To those who've reserved - what would kill the deal?

[Aptera1171]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the Aptera and have reserved. But, when I broke down and told my wife that I've put $500 on the car that is on our computer wallpaper, she brought up one issue that I couldn't answser -- what if insurance on the Aptera is incredibly high because it is so rare? All I could say was that if this happens, I'll rethink the deposit and maybe pull out of the deal.

I don't mean this thread to be about insurance (please start a new thread if you want one). But, I'm wondering what other issues I may be missing in my decision to put the deposit down.

So my question is, especially to those who have put money down on the Aptera, what would cause you to request a refund of your deposit?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

[Yanquetino]

...since I can't put down a deposit, not being a Californian :( ... I would say that these might be instances when I would ask for a refund:


Due to the crash testing results, Aptera has to postpone production until, say, 2011. By then there will probably be other pure EV alternatives (Mitsubishi's iMiEV Sport, Subaru's G4e, maybe even Miles' XS500 Javlon, a highway-capable ZENN, Zap's 828e, etc., etc.) --albeit not as unique. My concern over switching to EV transportation takes precedent over one particular vehicle.



Due to EPA testing, Aptera has to sadly announce that the Typ-1e will actually only have a range of 50 miles. We have a 104-mile commute to work!



Chevron-Texaco buys Aptera and announces that only a hybrid will henceforth be available --thus keeping the owners addicted to their product. Because they bought the NiMH patents from GM, which led to the destruction of the EV1, and then sued Toyota for putting NiMH in the RAV4-EV, I absolutely refuse to pay another penny for their gasoline. :mad:



We lose our jobs, can't find other employment, and even discover that our retirement savings have been flushed down the u-bend by a complete stock market collapse.



I suddenly become so old, ill, senile, or otherwise debilitated that the doctors prohibit me from ever getting behind the wheel again.


Those scenarios aside, I seriously doubt that the insurance will prove prohibitively expensive. Insurance companies obviously insure motorcycles. Why would they balk at a new model "motorcycle" that has airbags, seatbelts, and a protective roll cage?

[RoxChkPlusOny]

* I lose my job or choose, of my two jobs, the one that pays way less
* The Typ-1e has a range less than 80 miles and the hybrid edition is delayed past Sep 2009
* Another product with a second passenger alongside the driver, like the ZAP Alias, comes out and offers it to me before the Typ-1e rolls around
* I get a huge raise and can afford a 5+ seater electric that releases around the same time as the Aptera

[MegaAutoBit]

*The Aptera doesn’t have some advance lighting like HID’s or LED lights.
*The 0-60 time is above 10 sec.
*The sound system sounds like crap.
*I can’t comfortably fit in the Aptera.

I know some of these sound trivial but there are several other vehicles close to market like the Volt. So, if I don’t find what I want I will continue to the competition. I spend a lot of the time in the car, driving is one of my favorite past time, so there is no point to buy a car that doesn’t meet my minimum requirements.

[KarenRei]

Personally, I don't think the Volt even compares with the Aptera. Apart from being ugly (IMHO), while the Aptera looks like something out of Blade Runner, the Volt has a significantly higher drag coefficient and weight. Which means more energy consumption, which means more operating expense and worse environmental impact. Oh, and the Volt is going to cost "closer to $40k than $30k".

Of course, since I'm only interested in an EV, not a plug-in hybrid, the Volt is right-out for me. I want all-electric for environmental, operating cost, and potential upgradability reasons, and Aptera's clever approach of spending the extra money to build it super aerodynamic and light so that you can get by with fewer (expensive) batteries seems the only way to go for me.

[Apteratude]

Good thread. We're looking at buying a condo when we can save up enough of a down payment. If we have to choose between a good deal on a condo in a year or so and the aptera, I suppose truthfully speaking I'd choose the condo. My wife and I missed buying a place 10 years ago when things were cheap because we both thought we had significant inheritances coming our way. Well, wife's father got re-married to a girl younger than my wife and now has 2 new kids younger than ours, and my dad's airline he flew for 34 years went bankrupt and he lost the 2.4 million $ pension he had coming to him.

