Test Ride Report @ TED

[josh]

What was originally billed as a "Test Drive" turned out to be a "Test Ride"... passenger seat only. While disappointed, there was a very nice consolation. My driver turned out to be Steve Fambro himself, Aptera's founder! Extremely nice, and gave me a walk-through the whole time he was driving. My loss is your gain, since riding allowed me to video the whole session. So you'll get to see the whole test drive.

(Don't hold your breath, this hotel net connection is NOT liking my 750mb video file. Looks like it will take many many hours to upload!)

OK, while that's uploading, here are some thoughts and things I noticed.

The vehicle feels tight and well made. It's very light but doesn't feel like it. Definitely doesn't rattle or shake in ways that some cheaper cars do. The suspension is tight, so you do feel bumps, but that's OK with me... feels like a good sports suspension.

Fit and finish were good, but this vehicle still had problems that Marcus and Steve were quick to point out... problems that will be addressed before production. (Seat belt didn't retract smoothly due to fabric issue on the slot where it goes in, a few dimples in the windshield, some other things.) Yet it all seemed remarkably well put together and solid.

Getting in definitely takes a bit of practice... but was MUCH easier than getting into a Tesla. You sit down first, then swing your legs in, being careful not to hit your head as you slide and twist in. Not hard, just takes relearning how we have gotten into cars for our whole lives. Steve pointed out the the final doors will open slightly more and that will make it much easier.

It was VERY quiet - just the slight sound of the motor... slightly louder than a prius that is running without the engine on.

Acceleration is quite smooth and steady... it definitely feels quicker than the specs would lead you to believe. NO problem keeping up with traffic, and will accelerate you faster than most cars tend to drive. There are 3 drive modes, as we know. D1 is for maximum range, D2 is for balanced range/performance, D3 is for maximum performance. There were noticeable differences between them, but not night-and-day differences.

Many have asked about the feel of the braking. Now I'm sure there's no one better than Fambro at driving this thing smoothly, and we won't know for sure until a "regular" person is allowed to drive it, but I was watching for it and felt ZERO problems - braking was incredibly smooth throughout the brake travel and the deceleration. There was no way to tell when the regen engaged or when the physical brakes kicked in.

Hills weren't noticeable, but again Steve may just be so experienced at driving it that he consciously or unconsciously compensated with the right foot, but I didn't notice him doing that... the vehicle powered up a good incline with no noticeable drop in power. (and I'm no lightweight I'm afraid, so we had two pretty solid adults in there.)

Turns are very stable... but there is a slightly different feel to sudden maneuvers like a lane change. It's hard to describe... it's not a "lean" like you might expect from a "tricycle", but it sort of feels like the tail lags ever so slightly behind the front, if that makes sense. I don't know how better to describe it. It wasn't at all disconcerting, and did NOT feel like body flex nor undue soft-suspension body lean. Just a slightly different feel that I think you'd very quickly get used to and not notice.

The electronics are truly impressive. Steve was demoing every feature of the nav and internet options while we drove (yikes!) and it's very impressive. I've owned at least 6 different modern Nav systems, and this is by far the most advanced save maybe for the very latest S-class Mercedes unit. It's got features unique to an E-car of course... like showing public charge points along your route (via an internet database that Aptera and its nav supplier will be maintaining. No word on if it will be crowd-sourced). You can have the Nav system calculate the normal choices like "Quickest" or "Shortest" route, but there's another option for the "Greenest" Route where you'll get the best range. I think I remember him saying it worked by calculating typical speeds and hills along the way. Can't remember, but it may also start to favor routes with public charge locations along the way also? (Don't quote me on that last one, I just don't remember properly.)

It links to your Google Calendar - so you can have an appointment on your calendar and if the address is in there, or even enough to guess at the address from a named spot, then your Aptera can pull that up as a destination. The map view shows concentric circles, shaded, where the innermost one is your current estimated round-trip-no-charging range, and the next ring is your one-way range. Nice... definitely seemed to take some of the anxiety out of knowing how far you'll get, especially since it shows little icons along the way for where you can plug in if you so choose.

There were tons of other features of the nav system, including things like setting your "Smart Charge" times... for those who might have variable-priced electric rates overnight... you can plug in your car and set the time it should start and stop drawing charge current.

