Aptera Battery with Tim (3/3): LFP and other viewer questions 

Yeah, really nice! My current car has a 12V lead-acid / AGM battery and if one does not use the car much, that battery is the biggest troublemaker. Deep discharges kill it quickly. One really needs to keep such a battery close to full and never ever go below 50% - which was difficult before I added a bluetooth battery monitor. Great that we'll get something more modern in the aptera and even better if it is built with 18650 standard cells.

Yes, this is great news. When my 12v died in my current car (2018 Leaf), I replaced it with a Lithium Ion 12v from OhmMu (just add a .com to that for their web site). It's shocking how much of a weight difference there was. Also, extreme heat kills off 12V batteries rapidly. I'm not sure I've had one last longer than 2-2.5 years living in Austin, TX. This new one is warrantied for 4 years (and they claim it should last about 4 times as long as a Lead Acid battery, so hopefully it will last longer than I own the car).

Sodium ion is physically large despite the latest versions not being much heavier than LFP. With the volume calculated for the 1000 mile using the same module layout using 21120 cells the volume is about 133 liters. If 100% of that volume me could be filled with the state of the art CATL 200 wh/kg sodium ion cells it is still only a 33.3 kwh pack. Viable but not nearly town one tier. LFP could achieve 45 kwh. It is possible with state of the art LFP that the values could be higher but volumetric density isn't always easy to find. The volumetric density expectations for the "1000" mile 21120 cells are incredible and I think realistically 1000 miles wont happen without a major battery advancement (far more than longer cells); 150% increase in energy in 70% more space is hard to believe.

Might as well. Aptera keeps making wholesale changes to the vehicle, might as well redesign the battery once again. I would rather have perfection and a 2028 production start, as opposed to the current H1 2025.

I have a strong preference for travelling on secondary roads. A six hundred mile Aptera gives me the flexibility not only to drive where i want, but by the ROUTES I want, even in regions where the entire fast charging infrastructure is on the interstates, even in cold to very cold weather.

preach it! my old LEAF is down to 50mile range which doesn't 'leaf' much during cold days so just leased a 40kw new ('25) LEAF for 24 months-hopefully my Aptera will be ready by then!

Nothing wrong with charging any Lithium battery to 100%, IF the battery isn't stored that way for days. Charging to 100% just before a long trip begins is a recommended procedure with no significant downside. Same is true for using the battery down to under 5 or 10%. Just be sure you are recharging it right away when you arrive at your destination.

LFP or even sodium should be possible for 350-450 miles of range given the volume of the 1000 mile nmc pack. The extra ~100lb impacts efficiency but it is also greener and cheaper and should ideally be in the roadmap.

Need for a 12V battery (just guessing): - maybe they need it for current peaks, so the 12V charging circuits don't need to be as strong. - maybe they need it for "booting" (AFAIK, in my current car (Prius 2), the HV battery is disconnected at rest and it needs power from the 12V system to power up the electronics and connect the HV battery, guess via a relay). Of course in the Aptera the HV system is not idle / totally decoupled when it is solar charging, so not sure if they also have such "booting power" needs.

Not at first. I expect bidirectional charging will be available in another year or 2. 🤔

Tricky given the curves of the aptera. Nimbus is trying to include that but battery cell balance would be an issue and nimbus is a 500 mph limited tiny vehicle (not nev). Battery removal adds a lot of complexities that the industry in general has tried to avoid.

Looking for this since the dawn of EVs. Standard answer is the BMS can’t handle the variable configuration. My response now is… have you not met Tim 😀

That would make sense on large truck or electric train, not on car with the most efficient design in mind.

@@GullWingInnMoclips except the equipment to load and unload it would weigh several tons and take a lot of space. China did full batterie swaps;overall not a great idea.

@@ccibinel Full battery swaps for personal cars would be great if standardized size, connectors, etc. like public chargers. But NOT happening. However, purpose-built battery swapping makes great sense… ex: public buses, trolleys and even airport tugs. Picture vehicles driven autonomously to nearby solar array & swapping station when running low and quickly returned to service.

I think that there is a minimum distance between the wheels that is required, but I don't know what it is......

I consider the1,000 mile range battery option to be a bit of a gimmick.. albeit an understandable one to attract interest from the uneducated but curious. Consumers have been led to believe that huge batteries are better... false range anxiety has been stoked by ignorance. I was happy to hear Tim say what he said about smaller batteries being just fine. After all, efficiency is the name of the game, right?

