Powered by the Sun: Aptera is due to roll off the assembly line this year
APTERA, THE FIRST MASS-PRODUCED SOLAR-POWERED CAR, IS DUE TO ROLL OFF THE ASSEMBLY LINE THIS YEAR
The dream began in 1955, with a tiny, toylike creation called the ‘Sunmobile.’ Built from balsa wood and hobby shop tyres, it was just 15 inches long. The 12 selenium solar cells that decorated its exterior produced less horsepower than an actual horse. But it was proof of a concept: Sunlight alone can make a vehicle run.
The years went on, and the dream evolved into a converted vintage buggy with solar panels on its roof. Then a glorified bicycle, a retiree’s garage project, a race car that crossed the Mojave Desert at 82 kilometres per hour.
It is a dream of perpetual motion. Of travel that doesn’t do damage to the planet. Of journeys that last as long as the sun shines.
There are problems with this dream, big ones. Clouds come. Night falls. The laws of physics limit how efficiently solar panels can turn light into energy.
Is this the future?
But one start-up claims it has overcome those problems. Now, its founders say, the dream can be yours for as little as $25,900.
Aptera Motors, a California company whose name comes from the ancient Greek for ‘wingless,’ is rolling out the first massproduced solar car this year. It’s a three-wheel, ultra-aerodynamic electric vehicle covered in 34 square feet of solar cells. The car is so efficient that, on a clear day, those cells alone could provide enough energy to drive about 64 kilometres — more than twice the distance of the average American’s commute.
The Aptera must undergo safety tests before the company can begin distribution, which it hopes to do by the end of this year. Even then, it’s not clear that consumers will want to buy something that looks like a cross between the Batmobile and a beetle. The shadow of an initial attempt, which ended in bankruptcy, hangs over the founders as they gear up to launch their new product.
But the Aptera’s creators, Chris Anthony and Steve Fambro, think the world needs a car like theirs. Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming pollution in the United States. Anthony and Fambro didn’t set out to build a vehicle that could run on solar power. They just wanted to make a more efficient car.
From top to wheels, the Aptera is designed to eliminate as much waste as possible. Its creators say the car is 13 times more efficient than a gas-powered pickup truck and four times more efficient than the average electric vehicle. At least 90 per cent of the power produced by the Aptera’s solar panels goes toward making the vehicle move, the company says.
The Aptera can be recharged the same way a standard electric vehicle is fuelled — by simply plugging it into an outlet. Its extreme efficiency means the car
When the first solar vehicle, Sunmobile, debuted at a General Motors trade show 65 years ago, even its inventors were sceptical about its prospects. GM officials told a magazine their creation was of “no practical application to the automotive industry at present.”
can go 240 kilometres after just 15 minutes at a charging station.
But an average electric car would need a solar panel “the size of a semi truck” Fambro said. A relatively small number of solar cells can propel the Aptera.
Super-efficient vehicle
“It only works if you have a super-efficient vehicle,” Fambro said. But once he and Anthony realised how far the sun alone could take them, “there was no other plan than to make it a solar vehicle.” When Aptera began taking pre-orders last December, it sold out of its planned first batch of 330 vehicles in 24 hours. Almost 7,500 people have now put down deposits for a car.
Anthony acknowledged that the Aptera is not for everyone. But it has more appeal than its sceptics give it credit for, he said. The car’s high efficiency means it puts less demand on the grid than ordinary electric vehicles. And the notion of parking an Aptera in the sun and returning to a car that has more fuel than when you left it — free, clean fuel — is a powerful idea at a time when the world is looking for transformation.
“We see solar as the main driver of our business,” Anthony said. “It enables so many things.”
He considered the dreamers who first conceived of solar cars: Tholstrup subsisting on orange slices during his cross-continent journey, engineering students building race cars after school.
He thought about the early developers of electric vehicles, who had faith in a future that didn’t run on gas. He remembered the investors who shied away from the Aptera’s first incarnation, saying “who is going to buy your weird egg-shaped creation?”
“It’s the same thing with anybody who does anything first,” Anthony said. “It’s always: Why would you do that?”
When Aptera hits the road, he’ll have his answer.