Buying My First Fully Electric Vehicle

I have made the decision to change my personal transportation to a 100% electric vehicle.  The process for making this decision follows months of technological evaluation, financial modeling, study of vehicle conversions to electric and finally deciding to purchase a new vehicle from an emerging American developer.

 

I got to this point after agonizing over the cost of my two vehicles.  I own a 2002 Ford F150 SuperCrew full-sized pickup truck that is my daily commuter vehicle.  My wife drives a 2001 Ford Escape AWD.  The F150 is a very reliable vehicle; I bought it used in 2003 from Enterprise Car Sales.  The truck had been on lease and it had 28,000 miles on it.  I checked it out on the lot and used CarFax and Kelly Blue Book to determine that it was a good deal.  Today, both vehicles are fully paid for and well maintained.  If possible, I want to stay with American made.

 

The pickup now has 122,000 miles.  I maintain it carefully, doing my own oil changes with Mobil 1 fully synthetic motor oil.  I commute 54 miles each day in San Diego traffic, about half highway and half in town.  The truck runs like a champ and, other than gas costs, is relatively inexpensive to operate.  All told, I am averaging 20,000 miles per year in the truck.  My mileage is consistently 14.5 mpg.  I make long trips (over 150 miles) maybe once a year, and the long-distance gas mileage is never more than 19 mpg.  My wife's Escape gets consistently 15.5 mpg combined city and highway.  We take the Escape for our daily errands and use the truck only when its carrying capacity or 5-6 seating is needed.  We have definitely reduced our driving this year.  As my teenage son has begun to drive we are again putting more miles on both cars.

 

So, now we come to 2008 and the price of gas begins to climb and climb.  Here in San Diego, gas at the discount stations exceeded $4.40 per gallon.  This week at those same stations we are down to $4.21.

 

As the price of gas rose, I started looking seriously at replacing the truck as my commuter vehicle.  I like the Escape Hybrid - 34 mpg for a car that I have experience with looked like a good deal.  I could double my gas mileage and stay within my comfort level in an American car.  I also looked at the other vehicles available; years ago I had a Harley and I considered whether I could go that route again.  Good gas mileage, but for a new Harley I am looking at more than $15,000 and the utility of the vehicle is rather minimal.  In the end, the bike is just not practical.

 

I ran across articles about the Ford Ranger EV, a small pickup that Ford produced to introduce fully electric vehicles into the California market to meet the California Air Resources Board (CARB) electric vehicle requirements.  From 1995 through 2002 Ford, Chevy and Toyota all introduced fully-electric vehicles into the state.  All were available on lease-only, at least at first.  There are hundreds of the Ford Ranger small pickups still available in California; one just sold for a $17,699 last week on eBay (item # 120284030335), even though it needed a full battery replacement ($3,000-$7000) before it would be drivable.  That is a real premium over a gas Ranger of the same age, although the electric Ranger reportedly was valued at $50,000 when new.

 

I also was intrigued by companies that were willing to take new vehicles and convert them to fully electric vehicles.  LionEV is one of those companies, although there are complaints that the company is not delivering on their promises, so I decided to stay away from that one.  A company local to me is converting Toyota Prius' to plug-in hybrid vehicle, at around $10,000, after the price of the original Prius.  A Plug-In hybrid takes a hybrid and adds batteries and changes the operational software so that the vehicle can run for a certain distance and speed on electric (battery) power only.  They also provide a battery charger so that the vehicle can be plugged in to recharge the extended battery pack.  The Prius becomes a 100 mpg vehicle for the first 50-60 miles or so, which fits well into my commute distance.  Mostly electric, especially in the in-town part of my commute, with standard hybrid operation at higher speeds and when the batteries become depleted.

 

The conversion Prius makes a reasonably priced car become an expensive car, by my thinking.  At around $26,000 and up, I think the Prius is a great vehicle at a great value.  My son-in-law has driven one for the past few years and loves his; I am impressed with the carrying capacity, especially the amount of luggage that will fit in the cargo area.  But the conversion gets the price up around $36,000 at a minimum and although the utility and economy are impressive, the numbers just don't work for me.