Needless to say, we've discovered we're responsible for our own retirement. There may be some $$$ left over, but I can't pass up the chance to get in on the housing market this next go-around.

As far as "make or break" factors on the Aptera.

I don't mind the stereo being of too high of caliber
Even if the range is 20-30% less it will still fit my needs.
My civic hybrid only does 0-60 in around 12 seconds.
That's good enough for me
I don't see insurance being too out of whack either.

My concerns with an EV are overall build quality/reliability. Being # 989, if early deliveries of the Aptera are found to have recall after recall and reliability/build quality issues, Obviously I'd need to re-think.

As far as GM's Volt Bob Lutz when speaking about it sounds a little annoyed. He seems to not be in such a rush and had now pushed back production expectations to 2011. He sounds a little perturbed by the public outcry for this new technology. Sort of reminiscent of the company's sentiment of the EV1. On one hand they're hyping it, and on the other hand, they're moaning about difficulties in R & D and battery tech/aero challenges.

[MegaAutoBit]

Personally, I don't think the Volt even compares with the Aptera. Apart from being ugly (IMHO), while the Aptera looks like something out of Blade Runner, the Volt has a significantly higher drag coefficient and weight. Which means more energy consumption, which means more operating expense and worse environmental impact. Oh, and the Volt is going to cost "closer to $40k than $30k".

Of course, since I'm only interested in an EV, not a plug-in hybrid, the Volt is right-out for me. I want all-electric for environmental, operating cost, and potential upgradability reasons, and Aptera's clever approach of spending the extra money to build it super aerodynamic and light so that you can get by with fewer (expensive) batteries seems the only way to go for me.

May be I should explain myself a little further some have miss understood my post. The Aptera is a significantly better vehicle than the Volt. My only point was there are several other vehicles coming on the market with in a year to two years of Aptera going into production like the Volt and the new Tesla. There is no reason to sacrifice on overall comfort and convenience since we have options. So if the radio sounds like a boom box, I’m moving on. I find no entertainment value in listing to a boom box.

Regarding the 0-60 time, I currently drive a car that goes from 0 to 60 in about 13 sec. For me out here in LA, and on the central coast I find it very challenging to drive at times. I currently live in a very old city, were the highway was an afterthought, and a poor one at that. The on/off ramps are street roads that dead-end into the highway and curve around. Thus they are VERY short. I have hard enough time getting up to 40 MPH not to mention 60 MPH off these ramps. Traffic for the most part is doing 75-80 MPH. Needless to say, I have been run off the road more than once trying to enter the highway. I know other parts of the country don’t drive as fast as the people in California, but for a California car, you have to have some power to keep from being run over by those soccer moms driving V8 SUV, and the lawyers that drive their supercharged V8 AMG Mercedes.

[nluneau]

1. The ability to add wings, a tail, and prop, is not possible after all :)

2. I actually convince my wife that it makes sense for me to purchase the Tesla and that she would really not want to drive it!

[nluneau]

MegaAutoBit, I'll trade you #494 for #503.

[cogito]

If the radio sound is of poor quality but all else passes muster, I’d install an after-market radio and speakers for a few hundred dollars. If the audio problem is loud road-noise, then I’d look elsewhere.

Other deal killers:
If Aptera didn’t handle well on real roads.
If it had trouble making it up the hill to my house.
If it wasn’t comfortable. (too much LA life in cars)

[LQUAN]

I expect road noise and drive train noise to be higher than usual in this car.

[KarenRei]

I'm not sure about road noise. The Aptera has good clearance underneath it (to avoid drag from turbulence raised between the moving car and the stationary road), so you're not exactly hugging the road closely:

http://oneworldnews.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/aptera1.jpg

I guess only one way to find out how noisy it is :). As for drivetrain noise, you expect an electric to be louder than a gasoline? The only moving parts on the car (apart from things like climate control, stereo speakers, etc) are three wheels, one belt, and one small motor driveshaft. I'd doubt it'd be louder, although I suppose it's possible.

Either way, there's not much that'd make me cancel my order.

