Any high mile commuters thinking about Aptera?

[Todd]

Currently I have a '03 VW TDI (Diesel) that gets around 52MPG and over the past 5 years I've put ~260K mostly trouble free miles on it. My core bare bones commute is ~90 miles round trip**. With side trips I can easily pull 600 to 700 miles a week (I get around 670 miles on a full tank).

My usual off hours commute is - hop on 80 (or 680/24), drive 75mph for ~35 minutes, park! So I'm wondering if the Aptera can this many miles.

**It used to be a 5 mile commute but they (employer) bought a new building 40 miles further down HWY 80. The fact that I kind of like where I live now, the rapidly melting real estate market and the fact that they're looking for a bigger building makes moving a bad idea.

[KarenRei]

Well, we don't know what particular brand of batteries they're using yet, but they have said lithium phosphate, so let's look at one particular brand of lithium phosphate battery: A123's nanophosphates. They expect their automotive packs to be good for 10+ years and 7000+ charge cycles.

Let's ignore the years part and look just at the cycles. I'm going to assume a Typ-1e here; you can adjust for a Typ-1h if that's what you're getting. 7000 cycles * 120 miles = 840,000 miles. Think you'll hit that?

Even when you hit the rated age/cycles, it's not like the battery just goes dead. You're just looking at a bit of lost range.

As for other parts, the tires, brake pads, and drive belt should need to be replaced at fairly regular intervals. Nothing huge there, and like a regular car. The "creature comforts" will require just as much maintenance as in a regular car as well. The inverter/charger and motor have the potential to have failures, although I have no clue what the expected lifespan on them is (probably a good long time). You can expect several small cooling fans as well -- not likely to die, and fairly cheap to replace if they do. Beyond that, all of the other components of a normal gasoline vehicle just aren't there to fail -- the radiator, the pumps, all of the fluids and their tubing and tanks, cylinders and valves and the whole engine block, most of the belts, the transmission, muffler and the whole exhaust system, and on and on.

In short, I'd expect it to hold up to the miles much better than a gasoline car.

Now, here's the beauty part: the more miles you put on it, the better the deal. You're putting 50k miles a year on your car. If you could do that with only electric, and if your current car was 52mpg, and you were paying $0.15/kWh (expensive CA electricity), and your diesel was $4/gal, you'd save ~$3.8k a year on gas and spend ~$800 a year on electricity, netting you ~$2k per year. And on top of that, add your maintenance savings -- let's say $2.5k total. You'd have your Aptera paid off easily in 9 years or so**.

Now, if you need to get a Typ-1h, the math is going to be a bit different. You'll still save, but your maintenance costs should be similar to that of a normal car -- you shouldn't net money there. Also, only 40 miles per trip will be electric. Let's say 40% of your miles are electric. You'd save something like $1300 a year in energy costs. Your payback time would be 20 years or so**.

** When calculating payback time, don't forget that new federal tax deduction for EVs and PHEVs that's moving through congress right now and will probably pass. I forget how much it'd be for the Typ-1h, but it'd be $5k a year for the Typ-1e, decreasing every subsequent year until it's gone (not sure how fast).

Of course... one thing to remember in all of this: you're getting a *new*, *eco-friendly*, *attention-getting* car. Normally, new cars don't even come close to paying off financially; in this case, it would. And your situation is all the harder to have it pay off on, since your current car is so efficient.