Aptera Reinvents Sports Car

Work for Torque News, follow on Twitter, Youtube and Facebook.

It seems that over the last decade so many cars have just been getting bigger, heavier, less efficient, and less connected to the driver. But Aptera is reinventing the 2 seat sports coupe, and becoming the new paradigm for energy efficient fun!

Part of the problem is that legacy automakers have latched onto the idea that bigger vehicles carry higher profit margins. And so the automakers have steadily pushed to build bigger, heavier, more complex vehicles that try and do everything for everyone.

But big, blunt, heavy SUVs and crossovers are trading utility and convenience for fun. And I for one miss the lightweight, and fun sports cars that I knew growing up. Sports cars are usually 2-seaters, and they offer a direct and connected feel to the road. They are simpler, and lightweight, which makes them relatively quick, nimble, and fun to drive.

The upcoming Aptera has an aerodynamic, lightweight composite body like Formula One race cars, which is many times stronger than steel for its weight. And it has electric motors inside the wheels for simplicity and efficiency. Plus, another advantage of in-wheel motors is torque vectoring, because that allows each wheel to accelerate together or independently, which provides much better handling control, especially around corners.

Aptera has teamed up with the Roush Performance engineering team to fine tune the Aptera’s suspension to find a great balance between handling performance, agility, comfort, and drivability. Without making it heavy or too complex. In its front wheel drive configuration, the dual-motor Aptera manages 0-60 in about 5.5 seconds, which is brisk. And in its tri-motor configuration the Aptera’s acceleration is an amazing 3.5 seconds from 0-60MPH! Which rivals high performance, 2-seat, sports cars of the past.

Happily, there are still some affordable, lightweight, 2 seat sports cars available today, like the Mazda MX-5/(Miata) and Toyota GR86(2+2), and there are more powerful and quicker 2 seat sports cars like the Toyota Supra, Audi TT, Porsche Cayman, and Chevy Corvette that start at $50K and go way up from there. But those 2 seat sports cars are still among the most fun cars in the world to drive!

The unique elements that set the 2-seat Aptera apart from everyone else is that its light weight of 1800-2200 lbs (816 to 998 kg), 50kW electric wheel-motors, and hyper-aerodynamics (Cd 0.13) have an advantage of providing extreme efficiency. The whole Aptera EV has less aerodynamic drag than just the side mirrors on a Ford F150 alone. And the net result of focusing on efficiency means that the Aptera uses only 100 watt hours of electricity per mile, compared to the efficient Tesla Model 3 SR at about 257Wh/mile, or the Audi E-Tron at around 455Wh/mile (over 4X the Aptera’s power usage). This enables the Aptera to go 40 miles+ a day, just using it’s onboard solar panels (with good sun). Also, with the largest (100kWh) battery pack the Aptera should be able to go a record breaking 1000+ miles on a single battery charge, which is unprecedented in any production EV.

That unique combination of price, efficiency, range, performance, and handling means to me that I can have my very own, reinvented/fun-to-drive/sports coupe, which also just happens to be really inexpensive to drive daily. I preordered the 40kW/400 mile Aptera, which starts at $29,800, and I added a 3rd motor (AWD) for that sub-4 second 0-60MPH capability, and added the “Never Charge” (40 mi) solar package for $900 more. The base solar roof is included in the base model’s price, and it provides up to 16 miles of range. Plus I added SafetyPilot, which provides Level 2 driving autonomy. I am hoping to get mine before this time next year.

If you are interested in putting in a pre-order for an Aptera, you can save $30 off of the $100 pre-order price by clicking on my referral link here.

Dean McManis is an electric vehicle advocate and an instructional technology specialist at Cupertino Union School District. He lives in San Francisco Bay Area and frequently reports EV stories at Torque News. Dean can be reached on LinkedIn.

That is soooo cool! What would be interesting is finding out that being such a lite-weight vehicle, how well does it handle wake forces from much larger vehicles such as the big rigs on the highway? Or is this not an issue?

The nice part about the Aptera being designed to cut through the air for lower air resistance, is that air buffeting and side winds also affect it less than most traditional vehicles, especially big slab-sided vans and SUVs.

Is this positive story about Aptera's future products paid promotion? It is categorized as news, but at the end, there is a link to Aptera's retail site. If the referral link is used, does the author benefit financially?

Not paid promotion - Aptera isn’t doing that as far as I know. The referral link is like the program that Tesla used. If you use the link, you can reserve an Aptera for a refundable $70 instead of the refundable $100 it is normally. The owner of the link used gets a discount on the purchase price of an Aptera. 26 referrals gets you a base model 25kw Aptera. Everyone who has pre-ordered an Aptera gets a personalized referral code to distribute.

I am not getting any money from Aptera, but I do get a discount on my own Aptera if other people use my preorder discount link. I would still be writing a glowing review about the Aptera regardless though because I truly believe that we need to support more efficient, lighter, electric vehicles, and I love sporty, quick cars, and I like the idea of a real-world solar powered car. So much so that I want one myself.

I take it as a positive story about saving our planet. The article explains that Aptera's philosophy of designing for efficiency has a side effect, fun. While producing zero emissions the Aptera offers 0-60 in under 3.5 sec., weights 2K lbs., torque vectoring, aerodynamics, out of this world appearance and 2 side by side seats, all for $30K.

Everyone who reserves an Aptera for themselves can share their referral code to friends or online to save them $30 off of the $100 reservation cost. And they will also get a discount off of their own Aptera EV for the referral. Aptera encourages reservation holders to spread the word, share information and opinions, and start a conversation about EVs, and that's what I'm doing.

Submitted by Michael May (not verified) on October 8, 2021 - 11:57AM

Permalink

Big-rig wake is a non-issue, as the Aptera is as aerodynamic from the side as it is from the front. I have a 600 mile AWD with full solar and the off-road package reserved.