A penny a mile? Is it true?

[Kenny]

Is this true?

Does Aptera's electric model really go a mile on a penny of electricity?

I hear a full charge will take you about 120 miles and cost about $1.20.

True?

If so that's amazing.
I'm going through a lot of trouble to squeeze 64 MPG out of my hybrid.
Gas is now $4.40, so that's 6.9 cents per mile.

[JoeReal]

More like 1.5 cents per mile.

But that's only the consumable item. There's that insurance, finance charges, depreciation or payments.

As the IRS would like you to deduct, the estimated total costs including fuel would be around 48.5 cents/mile. So if the gasoline part would cost 16 cents/mile, all the other standard deduction would be 32.5 cents/mile minus the fuel part.

So an estimated total cost of operation of Aptera would be 34 cents per mile. Should include everything. This is just quick standard estimates. It depends upon the life span of the Aptera, which is still unknown at this point. Your driving habit, your actual cost of insurance, and many other factors specific only to you. This is just to give you an idea of total cost of ownership in terms of per mile cost.

[esmith]

Aptera consumes 80 wh/mile at 55 mph. Depending on the price of electricity, it could be 1-2 cents per mile. 80 wh/mile is an official number, as far as I know. It's probably an "ideal conditions" number. Efficiency goes down if you drive 65 or 75 or god forbid 85, because drag is proportional to the second power of speed (theoretically). Efficiency goes down in city mode with lots of traffic lights, because there are no regenerative brakes in front. Efficiency goes down if it rains, because you have to pull out windshield wipers and those are supposedly very bad for aerodynamics. (Also the act of driving through the rain by itself should increase drag) Efficiency could go down in side wind, etc. etc.

Same goes for 120 mile range, battery size is fixed ( 10 kwh ) and 120 mile range is calculated as 10 kwh / (80 wh/mile).

[Kenny]

Thanks but I'm just asking about the fuel.

Yes I realize there are other costs.

But I'm just asking about the cost of the energy itself right now.

[garygid]

The cost here for the 10 kWh "fill up" is now about $2.50 at the
upper (not the highest) tier of the CA residential electrical utilities.
So, that would be at least 2 (or 2.5 at higher speeds) cents per mile.

Back east, my brother pays about $0.13 per kWh, and there
are no more-expensive tiers as energy usage increases.

[KarenRei]

Where I live, 10kW is only about $0.50, so that's about $0.004/mi.

Also, that "$0.34/mi" assumes equivalent maintenance (Aptera's should be lower) and equivalent insurance (hard to say what comprehensive coverage will be like; liability should be lower, collision should be higher)

But yeah, if your batteries last (which, by all means, Aptera's should, since they're going with LiP), your operations costs are very low. And even if Aptera's didn't last, by going with the "hypercar" approach, their pack can be quite small.

[Kenny]

Thanks, I'm trying to look at my bill to see what I'd pay.

I'll try to post a pic.

[Kenny]

Here is my most recent electric bill.

How much would it cost me?
How do you calculate it?

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t293/kizzyyaya/DSC_2-4.jpg

[JoeReal]

Looks like part of your cost is from winter, which has different rate. Anyway, your total average cost per kWH is $35.18/277kWH which is 12.7 cents/kWH.

That comes to 1.06 cents/Aptera mile.

[garygid]

If you charge the Aptera a lot, then it would push your monthly
usage over the (approximately) 309 kWh for the baseline, into
the 100% to 130% tier, and even into the 130% to 200% tier
pricing, which are not shown on the bill.

As it is, it looks like you will pay about 0.067 + 0.004 + 0.029 ->
about $0.10 for each additional kWh up to the baseline limit,
which is probably 309 kWh. So, at that rate, one "fill-up" (which
is 10 kWh, + 1 or 2 kWh "waste" in charging) would be about
$1.20, or 1 cent per mile, if you drive "slowly". Maybe 1.2 cents
per mile if you drive somewhat faster.

Over the 309 kWh you will go into higher pricing, but that would
likely add only 30%, and then 50% extra per kWh. Thus, it would
seem that you would have a maximum of about $1.70 for a full "fill-up".

[JoeReal]

And if you charge at the office while working...

[Kenny]

Thanks Gary

FWIW here is a link that explains the tiers, and their prices, for my utility company.
Yours is probably different.

http://www.sce.com/CustomerService/UnderstandingTieredRates/default.htm?from=redirect

We can also get a discount by using electricity late at night. (I'll charge my car while I sleep)
You guys may want to look into that for yourself.

[JoeReal]

It depends if your Utility is doing a time based metering trial or program and you signed up for it. By default, it is not open to everyone. For those who signed up, you may have to agree that they can turn off your AirCon during peak times of the day.

