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Battery-powered vehicle due in November claims 120-mile driving range
By Mark Maynard
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
March 25, 2008
It might look like a bird or a plane, but its name indicates it has no such ambitions. A Carlsbad company named Aptera, a Greek word for “wingless flight,” has designed a battery-powered vehicle with a claimed 120-mile driving range, more than double that of most electric cars today. The two-seat, three-wheeled vehicle is engineered and fabricated of lightweight materials and has a top speed of almost 90 mph.
Deliveries of the first cars – technically a motorcycle – will begin in November with a sale price of $30,000, Aptera co-founder and chief executive Steve Fambro said last week. A gasoline-electric version will soon follow, also priced about $30,000.
More orders have been placed for the hybrid version, which uses a one-cylinder engine as a generator and will get more than 300 miles per gallon and have a range of 600 miles, the company said.
It was selfishness that motivated Fambro to build a highly efficient, three-wheeled electric vehicle.
“I wanted to ride in the carpool lanes by myself,” he said.
Fambro wanted to build a contemporary kit car with fuel economy of 50 to 60 miles per gallon, but none came close. He knew the concept was possible – it was just finding the right shape for the vehicle.
Working after-hours as an electrical engineer at Illumina, a San Diego company that makes tools for gene and drug research, Fambro chipped away at a prototype.
More than a year later, the solution came from Chris Anthony, the other Aptera co-founder, who has a background in boat building and has studied hydrodynamics and aerodynamics. Anthony, 32, conceived of the vehicle’s unusual teardrop shape and the composites to create it.