open door dead 12V battery?

[Craig Steffen]

I'm excited about the concept and the potential efficiency of the Aptera. I'm very worried about the constant changing of targets and slipping of schedules.

However, I've also had a question that I'd like to ask Aptera. I think the knock-to-open-door thing is frankly kind of gimmicky. But I also have safety concerns about that.

- If I park and lock the car, and the 12V battery dies, how do I get the door open? How do I get to the battery to jump/replace it?

- If I'm IN the car, and the battery dies, same question. Can I get the door open?

While i think there's some over-proliferation of electronic gadgets in a lot of cars, some of that's Ok, but there has to be redundant backups for critical functions, like getting in or out. Does anyone know what contingencies Aptera has designed into it?

Yes, I know that's not super-likely, but absolutely possible and does happen in the real world. Yes, I know that the solar panels probably will put enough energy into the battery the next day, but that doesn't get me home for work the next day if my battery dies in the evening.

 

[Kerbe]

I'm very worried about the constant changing of targets and slipping of schedules.

- If I park and lock the car, and the 12V battery dies, how do I get the door open? How do I get to the battery to jump/replace it?
- If I'm IN the car, and the battery dies, same question. Can I get the door open?

To your first point, WHAT "constant changing of targets and slipping of schedules"? Aptera has been VERY up-front about their production plan and the fact that it's totally dependent upon funding. What they CAN'T predict is when they will have the necessary funding.

Perhaps you don't know that it's VERY difficult to run an EV battery "down to empty": Unlike an ICE vehicle where - at best - you get a small "low fuel" warning light, EVs tend to generate an escalating series of notifications once the state-of-charge drops below 20%. You have to ACTIVELY want to be stranded with a dead battery in order for it to happen in just about any modern EV.

Aptera's ancillary battery is a Lithium unit that's kept charged by the main traction battery: Unless it has some sort of defect it's highly unlikely that the little battery will ever die. Even when they indicate that they are at 0% state of charge, all EV batteries have some amount of low-end buffering to keep them from being fully drained - which is damaging to them so they protect themselves in order to avoid it.

Aptera has said that there is/will be a way to open the doors from outside the vehicle in case of emergency but they have not announced what it will be: Most auto manufacturers that have non-mechanical door controls don't spread that information around about their vehicles, either - it's usually found in their owners' manuals.

Aptera does have readily accessible interior emergency door releases - and they're pretty difficult to miss: Here's an image of the production-intent vehicle interior - can you spot the release levers?

 

[insightman]

Aptera does have readily accessible interior emergency door releases - and they're pretty difficult to miss: Here's an image of the production-intent vehicle interior - can you spot the release levers?

I knew I'd seen that photo of the emergency door release lever, but, unsurprisingly, couldn't find it before @Kerbe.

@Craig Steffen, imagine how many hours of work went into desiging the Aptera's unique method of opening the doors from the outside. I would expect at least one of the engineers considered the chances the battery may lose power or the door-opening electronics might fail.

Aptera not only has to prepare for those simple problems, but also for extracting accident victims from an Aptera with damaged doors. Creating a new vehicle from scratch is not a simple task.