[JoeReal]

$35 electric bill, that's really cheap rate. We are paying about $300/month. Average pricing weighed across various tiers is $0.176/kWH, PG&E NorCal. That's our typical summer consumption per month.

[Kenny]

$300?
Ouch!
Is is your rate or your usage?
How many kWh do you use?

Do you run an air conditioner?

We are lucky to live near the beach in Southern California and don't need one.
Sure there are a few days when I'd love to have one, but I'm a cheapo.
Several of our neighbors do have them.

I think if we got one for those few days we'd end up using it more often.

[JoeReal]

We have air conditioner, two of them! One central, and the other one in study room. We only turn on the one in study room when we huddle together during the hottest times of summer. But when people come over for parties, both air conditioners are running.

Better not get airconditioner, it is very tempting to use them everyday.

We do get delta breezes to help us quickly cool down in the evenings, otherwise, we would be in the highest tiered pricing.

[evolutionmovement]

Wow! Even using lots of heavy power tools and heat guns, my 2-family only gets to a little over $50/month for electricity.

[deanwvu]

I was doing the math... It's so crazy cheap to drive this thing.

I drive about 15000 a year or so, mostly around here.


If I compared that to my Toyota Corolla, which gets pretty decent gas mileage... check my math--my power is around $0.07 a kwh...


APTERA:

15000 x 80wh/mile = 1,200,000 watt-hours per year of driving (1200 kwh)

1200 kwh x 0.07 = $84 a year? Is this right?? $84 for fuel to drive the Aptera 15000 miles?

(EDIT: I can't edit my topic!! So ignore the $$$ sign before the 15,000!)

[thimel]

Your math looks right. The Aptera is very efficient. In some locations electricity rates go up as you use more. You should count the cost of the electricity for the Aptera at the highest tier you use.

[KarenRei]

You all need to realize how lucky you are that you live in a part of the country where air conditioning can be considered optional.

[gistmarrs]

Way off topic here, but air conditioning is optional everywhere. Your grandparents didn't have it! They probably had a home with no insulation, but was better designed to take advantage of natural cooling. Homes need to be designed better.

[Kenny]

Everything is optional, except taxes and death. ;)

[JoeReal]

Way off topic here, but air conditioning is optional everywhere. Your grandparents didn't have it! They probably had a home with no insulation, but was better designed to take advantage of natural cooling. Homes need to be designed better.

Agree with you there. We can design houses so that you have annualized passive heating and cooling by using a lot of heat storing masses like water structures or soil clay.

But with today's houses that were already built, there is the same principle that can be applied. Amongst the design that I am contemplating (I can do this on spare time if I ever would have one) is a geothermal system. it doesn't mean hot rocks or volcanoes, but technically, using the earth as your heat source and heat sink. You simply bury thermally conducting pipe and run air through them using a suction fan instead of a compressor, and that is 1/10th the power consumption of air conditioner. During the winter, the ground is warmer than the air and so you have heating, and during the summer, the ground is cooler than the air, so you have cooling. There are various designs. It can be installed under your lawn. For vertical designs, would require drilling 6" hole down to 60 ft, something that two people can easily do in a single day using a hand auger. Or the horizontal design which basically require digging trenches 6 ft deep, thereby renovating your lawn is required.

This is actually cheaper to do than Solar PV.

All to bring my electricity bills down so that when Aptera comes, I wouldn't be pushed off into the highest tier.

[KarenRei]

Way off topic here, but air conditioning is optional everywhere.

Yes, if you don't mind the whole "death" thing. Heat stroke is real, and is especially a problem among the elderly. To make matters worse, modern buildings are designed in heat/humidity-prone cities premised on the existance of air conditioning (which is what led to said cities' explosive growths). The modern glass-walled skyscraper could not exist in such cities without AC. Homes in such cities have lost their rows of wide-openable windows and gained wall obstructions, lost their porches and awnings, their ceilings became lower, and they usually aren't shaded by trees, all while the area around them turns into a heat island. The insulation designed to make them efficient now turns them into ovens. In some places, people used to go down into their basements to stay cool, but in places like Miami and Houston, the water table is too high for basements.

Even if designs hadn't changed, I'd rather be unemployed and begging in SoCal than solidly employed and living in an AC-less house in Houston. The booms of cities like Houston, Miami, Phoenix, etc after the invention of AC wasn't a coincidence.

[JoeReal]

Even if designs hadn't changed, I'd rather be unemployed and begging in SoCal than solidly employed and living in an AC-less house in Houston....

I would guess, Carlsbad, CA?

With global warming or weird weather and all, elderly people were dying in Europe's heat wave because AC was optional.