The rear camera shows up as a video screen built right into the rear-view mirror. The mirror looks like a normal mirror in most cases, but when you're in reverse, or when you press a little button under the mirror, the left 1/3 of the mirror turns into a video screen showing your view out the rear camera. It's a little screen behind the mirror. Pretty slick.

OK, most impressive of all is to a gadget geek like me is the companion iPhone app. It's actually just a moble app (web-based), not a native iphone downloadable app. From your smartphone you can see the car's location, it's charge state, you can adjust its charge time, change several varaibles for the car (they didn't show me many). You can see the range given the charge level, with the concentric rings as described above. You can pre-cool or pre-heat the car from your phone, etc. Very very cool. If you're about to drive home while at work, you could check it's charge level and range, make sure you will make it, pre-cool the car, even enter a destination or waypoint... all from your iPhone before you even go to the garage.

What else... this unit has the big bulky area behind the seats that Steve promised will NOT be in the production car. He told me the production car will have a bigger rear storage area than even the prototype Typ-1 does.

Steve repeated several times that many things were still being changed, improved, or modified. The windows of course... this one had fixed windows, but he and Marcus pointed out the final one has FULL retractable windows (NOT half-windows as we saw on one model earlier). Other things like some small dash changes etc.

The climate controls were neat, if a little odd. Instead of a real dial (like the gear selector), you just move your finger around the edges of the ring - like an ipod. Capacitance-something or resistive-something. but it amounts to touch controls. I'm not sure I liked that since it seems to make you take your eyes off the road rather than do it by "feel".

I'll think of more, and try to answer questions.

And the video will EVENTUALLY get posted... I promise.

--josh

[randyd]

Were you able to see the top of the Drivers Side wheel fairing from the passenger's seat?

[evmavin]

I'm curious if that had the same motor as the stated 65 ft lb motor or something else. I'm glad they are doing phone integration so I don't need to

[aptera1213]

cool josh...thanks so much...again!!

great write up. and i especially like that it seems the final car is not yet seen

so hope for a bigger back area and hope for a narrowing of the wheels


good good....

ps...did they ever open the hood??

[josh]

Originally Posted by randyd

Were you able to see the top of the Drivers Side wheel fairing from the passenger's seat?

Yeah, I should have checked for this but didn't. I can't tell from my video. I THINK you can't see them easily from the seat. (I'm 5' 10") You may be able to stretch yourself up a bit to see them.

I'll try to go by again tomorrow and check that out and report back for sure.

[futura]

Thanks again Josh.
There really should be a special Aptera-God-for-a Day award for you.
Did Steve mention that there is in fact, regen-braking?
Glad it's quiet, that was a Typ-1 issue.
Any idea about turning radius?

[Matthijs]

Originally Posted by Josh

This unit has the big bulky area behind the seats that Steve promised will NOT be in the production car. He told me the production car will have a bigger rear storage area than even the prototype Typ-1 does.

Big plus. I wonder where all that space is gonna be coming from.

Edit: Oh one more question. Did they also let people drive the old Type-1 with RWD?

[butter]

Josh you are so freaking awesome.

[josh]

Originally Posted by futura

Thanks again Josh.
There really should be a special Aptera-God-for-a Day award for you.
Did Steve mention that there is in fact, regen-braking?
Glad it's quiet, that was a Typ-1 issue.
Any idea about turning radius?

Happy to do it!
He didn't mention the Regen braking. He did make a point that they made changes that made the 2e FAR quieter in motor noise than the Typ-1. Said it was a huge improvement that they're all excited about.
OK, I knew someone would ask about Turning Radius. I asked. Steve told me a number but asked me to keep this ONE detail confidential for now. I agreed. My instinct says his request was not out of worry that people won't like it, but because they have something they may implement that will change it dramatically (I assumed this meant for the better) and didn't want the wrong number out there.

I agreed not to discuss the current turning radius since the final one is just not known yet.

--josh

[Telchar]

This is really sounding sweet. I'm frankly amazed at what they're planning in terms of electronics/internet integration. I thought they'd be so focused on making a decent vehicle that there would be no time for fancy stuff like that. Great to know that it'll have some of that stuff; the phone integration especially sounds great. Thanks Josh!