There's a little loophole in physics where with the right weight and the
right aerodynamics you can have an electric vehicle with 1,000 miles of range that never
needs to be plugged in. Probably one of the coolest EVs that I've ever seen.
It's the one glitch in physics that they don't want you to know about. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Behind me is the three wheeled solar-powered Aptera Autocycle. Not quite a motorcycle and
not quite a regular vehicle either. Today we have this vehicle, which is an Alpha production unit,
and we have this one which is a Beta production unit which has the full
suspension ready to go on this test track here in California. This is a
first look at the Aptera, so we'll get the outside aesthetics from the Alpha,
and how everything works from the inside with the Beta. Let's take a look at Alpha first.
The very first thing you'll notice about this car is that it only has three wheels – two in
the front, one in the back, and it's also covered in solar panels. The solar panels can provide an
additional 40 miles worth of range every single day, which is rather convenient since the average
commute for someone here in the USA is only 30 miles. So in reality you could own a vehicle that
never needs to be plugged in ever as long as the sun is shining, which should be good for another
few billion years. Even though there are solar panels on the top that allow it to be charged
up with the sun, it can be plugged into a regular 110 outlet to get 150 miles of range replenishment
overnight. Or it can charge up using any D/C fast charging network including Teslas. One
of the ways the Aptera is so efficient is each of the three wheels has a motor inside of it. Now we
can see that better on this version right here. They're actually hub motors. You have the three
AC lines running up inside of the hub, as well as coolant lines, those are the black ones up top,
to keep everything cool. Aptera knew I was coming so we have everything here on display
which is great. Each of the motors has their own inverter. You can see the DC lines going back,
and there's a battery which sits underneath the driver compartment right here. Most of
the weight of the Aptera is going to be here in the front for efficiency. I do think though
that the rear wheel is pretty fascinating. Coming over here to the backside you can
see that it's a single side swing arm, kind of like what you would see on a motorcycle.
Coming over here to the inside driver's seat.
Doors spin up to the top. We'll be driving here in a second. We have 7 feet worth of
storage space back here, which is 32 cubic feet worth of storage in the rear. There
is no front trunk at the moment. And then you can see the passenger door also folds up like a wing.
Pretty cozy. It's always a little nerve wracking when they let you take a one-of-a-kind
prototype vehicle out on my own for a test drive.
This thing feels crazy. So I'm about 6 feet tall and I'm a little cozy but I'm told this
is an Alpha prototype meaning it's one of their first ones. And their final version is going to
have a little more headroom and a little more space inside of the cabin. This is a fun little
car. You would think that since it only has three wheels it would feel unstable or rocky,
but I can't tell the difference between this and a 4 wheeled drive car. Listen to the acceleration.
And it's hard to know for sure which of these features will translate into the final production
model, this is just a prototype, but it is super fun. Now as far as the solar panels go,
that's probably one of the more interesting aspects of this vehicle besides the three wheels,
there are solar panels in here on the dashboard, as well as on the hood,
as well as a solar panel package that can cover the entire rear hath thing on the back of the
car. You can get one with a rear window, you would just have less solar panels replenishing
the battery...this thing is fun...replenishing the battery as you're driving. I think if I got
one of these though I would opt for the complete solar package because just the option of never
plugging in is mind blowingly awesome. A gridless vehicle...doesn't get much better than that.
A little bit of stats for nerds. This thing has a drag coefficient of 0.13. For reference my
Rivian has a drag coefficient of .3 and I think a Honda Accord is like a 0.38. So this thing slices
through air like butter which is what makes it so efficient. This thing has half the battery
of a Tesla, but the same range. And if we're comparing it to the least efficient electric
vehicle of all time, the Hummer EV, this has one fourth the battery pack but still the same
range. You might have noticed that there's a split window design and that's because of these super
efficient aerodynamics the way the wheels are made. Most of the dirty air is between the hub
motor and body of the vehicle. And this split window design is a way to decrease the dirty
air passing through that channel. The opening is quite a bit smaller than a regular window,
but still wide enough that you can go through a drive through and get your food on the inside
while still being super efficient. No one was expecting the Aptera to be especially spacious.
Since this is a pre-production unit we can expect to hear a few more creaks and rattles
than we would normally in a production vehicle. I bet those will be ironed out by the time we go
into production. You might be asking if you can take this on the freeway and the answer
is yes. Not only is it aerodynamic forward, but it's also aerodynamic left to right. So
crosswinds wouldn't affect it as much, as well as it has a top speed of 110 miles an hour so
handling the freeway would be just fine. Has a 0-60 of four seconds. There is a 2-wheeled drive
version and a 3-wheel drive version. This one's just 2-wheel for the moment. We'll get into the
3-wheel in a second. There is 170 horsepower when combining all three motors. And this will
be one of the most iconic eye-catching vehicles on the road. Without a doubt.
Not defying physics...just utilizing physics. I still can't get over how much futuristic UFO
vibe this thing has going on. But now that we've had fun in the preproduction Alpha,
let's move over to the Beta which has the more production ready suspension and the power.
Alright, launching. Oh my gosh! Woo! That was...[laughing]!
Oh that was cool!
Okay this one is way more fun. And like I can't get over how stable it is. I thought
that having one wheel in the back would make it feel like there was less stability,
like it would shake and rock and...but this is incredible.
Not like any driving experience I've ever had. Super solid, super grippy,
and so much power. This thing weighs like 2,100 pounds, which I'm coming from a
7,000 pound Rivian. Three motors, acceleration, motors in every tire, oh this is great.
One cool thing...I mean besides that this is just a blast to drive. So much fun. One really
cool thing that Aptera's doing is they're making these easy to repair. Every single component will
have a QR code that corresponds with a video on how to replace it and Aptera will send customers
replacement parts directly which is awesome. Very different than the Legacy auto manufacturers that
exist right now. And it's nice that they...I don't know, trust their customers to be able to
fix their own stuff. After having built my own electric military Humvee I'm not going to say
it's easy, but it's much less complicated than say like a blown head gasket where there are thousands
of parts that you have to take apart to replace. Here in an electric vehicle, most of the parts are
modular anyway. So as long as you're not messing directly with copper conductive components,
you can replace things on your own.
Man this is fun! [Laughing] Yes!
Woohoo! That is amazing!
All in all I think it's a pretty fun vehicle. Obviously the solar panels
are going to work a little bit better in places where it's sunny: Florida,
California, Hawaii. Places up in Alaska where they don't get a lot of sun it's
not going to be as efficient. Right now the base model of the Aptera is going to start at
$25,000 and Aptera is hoping to start shipping in 2024. Personally, I think they should add
an option instead of putting solar panels and a hatch on the back, they should just leave it open
like this and have a tiny little trunk bed. That would be my personal suggestion. Let me
know what you think down in the comments. Would you get one of these? Would you get the solar
package? Let me know in the comments. Thanks a ton for watching. And I'll see you around.