Why Aptera Needs To Start a Taxi Company

[sparkie]

It seems like a nonsensical notion that a car company should start a taxi company. However, I believe that an Aptera Taxi Company could be an essential part of the company that achieves several purposes:

1. Research & Development
2. Service
3. Marketing
4. Reliability Metrics
5. Endurance Testing

Before going through each of these purposes, a general idea of how it would work.

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The Aptera Taxi Service - How it Works
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The limitation of the Aptera taxi is the 100M range. You would have to get around this limitation with distance-based requests for a taxi. It would work like this:

A potential passenger would use his smart phone (or a web form) to imput a request for a taxi to a destination. The location-aware smart phone would compute the distance, and send it to Aptera's central server. The server would contact available Aptera taxis. The taxis would compute whether they could make the trip, based upon their range. They would then relay this back to a central server. The central server would choose the best Aptera in the fleet and send an ETA to the passenger. The passenger would then confirm the reservation.

With the limitation of a 100 M range, each Aptera would have to change batteries a few times a day.

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The Aptera Taxi Service - Why Do this?
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Overall reason -- each taxi could log over 5 times the average milage of an average Aptera. That means in two years, you could log 10 years of travel on an Aptera.

1. R&D - Although a lot of R&D development needs to occur under wraps, a significant savings could be achieved by using an Aptera Taxi Service for R&D projects. For example, if you want to test a new battery, it would be ideal to test it under real world conditions. Of course, redundancy would be necessary on R&D projects.

2. Service - Service would be greatly enhanced by having the taxi cars age at 5x the rate of customer Apteras. Problems could be discovered before customers discover them.

3. Marketing - Basically, if Apteras are put in a city like San Francisco, they serve as marketing devices. Also, a taxi service could test Apteras in new markets.

4. Reliability - Apteras need to prove their reliability to many consumers. An Aptera taxi service could enable the company to give actual metrics on reliability. This become more important as the company ramps up production.

5. Endurance Testing - If batteries are swapped, Aptera can test the endurance of the vehicle and the batteries on a daily basis. The data from these tests can be used to refine and improve the product.

Cash positive -- Oh, some money might also be made from this. But the point is that a great deal of what an Aptera Taxi Service would achieve would conventionally drain a company's balance sheets. This is not necessary.

What say ye?!

[JimmyDreams]

I think it's an interesting idea, but it would never fly unless Aptera managed some sort of 'quick charge'. Otherwise, all the Aptera taxis would be sitting around charging....8 hours on the plug for around 2 hours of driving. :/

I like the concept, but I don't think the realities are there yet. Let's get them on the road in a production model and get some into the hands of every day drivers. THEN, you can take the knowledge learned from that and move into taxis, package delivery, etc.

JMHO.

[sparkie]

Batteries --- You would have to switch batteries in the cars a few times a day in order to get about 400-500 miles a day. True, I don't know about the mechanics of switching batteries like this. So, for each car, you would need about 4 sets of batteries.

[ApteraH@3535]

That leads to interesting economics as the batteries are (I assume) a large part of the value of the car. In order to keep the car on the road all the time, you might have to double your investment. So return on investment doesn't go up all that much. Much better to have fast charge.

[paddler13]

The vehicle isn't designed to have the batteries swapped out quickly. Why would they redesign the vehicle for a feature they never intend to use (and which I happen to think is not viable) just in order to do testing?

Heck, if they want the vehicles tested all they need to do is let out word and I can pretty much guarantee there will be a line of willing testers wrapped about a couple of city blocks just waiting for their turn at the wheel.

[sparkie]

The point is any car company has to have a testing program anyway. Especially a new car company has to be able to answer how does it perform at 100K, 200K, 300K, 500K. How does it perform a year in Chicago? etc.
If you can make a few dollars when you are doing your R&D, then you save money.
Even after the production model is locked down, it's extremely important to continue to gather data on performance. Something will go wrong, and you need to discover it before it happens.
The data is what you get from the Taxi Company, the revenues help offset the cost of the data.
You want a taxi company because you want drivers who gain more of a familiarity with the car than your average user; and who ensure a uniformity in data reporting.

[APTERA 2356]

Sparkie
I see your position that the Aptera Vehicle needs testing but I don't feel that a taxi service is the right platform for these reasons:

Aptera being a two passenger vehicle your fare has to travle solo.

your one passenger can't have an excess of cargo due to limited storage

and being in queue at #783 if anybody should get to test these it should be the reservation holders who locked in their spot.... LIKE ME PLEASE hint hint.

I don't see the Aptera working well for a taxi because of its limits.

limited room, cargo weight and size and recharge time. one trip or two to the airport and then 8 hours to recharge.

I say let the reservation holders drive then until their Aptera is ready for delivery and the sight of Aptera's on the road will stir up the intrest.

