Thread: Something Different for Your Daily Commute.

This is something that I have passively followed for more than a decade. I've generally been fascinated by innovative & new concepts in the automotive industry, with a special focus on ultra-high mileage & aerodynamic efficient designs. Most of the time, I simply stumbled upon articles or a news segment spotlighting the company/expected product.

The first one that I can remember is from more than a decade ago:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_Motors




Alas, this one went belly up in 2011. It doesn't help that the projected price tag was somewhere between 20k & 40k. During the closure of the company, the employees were ordered to destroy all vehicles that were made, in order to protect the patents. Supposedly, it was bought by a Chinese auto manufacturer. But I don't think anything effective has happened to it since.

I also became aware of Elio Motors during the time of Aptera's period of operation. This one, honestly, has me a bit excited.
https://www.eliomotors.com


They have a very practical approach, and seem to be very grounded in their goals. 84 mpg, with a price tag of roughly $7,800. They have used crowdfunding in the form of selling reservations for "Spots In Line", allowing folks to secure what order they get their vehicle off the production line. They are using as many "off the shelf" parts as they can, in an effort to keep the price low. This also means parts have already been used reliably in other vehicles . They actually bought an old, long shuttered GM plant to use as their factory, as well. When I looked them up again recently, I was pleased to discover they have maintained their company blog with new posts several times a week! They've pushed back the official release date a couple of times, but they still seem to be close to fruition.

First of all, I have no connection or vested interests with any of the mentioned companies or products! I'd love to buy a reservation for an Elio, but have never had the funds to spare. This was just something I wanted to bring up. Not everyone is as comfortable being "outside the box" as me. That's fine.

Also, somewhat bizarrely, I don't "have a thing" for motorcycles . But these things are neat. I'd like to know if any other folks here have heard of these? Or other likewise nifty transportation thingys?

There have been a slew of vehicles of this type designed over the years. With SUVs selling better than cars and low gas prices these all have little chance of ever actually being sold and if they are sold they will never be big sellers.

For electric to become mainstream there needs to be a major breakthrough in battery design so electric vehicles can go as far as gas vehicles on one charge. Probably Hydrogen is the way to go right now.

They periodically catch my eye. There are a few companies from India that are doing some amazing things. One company has a car that uses compressed air, and has a backup diesel compressor built in. Even if you air exclusively on the compressor the mileage is still crazy. There is another company also from India that builds extremely inexpensive, very tiny cars, that use very little fuel. They have recently started selling cars in the U.K.. The issue most people have with owning and driving a high economy car is most have very little get up and go. In Canada and the US we do a lot of open road and highway driving, where as there are a lot of places where driving is mostly done in very high congestion areas do not have the ability to go fast and for those places the high efficiency cars are very sensible. I cannot imagine trying to drive one of the high effiency cars on a cross country trip, and certainly not with my driving habits. There have been some nice diesel cars come out in recent years that are a nice medium for where I drive cars. At home a pick up is most sensible. I am intrigued though, very intrigued.

I just saw an electric car charging station for the first time this weekend. It was in a Wal-Mart parking lot in a rural area outside Kansas City.

Toyota sells the mirai which is hydrogen cell fueled but you can only get them in California and even then there are only a handful of fueling stations. The fuel is somewhat more expensive than gasoline and it's basically an electric car with the H system recharging the batteries.

Electric cars need some more years to develop batteries that will allow you to drive at highway speeds for at least 300-400 miles. They also need to have the support infrastructure in place to allow you to do so. Still a long way to go on that front too.

As of now anyone needing an fuel efficient pick up or SUV is better off with diesel power. Unfortunately the way the petro industry has jacked the price of diesel higher than gasoline and the huge added cost of buying the diesel option you would never come ahead on the deal.

Sometimes life just sucks.

Bob

Originally Posted by BobH

Electric cars need some more years to develop batteries that will allow you to drive at highway speeds for at least 300-400 miles. They also need to have the support infrastructure in place to allow you to do so. Still a long way to go on that front too.

As of now anyone needing an fuel efficient pick up or SUV is better off with diesel power. Unfortunately the way the petro industry has jacked the price of diesel higher than gasoline and the huge added cost of buying the diesel option you would never come ahead on the deal.

Sometimes life just sucks.

Bob

Tesla is already making cars that will go that range, and with over 800 superchargers all over the US, even some in Canada as well. You can go cross country with using only their charge stations.