Production Imminent: 40 Solar-Charging Aptera EVs Coming Soon | Hacker News Reader

Production Imminent: 40 Solar-Charging Aptera EVs Coming Soon

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49 pointsTeaVMFan55 comments

There’s a Chinese EV called the Solarky that has 600w of panels on it (300w with another 300w that slides out when stationary), which can collect about 50km of range a day, and sells right now for around $10k around Asia.

More info here: https://youtu.be/Hk6aTKV-des

It feels like a generation of transportation alternatives is going to bypass the USA.

This is a much more interesting concept than Aptera. Small and affordable car, expandable solar array. Keep it simple.

It's got it's place. I'm guessing the downsides are the extra range only applies to low speed operation (it's a brick), low cost may be a function of low cost labor, which can hurt scaling, and I'm not sure how safe it is in a crash.

Impressive for $8000. But its low top speed (80km/h) only makes it suitable for urban transportation.

Also, I doubt this thing will be able to pass the NCAP (EU) or IIHS (USA) safety certification so they wouldn't be able to sell it in those regions even if there was demand for it.

> I doubt this thing will be able to pass the NCAP (EU) or IIHS (USA)

Wouldn’t count on that. The same used to be said of chinese EVs and they have topped safety rankings for years now.

Impressive. Aptera claims "~700 watts of integrated solar cells", with the difference that Aptera's are fully integrated and usable even in motion.

Recently Aptera announced they have ordered major components to build 40 production vehicles. This may not sound like many (especially since they have nearly 50,000 reservations), but this is a major milestone for the company. Aptera has existed in some form for nearly 20 years, never having come this close to shipping a vehicle before. Now they have only 1 major certification left and are ramping up to build them at their facility in Carlsbad, CA.

Do you have any personal stake in the enterprise?

Yes, it's notable that they mean "production" in the sense of 40 vehicles rather than 40 models or model variants. It's close to prototype quantities rather than production; US law allows the military to build up to 10% as part of "low rate initial production".

Their reservation page says $30 off on a $40000 vehicle. That made me laugh

They should've done $0.01 off.

Effectively the same discount, while being more outrageous.

It's $30 off the $100 reservation fee, not off the entire price. Let's see if they manage to start delivering some finally now. There's no inherent reason you can't build something like this. Solar panels are getting more efficient over time, batteries storage gets more dense and less weight.

$40k is pretty high though. They've had endless drama and turmoil. It does take a huge amount of money and effort to bring a new vehicle to market. I'm skeptical but I guess I hope they make it.

Good for them. I loved the concept since I first saw it in the 2000s.

They still have a niche for some, like people without easy access to charging, people who want the absolute lowest charging/driving costs, and off-grid usability.

20-40 miles of charge per day means you can slowly travel/camp in a bunch of places as long as you have food/water, people have done this with Model Ys too, but dragging a large portable solar array is a pain.

I just wish they were faster to market and captured more of it.

We need more 2 seat/hyper efficient commuters, ala the first gen Insight and (begrudgingly) cybercab.

Also the only EV I know of with a 400 mile range but the weight of a Miata. It might be reasonably fun to drive.

I fell in love with the Aptera back during the Automotive X Prize era. Back then batteries were expensive enough that a vehicle that got decent range by being ultra-efficient was rather attractive. I also loved the unconventional look.

Much harder to justify in a world with normal car EVs with decent range at fairly normal car prices. There are a fair number of choices below their $40K target price. I still hope they succeed, but hard for me to imagine buying one

It's well below the average selling price for a new car in the US. In California, you'll also get HOV ("carpool") lane access, which 4-wheeled EVs lost recently.

Aptera is one of those things where the idea is so attractive one is far too tempted to ignore poor execution. And the current set of people there might actually be competent. But even if they are the whole series of misadventures has put people off experimenting with lightweight EVs.

I'm pleased that E bikes are taking off, but I'd love to see something like a fully faired series hybrid E bike.

Is that legit? That looks like vaporware scam to be honest

Edit: the fact the official aptera website has a banner at the top with their stock ticker is very suspicious, I assume it was a spac that didn’t go well?

Edit 2: actually, not a spac, direct listing as a public benefit corporation. They seem to have a very messy and complicated history with a lot of over promises and no delivery

I don't think it is workable product. But 40 units sounds like something they could actually produce. Not that those will likely be more than curiosities and will likely have substantial number of teething issues.

It kinda has been to some degree. The first corporation went bankrupt in 2011. Hopefully they'll build/deliver some consumer vehicles this time.

There's also been plenty of vaporware from existing manufacturers, and the majority of what they've built have been more compliance vehicles than serious, no compromise, mass production EVs, so seeing that approach refreshing.

> The first corporation went bankrupt in 2011.

The VCs forced the founders out, tried to move production to china, then iirc banked on a sketchy deal where best buy was trying to get into the ev sales market out of tesla fomo (but a best buy is not where you find an aptera adopter)

I see that I missed years of drama!

the best buy insight is a bit insider, i used to be coworker with the fellow who was on the design team that led the best buy market research stint

I can see that. The founders shouldn't have gone to VCs then. Start low/limited runs and get cars on the road. If those work out, then try to get funding from sources that aren't going to screw you.

