CT Companion vehicle - model 2, Aptera or other

[MEDICALJMP]

If FSD becomes reality I may not need a second vehicle for my wife. Since we work at different times my CT could drop me off at the hospital and then go get her to escort her to work.

During the work day it can RoboTaxi itself around town making me some moola. At the end of the day it goes to get wifey and she can relax watching Netflix on the way home and it drops her off at home. I work much later so it picks up a fair or two before heading to the hospital to drive me home in a much more relaxed manner.


If FSD is a bust we'd likely get a Model 2. She's tiny and doesn't need much space.

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[SAVFPV]

Mine CTs companion will be my wife’s 4Runner until she is convinced enough to make the switch too. At that point I would fulfill the dream and buy a 90s model Ford 150 with stick shift to teach my son to drive in because he’s definitely not going to drive the CT as his first vehicle haha! (More like definitely will for sure! ?)

 

[Klaxon]

While waiting for my Cybertruck, I can wait for something else.
Currently I plan to wait for an electric helicopter from Tesla.
I am pretty sure, it will be the next after electric plane.

 

[Crissa]

I'm about #8,000 in line for the cybertruck, and about #12,000 in line for the aptera.

Oh, man. I'm 56k in like for the Cybertruck and about 3k in Aptera.

...Wait, you do know there's a 1 on the front of all Aptera orders, right?

The Aptera is in a weird place for me though, while the range is amazing, I want to be 1000 miles away *with my bikes*. The Aptera just doesn’t really scratch that itch.

I need to get to the other side of the Bay or to my mom's in inclement weather. I kind of want more range on my motorcycle, but to be perfectly honest, it's not comfortable to ride at that speed that long. That's what the Aptera is for.

A week ago I drove to Oakland. The temps went from sunny 70F to 90+F to cloudy 70F to 50F with blowing wet salty fog that coated my car and required wipers and a raincoat and then back to 6OF and moonlight over the mountains. