The Motor Matchup is a great app. For any vehicle, when calculating the efficiency values, are you assuming that 100% of the battery energy is converted to mechanical energy for turning the wheels? If not, do you use specific battery-to-wheel efficiency conversions for each vehicle to arrive at the vehicle's net efficiency?
11:39 your Tesla Model 3 Performance numbers are absolutely spot on. Every single one of those performance figures is exactly what my 2022 Model 3 Performance does on Dragy and at the track. Accurate down to almost the hundredth of a second.
@@MotorMatchup I have 18” lightweight wheels coming for my Model 3 Performance. I can get some comparison data with those. It would be really cool to be able to model what happens to acceleration when you go with smaller lighter wheels 🛞.
Rock solid video, sir! I love the way you've dived into the specs and done the impressive calculations. The Aptera's efficiency is astounding compared to every other EV out there. Thanks for this!
Great video! On the numbers the 0.13 CD (actually 0.1285 for planned beta) is likely higher (perhaps 0.14 - 0.15) due to adding mirrors for compliance. No updated drag numbers are released. Weight, frontal area, rolling resistance and drivetrain efficiency are all educated guesses; your frontal area feels high and rolling seems low to me. My concern is based on 41 kwh usable and even a 15% overhead for that pack that the 1000 mile will need 18-20 modules and weigh up to 1500lb for the battery. A pack larger than an R1T truck might be able to fit but is definitely not efficient use of resources (make 3x 400 mile version instead). Love the visual presentation of your site :) PS: I have my own detailed calculations sheet which has been shown on Aptera Owners Club. "Hypermiling potential of the Aptera (Theorycraft)" on the forum
Thanks! Yes mirrors would make a substantial difference, but I believe they can get around some regulations as it's not considered a vehicle. But maybe they are still waiting on rules to change/certifications? Rolling resistance is going to be quite low in this car as the tires are 195mm wide and obviously there are only 3. Crr has been tested around 0.009 - 0.01 for 225mm width economy tires at highway speed (4 tires). It is an educated guess, but I believe 0.008 is not that optimistic considering the attributes of the Aptera. Regarding weight and frontal area, I completely agree. These are all educated guesses, but we have heard Aptera quote 1,800 lbs target for curb weight (I don't think they specified which variant). I don't think the 100 kWh pack will weigh that much. The 100 kWh pack in the MS Plaid @186 Wh/kg weighs 1,183 lbs and it demands a LOT more cooling. I would expect the 100 kWh pack to come in at 1,000 - 1,200 lbs. However, I totally agree that it's a waste of resources. Who needs to go even 600+ miles on a single charge? Appreciate the positive response and great to hear your perspective!
@@MotorMatchup Thanks again for the content and perspective :). I just spent some time looking at your assumptions vs mine. I think you might be over on the frontal area at ~25 sq ft. I had it at 20 in my calculations and in general the vehicle overperformed as a result in calculations. I checked it with scaled versions of the ambassador stl model scaled to a model 3 in isometric view and it looks like 23 sq ft is a good estimate. Regarding mirrors it is a vehicle thing not a car thing and they have publicly said they will need them legally; that is why I assume 0.15. Aux load without heat or AC should ideally be able to be under 500W given an efficiency focus (screens and SOCs don't burn that) - maybe 200W. Overall our assumptions were very close so no surprise the calculations were also.
Very nice work, I can add something here. Aptera does not supply actual data....worrying... but since so many people have done test drives I have found you can actually get a bit of data since some of the vehicles have data displays ( beta has a small screen shows lots of data, black model one similarly, newer white one ( alpha?) has solar data on screen some times. So here is some actual data : 1. power to just make the vehicle move on flat smooth concrete indoors is just over 700 watts ( data screen shows 2amp draw, pack voltage 387v and speed 2km/hr). Note efficiency of motors at very low rpm is very low, and should keep this in mind, especially for hub motors. 2. some solar data is available which shows very low watts outputs in full sun in abu dhabi, with calculated distance from solar of under 5 miles.......in full sun......worrying. If your interested in any of the source videos where you can get some data, I can supply. I do post all my findings in the youtube chanel aussie ideas man, so can search for comments in that channel. Someone did mention that you predicted 18mph from solar alone, since it takes over 700watts just to move the vehicle at 2km/hr on flat concrete I suspect that figure is not correct, hope that helps.
