Aptera began accepting pre-orders for their new electric car. It is a light-weight three-wheel car. The amazing thing about it is that they claim that you will never need to charge it!
The car is solar powered. Yet the company claims that the car will have more range than traditional electric cars such as the Tesla Model S. And these cars will be available as early as next year!
It was founded in 2005 and created three wheel Electric vehicles back then as well. Even then, they were big hits. They sold 4,000 pre-orders.
The gear head Jay Leno famously got excited about the early models. But they went out of business in 2011 due to financial troubles.
The Aptera car uses less than 100 Wh per mile. This means that the car can go five time farther than other electric vehicles of the same size using the same amount of energy. Using only solar power, this car can drive up to 40 miles a day.
To put that it perspective, the average consumer drives about 29 mile per day. This adds up to about 11,000 miles per year. But that is just using solar power. To drive more, you can charge the car. One full charge will give a range of 1,000 miles.
It is designed to be aerodynamic. It has a drag coefficient of 0.13. In comparison, the Tesla's Model 3 has a drag coefficient of 0.23.
The drag coefficient measures how much air will be pushing against the car as it moves forward. Higher numbers mean that it takes more energy to push through the air. The low drag makes the car quite fast. It can go from zero to 60 mph in 5.5 seconds.