Around this same time (Spring, 2008) I heard from some coworkers that a local company was announcing a new fully electric car.  I checked it out and I became very impressed quickly.  A couple of entrepreneurs just basically decided to take a wholly new approach to vehicle development.  They took on a personal challenge to design a vehicle around a shape that would be the ultimate in low aeronautical drag and mate it to a powerplant that would be the ultimate in fuel economy.  The prototype vehicle was able to achieve over 230 mpg on diesel fuel!  They knew they were on to something and made a decision to pursue the idea further with a two production vehicle types using serial-hybrid and also fully-electric propulsion.  I came, I saw, I investigated and I was hooked.  Two weeks ago I put $500 into escrow for the opportunity to buy an Aptera typ-1e fully electric, 3-wheeled vehicle.

 

So, now I wait.  After putting my money on the table I received reservation number 3369.  Aptera is taking reservations for both the typ-1h (serial-hybrid) and the typ-1e (fully electric) at the same time, although the electric vehicle will be produced for the first year of manufacture.  At the end of July the company has indicated that future owners will be given a second reservation number based upon the choice of electric or hybrid that they desire.  Since electric is being produced first, I am guessing that I will receive mine in the July to August timeframe, 2009.  This is an educated guess on my part, based upon projections of manufacturing ramp-up to eventually 40 vehicles per week.  I figure that probably half of the purchasers are looking for electric and half for hybrid and some future owners have put up some guesstimates as to how long Aptera will take to ramp up to full production.  So, I will be optimistic and I will try to be patient until the delivery date.

 

For the Aptera typ-1e (rechargeable battery-powered electric vehicle) you will get a three-wheeled, 'tadpole-style' (meaning two wheels in front, one in the rear) rear-wheel drive fully electric vehicle, at a cost of $27,000.  The State of California defines this type of vehicle as a motorcycle and the registration will be as a motorcycle.  However, the enclosed cockpit means that I will not need a motorcycle endorsement on my license nor will I need to wear a helmet while driving.  Three wheels, in combination with the low-drag, lightweight vehicle body means less resistance to movement and higher mileage.  The typ-1e will get 120 miles on a full battery charge under optimal conditions (meaning mostly flat, paved roads and speeds around 55 mph.)  Since San Diego is very hilly, I expect that 100 miles per charge will be my expected range. 

 

The vehicle comes with a 110 volt, 15 amp AC charger, meaning I can plug it in to a standard household power outlet.  Charging from fully discharged state should take 5-6 hours and cost about $0.90 at my current electric rates.  Since my commute is 54 miles round-trip, I expect to take my cost to commute to less than the cost of a cup of coffee at McDonalds.  The battery pack is expected to be around 300 Volts DC at 10 KWh (Kilowatt-Hours).  KWh is a standard measurement of battery capacity.  The batteries are expected to take hundreds of recharge cycles and should last more than 100,000 miles before degrading to 80% of their capacity when new.  For comparison, the Tesla Roadster provides a range of 221 miles with a 53 KWh battery system.  The Tesla is a 4-wheeled, fully-electric muscle car, capable of achieving a 60 mph speed in less than 3.5 seconds, has a top speed of 125 mph and costs over $100,000 base price.

 

The Aptera typ-1h is a serial hybrid design; this means that a small, efficient gasoline engine will power a generator, that provides charge to the onboard battey pack.  The vehicle is also 3-wheeled, using the same body and frame as the typ-1e with provision for a smaller battery pack and the gasoline engine/generator system.  The typ-1h is expected to go approximately 40 miles fully electric and then the engine/generator will cycle on and off, keeping the batteries at about 1/4 to 1/2 capacity.  For the first 100 miles the comparable miles per gallon is nearly 300 mpg.  For long distances, the gas mileage is expected to be 120 mpg or greater.

 

The electric motor is an AC synchronous 3-phase motor with a (projected) integrated speed-reduction system, coupled to a belt-drive to the single rear wheel, similar to the belt-drive systems used on large motorcycles.  The motor is attached to the battery system via an electric-vehicle inverter (converting the battery DC voltage to AC, 3-phase) and speed control system  The speed control/inverter system also provides for regenerative braking, meaning that when the driver depresses the brake pedal the motor becomes a generator system, recharging the battery while reducing vehicle speed.  As the vehicle speed approaches zero, standard disc-type brakes bring the vehicle to a stop and keep it stopped.

 

The Aptera website (http://www.aptera.com) and YouTube have several videos showing the car from various angles and also in motion.  If you search around YouTube a little, you will find videos of the prototype vehicle being hot-rodded around the development office park at night.