This was great! Over the last few days I've been using the now "known" data for the 40 kWh battery pack (from the Aptera video) to do very similar calculations. Your calculations and speculations (cells per module; rows and cells/row; cells per wired-in-parallel group (2 rows of 13 cells), etc. and the resulting power and voltages) match what I came up with (which makes me feel good 😊; I must be doing something right!). This isn't really a MotorMatchup thing, but what I really wanted to do, though, is speculate (and it is speculation) on how the 25 kWh, 60 kWh and 1000 kWh battery packs might be laid out -- number of cells per parallel group, number of serial groups (always 96) and how these might be arranged into some number of modules that make up the full pack. With this layout, one can then estimate the module and pack dimensions (using the nominal cell diameter) and a close-packed honeycomb layout (of course there will be some spacial overhed for the rack frame (that I have not incorporated in the calculation)). What I'm struggling with is, for the 60 kWh and 100 kWh battery packs, how the heck are they going to fit in the Aptera. The Aptera video shows an overhead view of the vehicle with the placement of the 100 kWh battery pack (including the tilted 4th section), but it's size seems woefully small if one figures out, for example, how much surface area is actually needed for the 5,760 cells in the 100 kWh battery pack. I'll be very interested to see what the Aptera battery engineers come up with! If the battery pack can, in fact, extend further towards the back of the vehicle (i.e., between the rear wheel support structure and the trunk floor), then there should be plenty of room. If not, I'm not sure what other options there are. Maybe the battery pack could be wider than shown in the diagram which would help some. Due to temperature and thickness issues, I don't think they can go to two layers. Ideas?
Recently Chris mentioned that it would take great effort to make the 100 kWh version even work and it’s coming later down the line which is somewhat strange considering the higher margin versions usually come first. I really wouldn’t be surprised at all if that version doesn’t even up coming to market. 1,000 miles is a really neat target (and actually the one I have on order!) but it’s somewhat excessive.
@@casIIsac You may be right. They may have some magic up their sleeves, but I'm wondering if, based on those comments from Chris, if they ought to tone down the "1000 miles without charging" pitch. It is a great selling point, but they need to deliver.
@@DrTeeHenry it sounds good on paper to people that don’t know about EVs but it’s really really unnecessary. Especially when the car is constantly charging itself in the sun.
@@casIIsac From what I can tell, the 100 kWh version may need a slightly different chassis and/or battery pack design. It may be a Gen2 pack in a Gen2 chassis, where the Gen2 chassis and pack would be used for all versions, with Gen1 for all but the 1000-mile version. It is known the suspension will need to be different on the 100 kWh version to handle the increased battery weight while retaining the payload numbers. Given the weight, crash testing the 1000-mile version could be different from the 400-mile version. I believe the Gen1 chassis and pack are designed and optimized to minimize risk, both during and after production. These vehicles MUST have zero problems! Thermal margins will be generous, structures will be overbuilt, you get the idea. Once Aptera has 10K-20K Gen1 vehicles on the road and has tons of telematics data, they can prioritize what can be further optimized for Gen2. I strongly believe the 1K-mile version makes sense ONLY as a "stunt" to kill the fake "EV range wars" competition. Charging infrastructure is improving rapidly, and with Tesla gradually opening up, "range anxiety" simply won't exist on long trips even for the 250-mile version. Plus the weight of that 1000-mile battery causes a significant efficiency hit and increased tire wear, which really goes against Aptera's ideals, which means Aptera many not really want to sell many of them (only enough to prove their point). Heck, even the 600-mile version makes relatively little sense when you add in solar. I mean, unless you are intentionally doing transcontinental trips in the boonies, which would include very, very few of us. Are there any stock ICE vehicles with 1000-mile range? Nope: ICE range tops out at 731 miles for a hybrid Jaguar with a large tank. Why aren't there any 1K-mile ICE/hybrid vehicles? Like I said, it's a fake competition, no matter how you look at it. At best, a 1K-mile range vehicle is a novelty. Another thing I would hope to see in Gen2 Apteras would be to split the 350V pack in two and put the halves in series to support 700V (100 kW) charging. Given the pack geometry, it could even be split in thirds to charge at 1050V (150 kW). Talk about a fast charge! Flipping the battery geometry around during fast charging seems too risky for Gen1 vehicles. But the size of the 1000-mile battery would make it much more useful for Gen2. That is, even if the 1000-mile version is a stunt, making it should help all the other versions, so why not do it?
Hey Tom, glad to hear that you enjoyed the video and we are on the same page! I imagine the other battery configs will actually look pretty different than the 40kWh config, but we shall see with time. As for the 100 kWh pack (if they produce it), I think it will look substantially different than the diagrams they have laid out. I actually estimated the pack size of the 40 kWh pack using the methods you described: Module size: ~0.7 meters x ~0.3 meters 40 kWh Pack size: ~1.5 meters x ~0.9 meters Height: ~10 cm. With such limited space, I highly doubt they can vertically stack them to get 80 kWh+. Of course these are just estimates using cell dimensions + overhead. But I would love to obtain good data on the dimensions of the main tub. I agree with @BobC above that the 100 kWh is probably more of a marketing stunt. Who really needs to go anywhere near 1,000 miles in one driving session? Not only is it a huge waste of resources that you will never utilize, but Aptera has to make substantial changes to support it. It just doesn't make sense in the near term and maybe not ever.
One additional calculation, the 40 miles/day charge must be based on getting maximum sunlight (no clouds) on a summer day in a southern state or maybe at the equator. It would be interesting to see how this calculation works out.
Weight probably won’t affect efficiency much. However, each 200 lb passenger will be about 10% of the weight of the vehicle. With two full sized men in this car I would expect performance to be significantly reduced.
A couple of things regarding solar, the glass encapsulation will have some effect of how much sun gets through, its designed for toughness and bendibility, probably not for solar panels geting max energy. Also since the panels are curved at any given time some panels will not be at right angles to the sun, makes quite a difference to max output. Some losses via mppt and conversion from low volts to high volts also. Its about time aptera stuck a vehicle out in the sun and show exactly what they get, they are saying this is 40mile range from solar, but wont show actual measured figures, makes me think they have some reason not to show the actual data.
Great video. The claim of 700 “max solar” wattage by Aptera is a bit fanciful. If you count their number of cells (or calculate the total area), then you will find that the only way they can get this number is to have ~23% efficient cells, BUT with the car tilted directly into the sun-which never happens. The reality is that they will get at best about 300-400 watts of solar input. Still decent for commuter that only need 20 miles of driving per day, but unlikely to be the car that never needs charging like they claimed.
They say you can get 1000 miles (1609 km) of range out of one of these but it doesn't sound like that's true by the data presented here. Good vid! Lots of good content.
I was a little confused at first because I thought you were talking about the 1,000 mile battery pack so when you calculated a range 311 miles @ 70 mph or 418 @ 50 mph, I was alarmed. But then I realized that the battery pack you were modeling (~40 kwh) must be for the model that is the nominal 400 mile range option ...duh.
Imagine using 3rd party portable batteries to add range. You could buy the base model. Then for long distance trips, you add 3 Ecoflow Delta Pros for $11k to add 10 kW. Then you swap them for newer cheaper battery tech later. Unfortunately, I don't think you can drive and charge at the same time.
Someday all medium priced cars will be using the Aptera platform. We didn't need to wait for the BEV. This platform could have saved a lot of lives by reducing air pollution for the last half century if we had a free market, a capitalist economy, instead of a mixed economy. I saw the need/demand for this platform in the late 60s. The Big Three wanted "planned obsolescence" and gas guzzling forever, with yearly appearance chances to stimulate new purchases. Toyota quickly took first place in sales by offering quality, longevity. Advertising (propaganda) kept the legacies going, fooling only fools. The legacy makers have self-destructed, thanks to the 'net and Elon Musk. Steve & Chris gave us the next "paradigm shift".
hey buddy!!,Can you answer all my request???,: 1.Can you add thrust ssc 2.can you add 5000 HP devel sixteen? 3.can you add viction Cars like dodge srt tomahawk x VGT,or any????. please buddy👍👍
Would you address degredation of 1,000 cycles at 40 miles per day? If you drove 40 miles a day and the sun charged the batteries back up every day, would that count as a cycle every day? If so, the batteries would degrade to 80% capacity at only 40,000 miles.
A battery cycle does not work like that, a battery cycle is a complete charge and discharge. Once the battery is fully charged, it would stop charging (even if there is sun hitting the panels)
You can see the actual degradation of the 2170 batteries, as they are used in the Tesla Model 3 and Y, and the current average is something less than 10% capacity loss after 100,000 miles. But owners who charge regularly from 10% to 90% have reduced battery degradation, likewise for owners who do not often use the Superchargers. I figure with a 40kWh battery I will mostly have my Aptera's battery between 40% and 80%, with it being charged up to 100% sometimes for an occasional long trip. But from what I've read the dendrites are not formed with the slow (trickle) charging like solar power would provide. So even if the charging goes down to 10%, and daily charging adds 30-40 miles of range, with a top off maybe once a month at home (level 2 charger), I am hoping for the 2170 batteries to last well past 300,000 miles (before capacity drops below 80%).
A good example to illustrate how battery aging works is lead acid starter batteries that every internal combustion engined car has. These age much faster than lithium batteries but provide an instructive example. They generally last a few hundred full discharge cycles from full to empty but they are not typically used like that, instead they will do hundreds of thousands of tiny cycles where they only use 5% of capacity before being charged up again. They generally last 5 - 7 years. Its the same with lithium batteries but better they will do millions of little cycles but only 1000 full cycles before losing 20% of their capacity. You can actually further improve that number by only charging to 4.1 volts per cell or 95% full and get 2000 full cycles. I think Aptera do that automatically which is why MotorMatchup mentioned the 'buffer' or spare capacity that isn't used ie you could charge the batteries a little higher but it's not set up that way.
Range estimate can be produced using this video. Just referring to range estimates given by Aptera staff. Since there is no way to corroborate their data, I find myself going through test drive videos looking for data. This video is rather good one since it shows some good data th-cam.com/video/if81LYYWwoY/w-d-xo.html Range estimate can be produced using this video. The display showed 77% full at the start and 73% full at the end. So 4% of battery capacity got 1.5km ( fairly harsh drive with full throttle often). That means 1% of battery gets you 375m. So lets say you drive using 100% of battery capacity, that will get you 375x100=37500m or 38km. Realistically you cant use all 100% of battery, lets say 10% capacity not useable. You could go 34km......thats not bad considering it was bad driving style. Since aptera has been unable to show any real world range tests, it means this is best estimate I can give. I dont know the battery pack on the beta vehicle, if anyone knows its capacity or layout please let me know.
Test out the Aptera here! www.motormatchup.com/efficiency?id=6142270b831978846a96b74e
Can you add ferrari fxx k evo and aston Martin valkyrie
The Motor Matchup is a great app. For any vehicle, when calculating the efficiency values, are you assuming that 100% of the battery energy is converted to mechanical energy for turning the wheels? If not, do you use specific battery-to-wheel efficiency conversions for each vehicle to arrive at the vehicle's net efficiency?
Awesome! We came to the same conclusions, your video was just much more polished 😃👍
Thanks, that's good to hear! Your Aptera focused content is great.
Was at Aptera on 4/8/22 very solid team my Aptera 400 is pre order and plan another trip later this year😎
11:39 your Tesla Model 3 Performance numbers are absolutely spot on. Every single one of those performance figures is exactly what my 2022 Model 3 Performance does on Dragy and at the track. Accurate down to almost the hundredth of a second.
Awesome!
@@MotorMatchup I have 18” lightweight wheels coming for my Model 3 Performance. I can get some comparison data with those. It would be really cool to be able to model what happens to acceleration when you go with smaller lighter wheels 🛞.
Hahaha! Yesterday I was binging Aptera content and was going to suggest literally this exact same thing to you! About to watch over lunch, thank you.
Great info! I have a pre order for the 400 mile Aptera...can't wait! Expecting a few glitches but it will be worth it.
Very impressive presentation. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.,
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
Rock solid video, sir! I love the way you've dived into the specs and done the impressive calculations. The Aptera's efficiency is astounding compared to every other EV out there. Thanks for this!
Great video… calculations seem to match well to what Aptera advertises!
Great video! On the numbers the 0.13 CD (actually 0.1285 for planned beta) is likely higher (perhaps 0.14 - 0.15) due to adding mirrors for compliance. No updated drag numbers are released. Weight, frontal area, rolling resistance and drivetrain efficiency are all educated guesses; your frontal area feels high and rolling seems low to me. My concern is based on 41 kwh usable and even a 15% overhead for that pack that the 1000 mile will need 18-20 modules and weigh up to 1500lb for the battery. A pack larger than an R1T truck might be able to fit but is definitely not efficient use of resources (make 3x 400 mile version instead). Love the visual presentation of your site :)
PS: I have my own detailed calculations sheet which has been shown on Aptera Owners Club. "Hypermiling potential of the Aptera (Theorycraft)" on the forum
Thanks! Yes mirrors would make a substantial difference, but I believe they can get around some regulations as it's not considered a vehicle. But maybe they are still waiting on rules to change/certifications?
Rolling resistance is going to be quite low in this car as the tires are 195mm wide and obviously there are only 3. Crr has been tested around 0.009 - 0.01 for 225mm width economy tires at highway speed (4 tires). It is an educated guess, but I believe 0.008 is not that optimistic considering the attributes of the Aptera. Regarding weight and frontal area, I completely agree. These are all educated guesses, but we have heard Aptera quote 1,800 lbs target for curb weight (I don't think they specified which variant). I don't think the 100 kWh pack will weigh that much. The 100 kWh pack in the MS Plaid @186 Wh/kg weighs 1,183 lbs and it demands a LOT more cooling. I would expect the 100 kWh pack to come in at 1,000 - 1,200 lbs. However, I totally agree that it's a waste of resources. Who needs to go even 600+ miles on a single charge? Appreciate the positive response and great to hear your perspective!
@@MotorMatchup Thanks again for the content and perspective :). I just spent some time looking at your assumptions vs mine. I think you might be over on the frontal area at ~25 sq ft. I had it at 20 in my calculations and in general the vehicle overperformed as a result in calculations. I checked it with scaled versions of the ambassador stl model scaled to a model 3 in isometric view and it looks like 23 sq ft is a good estimate. Regarding mirrors it is a vehicle thing not a car thing and they have publicly said they will need them legally; that is why I assume 0.15. Aux load without heat or AC should ideally be able to be under 500W given an efficiency focus (screens and SOCs don't burn that) - maybe 200W. Overall our assumptions were very close so no surprise the calculations were also.
I wonder if they are designing it making the mirrors easy to remove and having the camera system on the supports?
@@casIIsac Yes they are, but they don't like to draw attention to it.
@@jeffp423 I watched a video this morning where Chris mentioned it haha
Very nice work, I can add something here. Aptera does not supply actual data....worrying...
but since so many people have done test drives I have found you can actually get a bit of data since some of the vehicles have data displays ( beta has a small screen shows lots of data, black model one similarly, newer white one ( alpha?) has solar data on screen some times.
So here is some actual data :
1. power to just make the vehicle move on flat smooth concrete indoors is just over 700 watts ( data screen shows 2amp draw, pack voltage 387v and speed 2km/hr).
Note efficiency of motors at very low rpm is very low, and should keep this in mind, especially for hub motors.
2. some solar data is available which shows very low watts outputs in full sun in abu dhabi, with calculated distance from solar of under 5 miles.......in full sun......worrying.
If your interested in any of the source videos where you can get some data, I can supply.
I do post all my findings in the youtube chanel aussie ideas man, so can search for comments in that channel.
Someone did mention that you predicted 18mph from solar alone, since it takes over 700watts just to move the vehicle at 2km/hr on flat concrete I suspect that figure is not correct, hope that helps.
This was great! Over the last few days I've been using the now "known" data for the 40 kWh battery pack (from the Aptera video) to do very similar calculations. Your calculations and speculations (cells per module; rows and cells/row; cells per wired-in-parallel group (2 rows of 13 cells), etc. and the resulting power and voltages) match what I came up with (which makes me feel good 😊; I must be doing something right!).
This isn't really a MotorMatchup thing, but what I really wanted to do, though, is speculate (and it is speculation) on how the 25 kWh, 60 kWh and 1000 kWh battery packs might be laid out -- number of cells per parallel group, number of serial groups (always 96) and how these might be arranged into some number of modules that make up the full pack. With this layout, one can then estimate the module and pack dimensions (using the nominal cell diameter) and a close-packed honeycomb layout (of course there will be some spacial overhed for the rack frame (that I have not incorporated in the calculation)). What I'm struggling with is, for the 60 kWh and 100 kWh battery packs, how the heck are they going to fit in the Aptera. The Aptera video shows an overhead view of the vehicle with the placement of the 100 kWh battery pack (including the tilted 4th section), but it's size seems woefully small if one figures out, for example, how much surface area is actually needed for the 5,760 cells in the 100 kWh battery pack. I'll be very interested to see what the Aptera battery engineers come up with! If the battery pack can, in fact, extend further towards the back of the vehicle (i.e., between the rear wheel support structure and the trunk floor), then there should be plenty of room. If not, I'm not sure what other options there are. Maybe the battery pack could be wider than shown in the diagram which would help some. Due to temperature and thickness issues, I don't think they can go to two layers. Ideas?
Recently Chris mentioned that it would take great effort to make the 100 kWh version even work and it’s coming later down the line which is somewhat strange considering the higher margin versions usually come first. I really wouldn’t be surprised at all if that version doesn’t even up coming to market. 1,000 miles is a really neat target (and actually the one I have on order!) but it’s somewhat excessive.
@@casIIsac You may be right. They may have some magic up their sleeves, but I'm wondering if, based on those comments from Chris, if they ought to tone down the "1000 miles without charging" pitch. It is a great selling point, but they need to deliver.
@@DrTeeHenry it sounds good on paper to people that don’t know about EVs but it’s really really unnecessary. Especially when the car is constantly charging itself in the sun.
@@casIIsac From what I can tell, the 100 kWh version may need a slightly different chassis and/or battery pack design. It may be a Gen2 pack in a Gen2 chassis, where the Gen2 chassis and pack would be used for all versions, with Gen1 for all but the 1000-mile version. It is known the suspension will need to be different on the 100 kWh version to handle the increased battery weight while retaining the payload numbers. Given the weight, crash testing the 1000-mile version could be different from the 400-mile version.
I believe the Gen1 chassis and pack are designed and optimized to minimize risk, both during and after production. These vehicles MUST have zero problems! Thermal margins will be generous, structures will be overbuilt, you get the idea. Once Aptera has 10K-20K Gen1 vehicles on the road and has tons of telematics data, they can prioritize what can be further optimized for Gen2.
I strongly believe the 1K-mile version makes sense ONLY as a "stunt" to kill the fake "EV range wars" competition. Charging infrastructure is improving rapidly, and with Tesla gradually opening up, "range anxiety" simply won't exist on long trips even for the 250-mile version. Plus the weight of that 1000-mile battery causes a significant efficiency hit and increased tire wear, which really goes against Aptera's ideals, which means Aptera many not really want to sell many of them (only enough to prove their point). Heck, even the 600-mile version makes relatively little sense when you add in solar. I mean, unless you are intentionally doing transcontinental trips in the boonies, which would include very, very few of us.
Are there any stock ICE vehicles with 1000-mile range? Nope: ICE range tops out at 731 miles for a hybrid Jaguar with a large tank. Why aren't there any 1K-mile ICE/hybrid vehicles? Like I said, it's a fake competition, no matter how you look at it. At best, a 1K-mile range vehicle is a novelty.
Another thing I would hope to see in Gen2 Apteras would be to split the 350V pack in two and put the halves in series to support 700V (100 kW) charging. Given the pack geometry, it could even be split in thirds to charge at 1050V (150 kW). Talk about a fast charge! Flipping the battery geometry around during fast charging seems too risky for Gen1 vehicles. But the size of the 1000-mile battery would make it much more useful for Gen2. That is, even if the 1000-mile version is a stunt, making it should help all the other versions, so why not do it?
Hey Tom, glad to hear that you enjoyed the video and we are on the same page! I imagine the other battery configs will actually look pretty different than the 40kWh config, but we shall see with time. As for the 100 kWh pack (if they produce it), I think it will look substantially different than the diagrams they have laid out. I actually estimated the pack size of the 40 kWh pack using the methods you described:
Module size: ~0.7 meters x ~0.3 meters
40 kWh Pack size: ~1.5 meters x ~0.9 meters
Height: ~10 cm.
With such limited space, I highly doubt they can vertically stack them to get 80 kWh+. Of course these are just estimates using cell dimensions + overhead. But I would love to obtain good data on the dimensions of the main tub. I agree with @BobC above that the 100 kWh is probably more of a marketing stunt. Who really needs to go anywhere near 1,000 miles in one driving session? Not only is it a huge waste of resources that you will never utilize, but Aptera has to make substantial changes to support it. It just doesn't make sense in the near term and maybe not ever.
Thanks for doing all of the work on the analysis. And on your website. They are both helpful and fun to watch, think about, and run scenarios.
Very thorough video. You must be a math wizard.
Great work mate, gonna share this with my fellow students
Great analysis and presentation--a rare pleasure these days!
One additional calculation, the 40 miles/day charge must be based on getting maximum sunlight (no clouds) on a summer day in a southern state or maybe at the equator. It would be interesting to see how this calculation works out.
Very well done! I can't wait to get mine. Just ordered today. I should have ordered it back when I first heard of it but........ 🤷♂️
Weight probably won’t affect efficiency much. However, each 200 lb passenger will be about 10% of the weight of the vehicle. With two full sized men in this car I would expect performance to be significantly reduced.
A couple of things regarding solar, the glass encapsulation will have some effect of how much sun gets through, its designed for toughness and bendibility, probably not for solar panels geting max energy.
Also since the panels are curved at any given time some panels will not be at right angles to the sun, makes quite a difference to max output. Some losses via mppt and conversion from low volts to high volts also.
Its about time aptera stuck a vehicle out in the sun and show exactly what they get, they are saying this is 40mile range from solar, but wont show actual measured figures, makes me think they have some reason not to show the actual data.
Great video. The claim of 700 “max solar” wattage by Aptera is a bit fanciful. If you count their number of cells (or calculate the total area), then you will find that the only way they can get this number is to have ~23% efficient cells, BUT with the car tilted directly into the sun-which never happens. The reality is that they will get at best about 300-400 watts of solar input. Still decent for commuter that only need 20 miles of driving per day, but unlikely to be the car that never needs charging like they claimed.
They say you can get 1000 miles (1609 km) of range out of one of these but it doesn't sound like that's true by the data presented here. Good vid! Lots of good content.
To be fair I used a higher speed for my calculation. 1,000 miles of range will be achievable with a ~100 kWh pack driving ~50 mph
I was a little confused at first because I thought you were talking about the 1,000 mile battery pack so when you calculated a range 311 miles @ 70 mph or 418 @ 50 mph, I was alarmed. But then I realized that the battery pack you were modeling (~40 kwh) must be for the model that is the nominal 400 mile range option ...duh.
This is really great but mixing metric and imperial hurts my heat haha
What is the battery chemistry for the Aptera battery pack? LFP? Can the battery be charged to 100% or is 80 % recommended?
Imagine using 3rd party portable batteries to add range. You could buy the base model. Then for long distance trips, you add 3 Ecoflow Delta Pros for $11k to add 10 kW. Then you swap them for newer cheaper battery tech later. Unfortunately, I don't think you can drive and charge at the same time.
