A fan from the Aptera Forum snapped these pictures of two plug-in model 2e hybrids waiting to be shown off at the TED conference tomorrow. There’s really no reason to get overly excited about them—I mean, tomorrow—but I adore the Aptera so much. I called them to try to get a hands-on, but we’re too small to show up on their media radar, so for now I must pine from afar.
Here’s his entire gallery on Flickr.
Maybe if aptera.com were boingboing’ed they’d reconsider this ‘too small’ thing…
apparently going for the ‘grounded flying car’ look…
Digging a bit… The “two six-foot surfboards” fit only in single-rider mode (folding down the passenger seat). OK, that gives me a bit more info about cargo capacity. It might be possible to bring a small amount of lumber home with this thing, but definitely limited — and forget carrying that floor sander, or anything furniture-sized from a yard sale.
I still really want to see better photos of the thing loaded with “15 bags of groceries” to see if that’s an honest 15 full-size paper bags worth of floor space and height, or a haphazard pile of 15 half-full plastic bags. And I’d like to see an honest statement of total payload mass capacity.
@4 Not going for any kind of look, but rather going for minimal drag. If I remember the drag coefficient on the body is something ridiculous like .12
I really wish I could could find decent pictures of the cargo space with cargo in it for scale. It *sounds* adequate for most purposes, but it’s hard to visualize given its shape.
Sounds like more space than a typical compact trunk, but not necessarily arranged usefully… and definitely not up to even a subcompact hatchback.
Oh well. Can’t have everything. This is definitely a “drive this most of the time, rent something else when you need more capacity” vehicle.
The fact that it’s registered as a motorcycle reminded me: Does anyone know how well or poorly it handles on wet pavement? On snow/ice? Or should one assume, like cycles, that it’s strictly a fair-weather vehicle?
Whooosh!
It all goes back to Bucky Fuller.
Too small? Are you serious? You’re freakin’ Boing Boing!