That seems to be what they're doing this time around.

It's the "Duke Nukem Forever" of EVs. Or maybe Star Citizen is a better comparison. I don't think it's a total scam, but the rest of the industry has advanced a lot since the initial hype, making a lot of the specs not so novel. And it's susceptible to the Fisker problem, where a manufacturer goes out of business, putting the people who did buy their cars in a bad spot.

I suppose the surface area + efficiency isn't there yet, but it would be sick to take my e-bike places and then expand a canopy to charge and then go on again.

It’s possible! There’s a yearly bike race from Europe to China called The Sun Trip, where people mod their bikes with solar and batteries and ride 12k km to China.

You might like this documentary that covered the first Sun Trip that happened in 2018: https://youtu.be/P1LB0jPh7QQ

That’s sick dude. Thanks for linking!

You nailed it: there is a conflict between surface area (wanting more for solar charging) and efficiency (you want it to be aerodynamic and light, hence less area for solar charging).

I also think an extendable canopy (for a car, not a bike) should be a better approach. I wonder if anyone tried it.

Aptera manages 3 square meters of solar panel on a 2200 pound vehicle with a drag coefficient of 0.13, which seems pretty decent to me.

Add some protected bike lanes - many e-bikes get 100miles, 4 200w panels ($1000) could fully charge daily.

For me this is the dream ebike infrastructure that allows the large variance in speed you get with bikes. So allowing for ebikes that can go 30mph and 15mph, those are the speeds you want in an urban environment. The problem is making it secure and also feel secure.

It seems kind of amazing. I think I'd like to own something like that, but I'll wait until there are some reviews and the bugs get shaken out more. Also don't know if foggy San Francisco has enopugh sunlight to make it viable. What happens when you run out of charge?

You can plug it in

It also charges like any other EV, leve1 1 or 2 at home, and they say they intended to support faster DC charging in their FAQ[1]. I would be fairly skeptical of the 46mi / 74km a day from the built-in solar, that sounds optimistic given the small surface area.

For me the bigger problem is that it's classified as a motorcycle, which may mean wearing a helmet, and needing to have a class M license. Insurance may also be interesting. And of course sharing the road with giant heavy vehicles.

1: https://aptera.us/discovery-center/

Yeah, I wish we could outlaw the monster trucks so that making these light weight vehicles would be more practical and safer.

A lot of the safety standards and regulations we have is because everyone is buying and driving 2T pickup trucks with 6ft hoods casually.

Safety regulations in the EU are pretty strict but pickup trucks are rare.

> For me the bigger problem is that it's classified as a motorcycle, which may mean wearing a helmet, and needing to have a class M license.

The only state that requires a motorcycle endorsement for the Polaris Slingshot (an "autocycle" style trike) is Massachusetts, but that state's motorcycle definition exempts fully enclosed vehicles so it shouldn't apply to the Aptera. It's trickier to find a quick summary for helmet laws though. At least some states have exemptions for fully enclosed vehicles and some exempt all autocycles even if they're not fully enclosed. California has an exemption for enclosed trikes that meet certain minimum size and weight requirements which I expect the Aptera to meet.

They started allowing automobile enthusiasts to test drive it a few months ago: https://electrek.co/2026/06/17/we-finally-got-to-drive-the-a... no helmets in California at least.

Plenty of reviews on youtube already.

Maybe for local transport. Looks perfect for golf courses, industrial sites, parks, malls with a need for a car to move around in a confined space. The kind of thing where you need to manage a site.

For stuff like that you can just use a golf cart. The point of Aptera is extreme efficiency at highway speeds, which is why it has three wheels and looks like an airplane. For their smallest battery they claim a 400 mile range, and it goes way up from there.

It's not actually that small though; the front wheels give it a width of 88 inches.

anyone have a breakdown of the math for charging this stuff solar only?

Yes, there are a few calculators online, this is one of them: https://experienceaptera.com/solarcalculator.html

Wouldn't it be easier to add solar panels to a boxy kei car?

Yup, but then you have other limitations, like significantly worse high speed range and correspondingly less useful soar charging.

Someone already did it with a Model Y, so it's doable for $25k-35k now.

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/self-contained-solar...

It's trade offs regardless. Kei car sized EVs with solar have a niche, reasonably efficient full sized EVs with portable solar arrays have a niche, and hopefully Aptera will fill a third niche (higher speed/more usable range/more efficient than others with less storage/space)

The utopians will be very excited by this.

Are people still falling for Aptera's nonsense?

I have been watching this product for at least 10 years.

Think I will wait till the first 1,000 roll off the lines before I get interested in plunking down money.

I want them to succeed, but too many outfits like this one went broke early.

The product concept really does need to exist in this world.

I just don't think the folks who have taken 50k preorders over the last 20 years and have yet to fulfill one are going succeed.

That overstates it a bit. The original Aptera attempted a gasoline-powered vehicle, and went bankrupt in 2011. The current Aptera is a new company founded in 2019, so there's an eight-year gap where the company didn't exist.

In the middle of that gap someone else bought the IP and did nothing with it, but they were different folks.

there was an electric variant proposed, i think, but no solar panels.

Any day now.

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