The Aptera Typ-1e; Yeah, but if it works …

This thing is called the Aptera Typ-1e.

It’s been bouncing around various geek, gadget and green sites for the past 9 months or so (or near as I can remember at the moment) and, if it works (and that’s always a big if with vehicles of this nature) it is capable of getting 300 miles to the gallon.

300.

Essentially, it’s a pure hybrid. There’s a diesel motor that drives a generator that charges a bunch of batteries that are used to power electric motors; sort of like the electrical plant on a ship. I knew a guy who was a shipboard electrician and worked on these kind of things, and they can be monstrously efficient, so there’s no reason a smaller version shouldn’t work in an auto (or truck) application. If you work it right, you get the best of both worlds: you can run it off of batteries only for short range (particularly inner-city driving) yet if you have to drive it a long distance, you can stop and fill it up at any gas station, and fill it up quickly.

Anyway, someone finally got a chance to drive one on the street and write about it.

Strangely, the folks at Aptera chose Popular Mechanics as the drivers, and this has been noted (jealously) by other geek & gadget blogs, but curiously none of the green blogs (probably because they’re too a-flutter to type).

My question, as always, is, ‘How does it work?’ What’s it like to take the thing out and wring it by the neck? I know some amazingly good sports car roads, and I’d love to see what this, or any other fuel efficient/car of the future would do on, say, the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Bodega Bay.

You’d have it all. If you started out in The Presidio, you’d have to deal with traffic, tourists, toll booths, completely oblivious nit-noids in Marin nearly squishing you with their immaculate yellow Hummers, then two lanes of asphalt that’s perched, literally, between the Devil and the deep blue sea. God help you son if it’s windy or stormy and you’re trying to keep up a fun rate of speed.

If this thing could do that drive as well as, say a Miata or an MR-2, then I might be interested.

Filed Under: Aptera