* They cancel my order on me
* They raise the price out of my price range
* I'm out of a job for a year between now and then
* Earlier peoples' Apteras fall apart on the road from being looked at too hard, leading to mass casualties.
* Instead of lithium phosphate batteries, they're powered by hamsters on treadmills (or other similar short lifespan, low energy density, low power density device -- lead acid, LiCoO2/graphite lithium ion, etc)
* Range drops below 50-60 mi
* Top speed drops below highway speeds (65-70 mph).
* Goes from 0 to 40 in "quite a while" (like the Reva G-Wiz)
* Can be beaten in a race by a table (like the Reva G-Wiz)
* In fact, if it's anything at all like the Reva G-Wiz
* It can't fit in a parking space, garage, or lane of traffic.
* Laws where I live forbid it, and I can't find a realistic way to skirt them (such as gluing on a fake muffler to meet an "all vehicles must have mufflers" requirement)
* Release date for the car is repeatedly pushed back so many times that humans have since evolved into beings of pure energy.

Don't think any of those are realistic problems :)

[cogito]

Another thing that’s of concern is cockpit visibility. Looking at the photo linked in KR’s post, the A-pillar(and door edge) looks about twice the width of my bmw. The black paint around the windows diminishes the apparent width, but if I felt visibility was impaired, that would also be a deal-breaker.

[Chupacabra]

I don't believe Insurance would be an issue, someone had a good point with motorcycle insurance - still, its a concern. If it was prohibitive, I wouldn't buy.
Roadworthiness and crash testing is a concern. I know they said they EXCEEDED some requirements, but the vehicle hasn't been tested in real world situations yet.
Reliability is the MAIN concern, as this is a new untested vehicle we will likely not know this information until some time down the line. Those of us who take the plunge first will be making a leap of faith.
If they stretched the delivery date out too far.
If they were to come out with a 3 or 4 seater before I had to commit to my 2 seater, I would give preference to that before the 2 seater as long as price wasn't too much more. I would actually prefer a 3 or 4 seater, even if it had slightly less mileage.
Lastly, I don't own a place with a garage so I will be unable to plug it in. I was told by someone who answered my email that I would still be able to use the hybrid one, I would just get less gas mileage. I think I read somewhere that mileage would be 130mpg. Which is still more then acceptable.


Luckily for us, the $500 deposit is fully refundable so the way I see it, there is no risk.

[KarenRei]

Chupacabra: That's correct. Their website says that once you get more than 400, 500 miles since your last charge, something like that, you average about 130mpg in the Typ-1h from there on out.

[butter]

I've been itching to answer this question ever since I first read it a few weeks back, way before I even put in my deposit. I think this is a really excellent question to ponder, but so incredibly difficult to answer for me, probably because I know so little of what to expect or to fear.

Non-performance issues such as interior comfort and entertainment quality mean absolutely nothing to me. I am 5'4" and average weight, so obviously roominess will never be a problem for me. I don't really listen to music; I get trapped in my own internal monologues or I rehash the day's events while stuck in traffic.

Stuff that matters more to me: the general reliability of this newfangled car, general safety issues (though Aptera seems to be really on the ball regarding safety), and whether it turns out as expected/projected (mileage, retail price)... I think it will actually come down to the test drive. I can't help but expect to be filled with total giddiness upon first ride -- and if somehow I am disappointed, or if the car is really really noisy for whatever reason, or if the steering wheel is really hard to move (I am *not* a weakling though).. I'm making these examples up, but just pointing out that if after the test-drive I feel a weird dullness in the pit of my stomach, I may reconsider.

I hate to admit that it may all boil down to that perennially unreliable "gut feeling," but that's what the test drive is all about, right?

I think I also have to feel secure in knowing that after I buy the car, if anything, ANYTHING weird happens to it that wasn't completely my fault (i.e., driving it into a cement pillar), Aptera will totally help me out to my satisfaction.

With an excellent warranty/satisfaction guaranteed/customer service reassurance, I'd definitely buy in. It's like Costco, or many many other businesses around the country -- with them, you can buy without fear and tackle problems without a huge hassle. I think that's ultimately what would seal the deal for me.