There are good points to both of you of how our cities evolved or devolved based on technology dependence. And here I am, trying to fight back with better approaches to reduce my consumption, using whatever physics and engineering necessary that I can do in my backyard.

[KarenRei]

Yeah, the main point was, be thankful for your climate, CA residents :)

(In the same way I'm thankful we don't have your traffic, smog, crime, earthquakes, or wildfires. Of course, we have ice storms, our floods currently wiping away part of our city, plus our tornadoes, and clean power and high tech isn't so readily available... meh, no place is perfect ;) )

[JoeReal]

Yeah, the main point was, be thankful for your climate, CA residents :)

Earthquakes, fires, drought, mudslides... Though I like it here, we're not in paradise either. :)

[KarenRei]

Your wildfires are probably roughly equivalent to our floods. I spent almost all of yesterday sandbagging. My limbs feel like jello, and my muscles hurt like crazy :P City Park is now City Lake. A lot of houses going under :( At least we finished sandbagging the wells; we'll still have freshwater (assuming the sandbags don't fail).

[garygid]

If any place was perfect, or even very good, then a lot of
people would go there and overbuild until it is no longer as
desirable as some other area.

Oh, yes, that is what happened to most of California.

[JoeReal]

Your wildfires are probably roughly equivalent to our floods. I spent almost all of yesterday sandbagging. My limbs feel like jello, and my muscles hurt like crazy :P City Park is now City Lake. A lot of houses going under :( At least we finished sandbagging the wells; we'll still have freshwater (assuming the sandbags don't fail).


Karen, are you okay with all the flooding? It seemed to get worse, from the news. We pray that you'll make it through without much hasssle. We're sending our regards from my very windy yard right now that is wrecking havoc on my wonderful cherry trees...

[KarenRei]

My house will be fine; we're on the side of a hill over a mile from the river. You'll see Noah floating by in a big wooden boat with two of each kind before you see my house washed away ;) But the city as a whole is in trouble. If it takes out the bridges in town, I'm going to see if I can telecommute at least some of the time. I don't think there's much of a chance of it taking out the bridge on I80, so I could always get across and loop back around to the hospital, but that'd 5x my commute time.

The flooding should peak some around the middle of next week; we still have 4-5 more feet of rise predicted between now and then. We'll just have to see if the sandbags I helped place hold. :P I especially hope that the ones that we put around the water pumps are good enough. Again, I'll be fine (I like backpacking, and have about a dozen different ways to purify water), but I worry about everyone else.

Here's where we're at and where we're going:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/images/ahps2/hydrographs/iowi4_hg.png

As of this morning (that uptick on the curve), the river is wild again. It's gone over the spillway at the reservoir, so there's nothing they can do anymore to hold it back. Oh, and in case you're curious what sort of bombardment brought us to this situation and is still hitting us, check out the radar map for the midwest:

http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/full_loop.php

These lines of storms keep forming out of the middle of nowhere and hitting us over and over again. Sometimes they're so intense on the radar that they show up white (I once had one person on another forum joke, "What's that storm made of, aluminum?")

[LQUAN]

My coworker is driving a Toyota RAV4 Electric. I just talked to her last Friday. She had Southern California Edison (SCE) installed a second (220VAC) meter at her home for her car. SCE said they charge a lower rate if she charges her car between 9:00PM to 6:00AM. She drives over 100 miles per day. Her monthly separate electric bill for the second meter is about $60 total.

It got me to think...My 2006 Toyota Matrix cost about $20/week to top off at $4.40/gal (last week price at Sam's Club). I only drive less 30 miles per day. "I am gonna having a hell of time showing my wife the math of buying an Aptera." But I am going to get it anyway.:love0014:

[evolutionmovement]

Karen, glad your house is safe. Has there been problems with looting? Watching the news on TV, I had visions of guys in kayaks raiding flooded businesses.

I'm thankful for where I live, though I certainly pay for the privilege of very limited natural disasters, history, and beautiful coastline with mountains, rivers, and lakes all short drives away. The traffic also testifies to me not being the only one that likes this area.

[KarenRei]

Unlike Katrina, the damage here is spread out over a very wide area, so there's no single city's police force to be overwhelmed. Also, it came on slow enough that the national guard got here before the worst of it (although not early enough to actually help save a good chunk of the city...). I haven't heard of any looting. The biggest problem has actually been people who are ticked off at the police for not letting them go to their houses. The police have been... let's say, over-dilligent. I got yelled at by one for merely approaching within 50 feet of a flooded area to take a picture of an area that I helped sandbag. One person was so mad at the police for stopping him from getting to his house that he tried to run the roadblock and nearly hit the officer (he's in jail now).