230 mile diesel hybrid for 20,000?

Time to revolutionize our thinking

The Aptera diesel electric hybrid has been an idea floating around the minds of Aptera for several years now as a way to introduce composite materials into the real world of automotive design. Like many, when I first read about this car, I thought it was a joke, but as I read Treehugger's piece this morning, I changed my mind.

If the Aptera can achieve 230 miles or, even better, the 330 miles hypothesized in the original specs, it's a worthy project.

Sure it only has 3 wheels and it is very tiny, but it's composite construction should still make it very safe.

The real genius here, however, is that it demonstrates that the world can start thinking differently about the automobile. When it comes to the automobile, and the incredible waste, pollution and destruction it causes, isn't it time to stop thinking like a caveman?

It's not just hybrid cars, or even fuel cell hybrid cars. It's design. It's new materials, especially composites which have the ability to achieve unheard of aerodynamics, reductions in weight and increases in safety.

It is our destiny. Let's make it so as quickly as possible.

A composite future: Is plastic the key?

I was very excited to hear that Toyota was using carbon fiber composite materials to design its new FT-HS hybrid concept. More important, it appeared that Toyota wasn't just using composites to help with design - as many automakers do - but as a first step towards carbon-fiber composite vehicles. As carbon fiber is so light, it can provide significant improvements in fuel economy simply by reducing the weight of a vehicle without any loss in safety. Still, carbon fiber is very expensive.

Carbon fiber, however, isn't the only composite being used in automobiles.

A group of GE reps let me know about GE's plastic composites during the debut of GM's Volt electric concept vehicle. Currently, these plastic composites are far cheaper than carbon fiber composites. In addition to reducing weight, plastic composites provide car designers with a revolutionary tool to sculpt vehicle design into elegant, beautiful and extremely aerodynamic works of art and science. More important, plastic composites are already being used. Even better, GE's new plastic composites are being developed using recycled water bottles.