Don’t get caught up with the starting number. 600 mile variant of which many will charge to 80%= 480 miles. If you live in a climate with cold winters that number can be cut in half…down to 240 miles and that’s if you deplete the battery to zero, if you recharge your battery when it is at 20% then that 240 miles drops from 360 miles and half of that in a cold environment brings it down to 180 miles. Of course these are extreme numbers, but maybe more common than you think. I personally will be taking long trips with my vehicle, I prefer not to stop unless I physically need to do so for rest or bio break. On another note….bragging rights for APTERA! 1,000 mile range will definitely be the benchmark for a long time.

The advantage of long range is when you drive infrequently, but when you do it tends to be longer distances. As I now find myself. I only drive one or two times a week and every couple weeks take a longer trip. I plan to get the 600 mile range version then I can let the vehicle charge up using solar so I can occasionally take a couple hundred mile trip without AC charging. This also allows you to more easily keep your battery in its sweet spot of 20%-80% charge and its ideal charge of 30%-50% to minimize battery degradation. You also have to consider the loss of battery capacity and how long you intend to own the vehicle. Li-Ion batteries degrade with usage cycles and time. So in you intend to keep your vehicle for a significant period of time you need to make an allowance for the loss of capacity. The 1000 mile range without VtoH, at least for me would seem overkill, but if you frequently took several hundred mile trips or wanted significant VtoH capacity it could make sense. I would take the 1000 mile version over the 400 mile version and the 250 mile version at least for me is a waste. Also remember AC loads as a percentage of capacity use will be higher than other BEV because Aptera’s is so efficient driving.

1000 miles goes to to half that in cold weather with cargo in the back. So it has a very real use case.

As other people have said, cold weather, use of AC, age of battery, and keeping battery capacity below 80% (to reduce wear on battery and wasted charging time to top off the battery) make real world driving distances significantly less than claimed battery ranges. The 600 mile range version will actually put it on par with the real world range of most ICE cars after 1,000 charge cycles: 600 miles * 0.8 (battery capacity to avoid long charge times) * 0.8 (battery capacity after 1,000 charge cycles) * 0.8 (20% range reduction for cold weather driving or non ideal conditions) = 307 miles. For 1,000-mile range version that 1000 miles * 0.8^3 = 512 miles for worst case after long term battery degradation. The 1,000 mile range version definitely has its place for people that do a lot of highway commuting, but probably won’t ever get made.

You bet!

Why?

Complexity... Honestly this is definitely possible but it is complex and adds a lot of bms challenges. No good reason for Aptera to lead the way with something like this.

Inverters, wiring and other battery related components add weight. I think Chris M was quoting 570lb at one point.

@ccbinel That’s absolutely amazing. I hope the majority of this is up in the nose! I’m very interested in how the final product scales, as in weight distribution.

No volume production, yet. Expense. Testing. Packaging.

@BillMitchell-lm8dg yes but it is making me $$ at under 5$ long way to go but a short time to be there, if you know what I'm speaking then you know.

Tim Vaughn, formerly of Flux Power

With compatible charging infrastructure every 50 miles

@@lucianbakerii7562 as in charge with your solar panels

200 miles would be more of a city car with the current charging infrastructure. Long trips (cross country) would probably be difficult or impossible​@replica1052

@@garywozniak7742 (200 miles be world reccord size city )

…for high density areas, yes. For the rest of us, no.

I should have mentioned the T3 LR has 363 published as the range. Will an Aptera LE match this at the rate they’re going?

Don't forget the 40 miles per day you get from solar. I can see the big battery as people will order the off road and camping packages. So they need that big battery when they go offroading and stay on BLM land for a few weeks. Now they will have the power to do that.

Tim mentioned in this video changing the configuration of the battery for crash worthiness.

@@GullWingInnMoclips yes it looks like 2 cells per parallel group. Probably wont much make difference to C rates, slight increase in current per cell.

I hope to hell you are wrong 😮

Understandable but I’m personally much less pessimistic… about Aptera than domestic (US) politics. I remain puzzled that no angel investor since Gamma clear proof of concept and silence on US-C having closed CF June 29 (per Aptera email stating they reached some $5M cap I wasn’t aware of).

@@gr8dvd You said proof of concepts. I saw none of it. Just claims. After the tunnel testing in Italy, Aptera refused to disclose the results. Aptera has never shown the generations of power of their solar panels. Aptera has never proved the 100 Wh/ mile energy consumption. Remember, big VCs have lots of engineers to check these numbers. When those numbers are not there, they do not step in. That is my honest opinions.

@@Kukaboorathere was no test. They weren’t set up to modify the tunnel for a 3 wheel car so they took cool pictures. The number they are throwing out are from the computer simulations.

Aptera announced in their News section that US Global Capital is seeking investors. If you click on the US Capital link, and provide an email, you will be able to view the US Global information about Aptera. The hunt for money begins.