[Ardie3301]

There's probably a reason why Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Fiat, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pugeot, Bentley, GM, Chrysler, Ford, etc. *don't* have a taxi division. Sure, there are many such cars (and vehicles) that are used as taxis, but the taxi driver isn't an employee of the car maker. Why? Probably because they only sell cars and let others operate and maintain them. Shucks, almost none of them even fix their own product. They have dealerships for that.

However, some time in the future (once we original 4000 are taken care of) Aptera may look into fleet sales to rental car agencies. And that would offer increased exposure and allow for a greater number of people to try out an Aptera without having to buy one.

-- Ardie

[Matthijs]

There's probably a reason why Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, Fiat, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Pugeot, Bentley, GM, Chrysler, Ford, etc. *don't* have a taxi division. Sure, there are many such cars (and vehicles) that are used as taxis, but the taxi driver isn't an employee of the car maker. Why? Probably because they only sell cars and let others operate and maintain them. Shucks, almost none of them even fix their own product. They have dealerships for that.

However, some time in the future (once we original 4000 are taken care of) Aptera may look into fleet sales to rental car agencies. And that would offer increased exposure and allow for a greater number of people to try out an Aptera without having to buy one.

-- Ardie
eMercedesBenz Feature: The History Of Mercedes-Benz Taxis (http://www.emercedesbenz.com/Oct08/10_001444_eMercedesBenz_Feature_The_History_Of_Mer cedes_Benz_Taxis.html)

Early mixtures of petrol and electricity

Around 1900, it was not easy for motorized cab operators-to-be to order the right sort of vehicle. They had the choice of petrol engine, electric motor and even steam propulsion. Then there was the choice of brand. Alongside established manufacturers like Daimler and Benz, a large number of new companies had emerged, which either cleverly copied the successful models or launched their own immature designs with all the shortcomings arising from inexperience.

The first electro-mobiles used as taxi cabs were nothing else but converted carriages with the cab dimensions specified by the authorities. In most versions, a bulky battery box with a lead battery inside was attached underneath the passenger compartment; the electric motor's power was directly transmitted to the rear wheels.

Initially, these vehicles had major advantages for cab operators. They were not as smelly and loud as petrol-engined vehicles – a pleasant aspect for passengers by all means. Their operational reliability was clearly higher than that of the early petrol-engined vehicles, and repairs were carried out easily. Operating cabs with electric motors did not require any special technical knowledge on the part of the drivers, so their wages were lower than those of the competing petrol-engined vehicles' chauffeurs.

The disadvantage of a relatively small range of some 90 kilometres and the rather moderate top speed of 20 km/h did not have any incisive effects in urban taxi operation – top speed was limited to 15 km/h in many areas anyway. Batteries were mostly recharged on the cab operators' premises, outside the vehicles, so the latter were back on the road quickly with a second set of batteries.

The first electric cab started operating in Berlin in 1899, the first one in Vienna in 1900. The example set by these cities was followed by Cologne, Dresden and Frankfurt/Main. Relatively large electric cab operations with up to 80 vehicles rapidly established themselves in Düsseldorf, Hamburg and Leipzig. Customers were able to distinguish them easily from petrol-engined cabs by their livery: in Berlin, for instance, electric cabs were painted ivory, petrol-engined cabs brown.

At the 1907 Berlin Motor Show, a good dozen companies displayed a large number of special electric taxi cabs and by 1910, battery development had progressed to a level that permitted a range of 130 kilometres and a top speed of around 30 km/h.

Well maybe Aptera could start offering factory installed taxi or renting (fleet) equipment. Mercedes Benz sells a lot of cars over BMW or Audi in the taxi business in Europe especially Germany.

[popnfresh]

Well maybe Aptera could start offering factory installed taxi or renting (fleet) equipment. Mercedes Benz sells a lot of cars over BMW or Audi in the taxi business in Europe especially Germany.
In order for them to do that, they'd first have to have cars to lease. Lots of cars. The 2e production will be a trickle, if it ever happens at all. They'd first have to honor all the place holders who have put deposits down and I figure it'll take at least 2 years to clear that backlog even if everything goes as planned. Then there's the 2h list. It'll be at least a year before the first one rolls off the assembly line and another 2 or 3 years before all the people waiting for a 2h take delivery. Aptera is a tiny company that has yet to produce anything and you're comparing them to giants that produce hundreds of thousands of cars annually? Get real. Fleet leasing is totally out of the question for the foreseeable future.

[danieloneil01]

Maybe they'll do it when the 2h comes out.

[magnru]

I spoke with Wendy from SF Bay Area City CarShare http://www.citycarshare.org/ Sunday at WestFest in SF and she said that her company was aware of Aptera and may look into the possibility of purchasing Aptera Vehicles. For those who can't afford an Aptera they can join City CarShare and get the pleasure of driving one. magnru #2783 'TYPE 2H'

[KarenRei]

Niftiness. :)