Someday all medium priced cars will be using the Aptera platform. We didn't need to wait for the BEV. This platform could have saved a lot of lives by reducing air pollution for the last half century if we had a free market, a capitalist economy, instead of a mixed economy. I saw the need/demand for this platform in the late 60s. The Big Three wanted "planned obsolescence" and gas guzzling forever, with yearly appearance chances to stimulate new purchases. Toyota quickly took first place in sales by offering quality, longevity. Advertising (propaganda) kept the legacies going, fooling only fools. The legacy makers have self-destructed, thanks to the 'net and Elon Musk. Steve & Chris gave us the next "paradigm shift".
Brilliant
70 mph is not generic in my world!
This just came to me. It only got 3 wheels which are very thin. Its not gonna be light with the biggest battery. So how does it fare in braking?
Wow you are smart .
When will they go on sale and can we get a proper alarm system so no one steals it while at a hotel over night
hey buddy!!,Can you answer all my request???,:
1.Can you add thrust ssc
2.can you add 5000 HP devel sixteen?
3.can you add viction Cars like dodge srt tomahawk x VGT,or any????.
please buddy👍👍
motormatchup does not do nissan
This vehicle has no solar cell installed. So you are proclaiming phantasies.
Wow, quite a lot of work went into this, great job!!
Thanks!
Would you address degredation of 1,000 cycles at 40 miles per day? If you drove 40 miles a day and the sun charged the batteries back up every day, would that count as a cycle every day? If so, the batteries would degrade to 80% capacity at only 40,000 miles.
A battery cycle does not work like that, a battery cycle is a complete charge and discharge. Once the battery is fully charged, it would stop charging (even if there is sun hitting the panels)
You can see the actual degradation of the 2170 batteries, as they are used in the Tesla Model 3 and Y, and the current average is something less than 10% capacity loss after 100,000 miles. But owners who charge regularly from 10% to 90% have reduced battery degradation, likewise for owners who do not often use the Superchargers. I figure with a 40kWh battery I will mostly have my Aptera's battery between 40% and 80%, with it being charged up to 100% sometimes for an occasional long trip. But from what I've read the dendrites are not formed with the slow (trickle) charging like solar power would provide. So even if the charging goes down to 10%, and daily charging adds 30-40 miles of range, with a top off maybe once a month at home (level 2 charger), I am hoping for the 2170 batteries to last well past 300,000 miles (before capacity drops below 80%).
A good example to illustrate how battery aging works is lead acid starter batteries that every internal combustion engined car has. These age much faster than lithium batteries but provide an instructive example. They generally last a few hundred full discharge cycles from full to empty but they are not typically used like that, instead they will do hundreds of thousands of tiny cycles where they only use 5% of capacity before being charged up again. They generally last 5 - 7 years. Its the same with lithium batteries but better they will do millions of little cycles but only 1000 full cycles before losing 20% of their capacity. You can actually further improve that number by only charging to 4.1 volts per cell or 95% full and get 2000 full cycles. I think Aptera do that automatically which is why MotorMatchup mentioned the 'buffer' or spare capacity that isn't used ie you could charge the batteries a little higher but it's not set up that way.
Aptera is also supposed to have charge disc breaking in it's tires. It'd be hard to calculate that into charging equations but it is a feature.
Range estimate can be produced using this video. Just referring to range estimates given by Aptera staff. Since there is no way to corroborate their data, I find myself going through test drive videos looking for data.
This video is rather good one since it shows some good data
th-cam.com/video/if81LYYWwoY/w-d-xo.html
Range estimate can be produced using this video.
The display showed 77% full at the start and 73% full at the end.
So 4% of battery capacity got 1.5km ( fairly harsh drive with full throttle often).
That means 1% of battery gets you 375m.
So lets say you drive using 100% of battery capacity, that will get you 375x100=37500m
or 38km. Realistically you cant use all 100% of battery, lets say 10% capacity not useable.
You could go 34km......thats not bad considering it was bad driving style.
Since aptera has been unable to show any real world range tests, it means this is best estimate I can give. I dont know the battery pack on the beta vehicle, if anyone knows its capacity or layout please let me know.
Question: Does charging via the solar panels decrease the amount of charging cycles?
x k no hay vídeos en español?
This is an excellent deep dive. it deserves way more views!