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greencarcongress.com blog entry wrote: Startup Introduces 330MPG Diesel Hybrid Design
18 January 2006

aptera 2006 rendering.jpg (4.43 KiB) Viewed 31936 times

A rendering of the Aptera

Accelerated Composites, a San Diego, California-area startup, has designed a two-seat, three-wheel parallel hybrid—the Aptera—to achieve up to 330 MPG and sell for less than $20,000.

The Aptera hybrid is to be built from lightweight composites, and designed to deliver its 330 mpg in normal city and highway driving and demonstrate acceleration and handling similar to that of a Honda Insight.

Accelerated Composites claims that the coefficient of drag on the vehicle will be 0.055-0.06—an order of magnitude lower than any production vehicle on the road.

The production powertrain will consist of a 12 hp (9 kW) diesel engine with a 25 hp (19 kW) permanent magnet DC motor. (Accelerated Composites is designing the prototype with a gasoline engine for cost.) The electric motor is coupled through a Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT); when the engine is off the car can run on the electric motor alone.

The company plans to use ultracapacitors for energy storage, although it is working with lightweight lead gauze batteries in the prototype. (Lead gauze batteries suspend the electrolyte in a gauze material.)

The Aptera weighs 850 lbs and is made almost entirely of lightweight composites, based on Accelerated Composites’ Panelized Automated Composite Construction (PAC2) process. It accelerates from 0–60 mpg in 11 seconds, and has a top speed of 95 mph.

Depending upon the completion of funding, a prototype could be ready to roll as early as the end of March or April, according to Accelerated Composites founder and CEO, Steve Fambro.

Posted on 18 January 2006 in Diesel, Hybrids | Permalink | Comments (70)

Entire text found on diseno-art.com wrote:Accelerated Composites LLC. based in Carlsbad, California, was a small engineering company providing microelectronic solutions and composites for private manned space programs.

By using their novel, low cost composite manufacturing methods, Accelerated Composites - later Renamed Aptera - intended to produce a 330 mpg, ultra-efficient, two seat, hybrid vehicle.

Called the Aptera, the concept was powered by a 12 hp diesel engine and a 25 hp DC electric motor, running though a automatic CVT transmission. All of this was hidden by the Aptera's slippery bodywork, which boasts the lowest drag coefficient of any production car.

Designed for maximum efficiency, the Aptera's aesthetics have suffered slightly, but then again that's not what this car's about. And while form was compromised, safety was not. The Aptera features a driver protection "crash box" similar to those found in Formula One race cars.

All in, the Aptera weighs just 385 kg (850 lbs) allowing it to achieve a slow, but acceptable, 0-60 time of around 11 seconds and a limited top speed of 95 mph. Legally the Aptera is not actually a car, the vehicle is registered as a motorcycle. Unfortunately even thought the Aptera was developed in California, the diesel engine fails to meet the strict emissions standards California has in place. Because of this, the diesel engine was to be replaced with an economical gasoline fueled engine for this market.

Unfortunately Aptera failed to make the vehicle viable economically. In 2011 the company went into liquidation, and refunded the deposits it had taken from a number of potential buyers in California.

MAKE: Accelerated Composites
MODEL: Aptera
CONCEPT YEAR: 2006
ENGINE / DRIVETRAIN: Diesel / Electric Hybrid

Jeremy Korzeniewski in autoblog.com wrote:Check out Accelerated Concepts Aptera. It's a car, not a spaceship.
Looking more like a spaceship or an imaginary vehicle out of the Jetsons than anything else currently on the road, the Accelerated Composites Aptera uses a diesel/electric hybrid drivetrain which they claim is good for over 200 mpg at a constant 55 mph, using nickel-zinc batteries. The performance appears quite livable, with zero to sixty times coming in at 10 seconds. Using some sort of advanced carbon fiber technology for production hopes, the three-wheeled vehicle is expected to be available for less than $20 thousand.

Jeremy Korzeniewski
Mar 13, 2007

Screenshot 2025-01-04 053213.png (145.14 KiB) Viewed 31935 times

Looking more like a spaceship or an imaginary vehicle out of the Jetsons than anything else currently on the road, the Accelerated Composites Aptera uses a diesel/electric hybrid drivetrain which they claim is good for over 200 mpg at a constant 55 mph, using nickel-zinc batteries. The performance appears quite livable, with zero to sixty times coming in at 10 seconds. Using some sort of advanced carbon fiber technology for production hopes, the three-wheeled vehicle is expected to be available for less than $20 thousand.
It would be appropriate to mention that with three wheels, here in the U.S. at least it would be considered a motorcycle. This means that wearing a helmet and a motorcycle endorsement would be required in states where they are necessary for three-wheeled motorcycles. The normal motorcycle benefits would be included as well, such as being able to use carpool and high occupancy lanes and the like. As more information becomes available, we will keep you informed.