
& yes, I was using a less subtle example in order to try to show my point.
How about looking at it kind of "in reverse": If you continuously power one front wheel VERY slightly more than the other, & compensate by a VERY slight steering angle, it's not going to be as efficient.
The same applies to doing that momentarily as you go around each curve, & for the constantly-required course-corrections while driving on a straight road.
@neomaxcom This is a very interesting discussion even though I'm pretty sure it's still a moot point since Aptera will test it & choose whichever system is most efficient.
I also saw that in the vid, but they later announced a more standard electric-motor-driven power steering. I believe one of the reasons was for potential future self-driving.
Nice point though that powering one front wheel forward &/or powering the other front wheel off or backward may force the steering system to angle them into the turn & therefore prevent the rear tire from sliding sideways. However I question the power use:
Say you're driving straight at 10kW (5kW to each FWD motor). To navigate a corner at constant speed let's say you can just shut one motor's power off instead of regen braking it with its own power conversion losses. Now to maintain speed you need to apply all 10kW to the other motor, which is less efficient than applying 5kW to each of 2 motors.
. If you've ever had a car with the front brakes so out of adjustment it darts to one side when apply them, you know the steering wheel does jerk around when front wheels go at different speeds. So, actually the wheels and skirts move just like they're turning normally with torque vector steering. No jerking here, it is precise. I remember a conversation on one of the videos where it was suggested that they could provide the power steering function using torque vectoring with the Elaphe wheels.
@n.bruce.nelson Good point, only in reverse: Using torque-vectoring only, to yaw the front of the car sideways, against the airflow, should cause more drag than steering the wheels directly into the airflow.
@neomaxcom Actually @n.bruce.nelson didn't say it didn't waste power. I said it did & I stand by that statement but it's a moot point because directional control can be done with the built-in power steering motor.
@n.bruce.nelson but that wastes motor power to speed up one wheel without accelerating the car &/or slowing one motor without slowing the car, and dragging the rear tire sideways.
Yes, a typical modern car with any motive power source such as gas, diesel, or electricity has 'electric power steering', an additive assist to the turning of the steering wheel, controlled by signals from other sources, speed, for instance, which operate a servo to turn the steering wheel.
While Aptera & every other car has a mechanical connection to the wheels with its steering yoke, it gains its 'drive by wire' capability via that servo, which can easily be tasked to turn the steering wheel on its own, regardless of speed or driver input.
I don't see how hub motors make any difference. Most cars now have electrical power steering.
"Too close" doesn't seem to be an issue. Just make it like current adaptive cruise.
You bring up some interesting points on efficiency PER PERSON:
- Aptera driving alone is more efficient than most EVs with 2 people.
(although less efficient than 3).
- Aptera with 2 people is as efficient as a full FIVE people in most EVs.