Are better batteries enough to make the electrical car succeed?

There have been a few announcements recently that talked about better batteries giving more reach at less weight for cars. IBM for example is working on a Lithium Air battery, claiming to be able to build the energy store for cars doing 300 to 500 miles. This would be a factor 4 to 6 of what is possible with the best batteries today.
But that is maybe not good enough as the base of future mobility. As long as we haven't solved the recycling problem with batteries and as long as we think we can continue to build cars as we do today (heavy, large, more geared towards safety than efficiency) we still will waste earth' resources.

I still think the car of the future should be lightweight (e.g. 500-900 kg), slippery (0.25 cw), accommodate 2-3 persons or 4-5 depending on configuration and be powered by electrical motors and an ecological range extender. Batteries should be as small as possible and be fully recycleable. Maybe it's a dream, but this dream could come true in the next 3-5 years I think, at least from small production companies. Cars like the Mindset and the Aptera are clearly pointing in the right direction.

Wishlist for Aptera from a European perspective

I have been blogging on the Aptera for quite a number of times already. I admit, I like this radical car and the passion of its makers. I would buy one if it only was available now (June 2009) and here (Europe). With it recent delay of the production start it seems even unrealistic to see one driving around here for the foreseeable future. But maybe that's also a good thing. It give Aptera more time to adapt the car to the specific needs of the European driver. Here a couple of thoughts - sort of a European christmas wishlist:

1. Things are smaller in Europe than in the US. The current Aptera 2e is too wide for European roads and parking spaces (see a previous post of mine). The maximum acceptable is probably 80 inch or 2 meters. This will ask for some significant reengineering of the car and probably impact the drag coefficient negatively. Maybe by using smaller and narrower wheels (i.e. 13 inch instead of 14 inch) and a narrower track something can be achieved.
   
2. We have a lot of rain in Europe, some countries report more than 120 days of rain per year. Also we do have real winter seasons with snow here. So it will be important to be able to mount snowchains and winter tyres (easily). Also the heating system will have to cope with these conditions. How does the Aptera behave in snow conditions anyway?
   
3. Europeans are used to accessories and help tools to easier park their cars. Many vehicles have "park distance control" systems these days. Especially with a car that wide support for parking will be appreciated by Europeans.
   
4. Lastly, range is always an issue. This is not a European problem of course, but an important sales argument. The Aptera needs a clever range extension approach, ideally with a very lightweight engine and a not too large fuel tank. Running on LPG might be an interesing option.

So, many of these requirements are especially key for the mass market, less so for the early adopters who are ready to suffer more. I count myself to this category, so Aptera, when can I order my 2e? Or even better, when can I start to market and sell these cars in Europe?

Doing the math - what transportation mean is really good for the environment?

The University of California has published a scientific report to compare different transportation means and their specific energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. What is new in this report is that they also included the energy spent to provide the infrastructure, i.e. rails, roads, airports, maintenance services, and so on. And of course the effort of building the vehicle was included as well. The authors also assessed the typical load of the different vehicles and therefore can show the "cost" per person transported. If you now look at the key chart they produced you will have some surprises. The worst polluter is the urban diesel bus that is half empty and travels fairly big distances. Pickups also look pretty bad, especially when they run on gasoline. Best is the city bus that is heavily loaded (many would say overloaded) with people and covers the centers. Large aircrafts are actually much better than you wouold assume, this is because they don't need a lot of infrastructure. And what about the conventional gasoline sedan, the car we all use? Well, it's sort of in the middle field, better than the SUVs of course, but clearly worse than most of the public transport vehicles. Of course the picture would look much different if you would take cars like the Aptera or the Toyota Prius as reference. Modern optimized electrical or hybrid cars would certainly be better in comparison than small aircraft and could probably beat the light rail vehicles. What is interesting is the fact that building these vehicles, and the bigger they get the more relevant this is, produces quite a share of the overall greenhouse gas emissions. But on this topic I will post specifically during the coming days.

Jay Leno driving and investigating the Aptera

I have blogged already a number of times talking about the Aptera. Now, classic car lover Jay Leno has posted a video, summarizing the facts, talking to the Aptera CEO and test driving the car. Good stuff!

Is the Aptera to wide for European roads?

I have been writing about the Aptera before and I really think they are up to something. And despite the lack of interest from the Aptera management to deliver to the Rest of the World (outside of California) and their issues dealing with the fact that with only 3 wheels the car is a motocycle and can't receive US government funding or "Abwrackprämien" in Germany, I am still a fan of the concept.
But, having just gone through the Aptera brochure I must admit that there are some design decisions that will make it difficult to market the car (which is still an interest of mine), especially in Europe. Looking at the length/width/height indicated with 173/91/53 inch or in meters 4.39/2.31/1.35 the Aptera is presenting itself as being very wide!
2.31 m is approx. 50 cm more than the today's average family car. Very few cars today are more than 2 m wide. And, as I pointed out in an earlier comment, the parking spots often are still designed for the cars in the 80ies and 90ies (or before), when an average car was 1.5-1.7 m wide.
So going with a 2.31 m wide car for shopping will not work out at all, no parking spot in the city is wide enough and the regulation says that you need to fit all the wheels into the parking spot, otherwise you receive a nice fine.
So, guys at Aptera, please think again, as even for the US where everything tends to be bigger, a car wider than a Hummer (2.2 m) will be difficult to sell, and I can only assume that many owners will have quite a bit of trouble with such a biiig vehicle and risk damage to their front wheels.

Aptera - the future of motoring?

Two hearts beat in my chest, the one of a petrolhead and the one of an engineer. As an engineer I admire what the guys at Aptera are doing. They build a three wheel vehicle with advanced aerodynamics and electrical power. It's more aerodynamic and more fuel efficient than almost anything else and it looks very futuristic. I would buy one if I could, but they only want to supply cars to people living in California - at least for the time being. When you look at this car you can see why the more traditional car manufactuers will struggle competing with something like this. Almost nothing what you have in a traditional car manufacturing plant can be re-used if you want to produce something like an Aptera. Of course there are some trade offs, not everybody may accept. You will not pull a trailer with this thing, the reach is still below 200 kms when fully loaded and without the range extender of the planned hybrid option. It's probably getting quite hot in this thing and it is not as compact and easy to park as let's say a Toyota IQ. But on the other side, it is more exclusive than a Lamborghini or Ferrari and it makes you feel like a hero when you watch "an inconvenient truth". So, as said, if I can get my hands on one of these, I will drive it.