Aptera's informative new video!

[Kerbe]

Aptera's best explanatory video to date! This is a "Production Intent" test vehicle (nicknamed "Apollo") that was hand-assembled from production-specification parts, some of which are actual production parts (the body panels, seats, wheels and windows for example). Apollo's brother, Hermes, is undergoing track testing at Honda's Proving Center in the Mojave Desert. Upcoming PI test vehicles will be used for environmental and safety (crash) testing.

 

[Paul K]

That's a really cool vehicle for sure. Nonetheless I can't imagine those front wheel pods coping very well with our Canadian winters. Road slush tends to build up and harden in wheel wells in traditional cars to the point where the tire is rubbing at the slightest bump or turn.

 

[insightman]

That's a really cool vehicle for sure. Nonetheless I can't imagine those front wheel pods coping very well with our Canadian winters. Road slush tends to build up and harden in wheel wells in traditional cars to the point where the tire is rubbing at the slightest bump or turn.

That's a good point about which I was also wondering. A snow build-up once blew out the passenger-side wheel spat on my first Honda Insight.

For anyone who doesn't remember the original Honda Insight with its wheel spats, here's a photo. America's first hybrid, the aerodynamic and electrified Insight was the closest thing to an Aptera one could own back then. It still is.



The man in the photo loves the original Honda Insight and collected 35 of them. The pole barn behind his house is a fully equipped service facility, which includes a lift. I grabbed the name for my website in 1999, before the first Insight arrived in the US, but Gerald has to be the real Insightman.

 

[Kerbe]

That's a really cool vehicle for sure. Nonetheless I can't imagine those front wheel pods coping very well with our Canadian winters. Road slush tends to build up and harden in wheel wells in traditional cars to the point where the tire is rubbing at the slightest bump or turn.

The original design had in-wheel hub motors that would have generated enough heat to keep the "wheel pants" (Aptera-speak - the rear-wheel cover is called a "skirt") snow and ice-free. I'm sure when they get to doing environmental testing they'll learn if there's a problem and find a way to correct it.