I live in a very windy part of southern California. We have hundreds of windmills here. When people open their car doors, there is the danger of the wind blowing the door against the car body and doing damage. Frequently, cars with this damage can be found.
I have a concern about the same thing happening to the Aptera, especially with its doors that open upward into the wind, catching the wind. Composites tend to be brittle and will break instead of flexing. This is my greatest concern. Many others will find themselves in the same situation: an Aptera with a broken body at the door hinge points.
Thanks for sharing!
Thx for your insight/ confirmation and shared feeling
Only glass roofs come with these models🥵
I will see if the Fisker Ocean can get at least a 350 mi range statement on their long range /AWD and subtract at least 50+ miles, in her 2022 search for “reality” Otherwise she will wait
Even though my BEV has 250% of Aptera's power use, with corresponding heat, the cooling systems are barely needed. The only time that the rad fans even come on fast enough to be audible is when plugging into L2 right after driving hard in over 90F ambient. Even then it's only for a minute & then they start cycling between VERY slow & completely off.
eGolf seems to have good battery longevity even with an AIR cooled battery.
It is reassuring to hear Corvette body shops and possibly boat repair facilities may be able to do repairs.
I believe they have talked about the belly pan being removable. I assume the battery assembly would bolt to the floor and make up for the loss of structural rigidity. I assume this area is where they would run the power and coolant lines to the battery. I have the impression that skin cooling would only occur in the belly pan.
They said they did not know if the belly pan would metal or composite.
Line 100 of the FAQ spreadsheet.
As far as Elio, I think that is a totally different vehicle that we will never really get to the bottom line of why it failed. My own opinion is that they really didn't need to redesign a new engine for it and waste a huge amount of money. There are many engines including 3 and 4 cylinder Toyota, Lotus, Mini that could have been contracted for. He spent way too much money obtaining the old GM plant which was an overkill. He then tried to bail himself out with BitCoin investments which even Tesla has problems with. (Dogecoin)
As far as the reparability of the Aptera Body goes, it depends upon the damage. If it is the doors, or curved panels, it could be a simple vacuum bag or layered fiberglass cloth or mat repair. Any Corvette body shop should be able to do it. I live at the ocean so we have many boat repair facilities who might be able to do the repair as well. The tricky thing is are they willing to certify that it meets a structural standard? Any repair around a structured and load bearing area might be hard to do as well. This is anywhere around the door sill, and front and rear sub-frames. As you might be well aware, composite bike and motorcycle helmets are replaced after any impact, even if no visible cracks are seen because the layers separate and are not visible at the outside layers. In other words, the composite has de-laminated. I still cannot get a clear idea of how they are going to run the coolant lines through the entire body. If one of those is involved in the damage, how is the continuity of the lines repaired? Like most forum members, I have never seen the prototype and can only make educated guesses to related structures. It would be nice if Aptera would have a little more interaction with the forum like we have in other car and technology forums. So in the end, your guess is as good as mine.
I like your post. The fact that molds are cheaper than dies, stamping machines, and moving assembly lines is what makes Aptera possible. Elio Motors died because they needed hundreds of millions of dollars for these things and could not get the money. The scalability of fiberglass makes Aptera possible.
So, fiberglass is sensitive to UV? Perhaps this is another reason they wrap the vehicle (besides not having to spend millions on a paint system.
Do you think the Aptera body would be easily repaired?
I like the idea of using composite for the Aptera body, but there are a few desirable characteristics that metal bodies have.
Metal will flex and thus absorb some of the shock.
Metal is easily repaired.
In one of the zoom interviews with Nathan Armstrong, he said , instead of repairing the body, a new body would be used to replace the damaged old one. All the components would be transferred to a new body, and he referred to it as a half-day job. I do not know how if this would apply to smaller damage.
In a previous post, I asked where the VIN number would be located. It is usually attached to the body. Would this mean replacing the body would amount to having a new vehicle with a new VIN?
It would seem to me, that in the world of design with a product like Aptera that there are a lot of new ideas to resolve such as crafting hinges with composite material.
For those of you familiar with composite work, the hinges would most likely be bolted to a metal piece imbedded into the actual composite layers. This will most likely also be done at the points where the front and rear suspension subframes attach to the main composite body. One never directly bolts to composite, it is reinforced with a metal piece which distributes the forces. Fiberglass composite has a low adhesion to metal. We try to roughen the metal, use primer, rivet to base composite, etch, and still it is a weak point of the metal to composite. They have such a different physical expansion coefficient with temperature variation. So we usually make the metal attachment piece large and flat and use the shape to rigidly fix the bonding plate. But it will always be a weak point especially with vibration, impact or twisting and the possibility of delamination is always there. Yes the hinges can always be replaced, but it is the bonding plate that I would be worried about at all these attachment sites. This is the same hinge fixation for the Chevrolet Corvette and my own carbon fiber BMW.
Hopefully Aptera I will find a way to make the weakest point easily replaceable like on regular vehicles. But may not be possible
The hinges would be metal, but they would be embedded in the composite. I fear the metal hinge would be pulled up and breaking the composite, when the door comes to an abrupt stop.
Seems that it would be the joints that would be at risk, rather than the panels, much like any other car. Those are still likely to be metal, I'd guess. Now that you mention it, I recall noticing that those joints look a bit spindly on the prototype in the few images that they can be seen.
One more subtle performance attribute that I hope they are giving due attention to, for sure.
It has a strap inside to close...
In the roadshow with the original Aptera they gave you a sledge hammer, if you could break the composite you would get $100
Hopefully the present composite is as good or better and at your point of concern🤞
They say the roof can withstand the weight of two elephants? But there is always the “weakest link”
Not directly related but....I would be surprised if they lose focus on the door area because I recall an issue with the old winged door Apter 2e, during a run where the door opened. Was it closed properly? Don’t have details.
Hey Piston. I agree. Any composite when twisted may delaminate with pressure. Hopefully the hydraulic spring will limit the travel, but I'm sure it will have its own limitations. The power of the wind with a light weight door can be tremendous. I think that in your geographical/meteorological situation, people have learned about the caution with doors on windy days and will need to exert those same precautions with the Aptera. Hopefully the door will have some type of closing strap which could also be used to cautious open the door and limit its full range of motion.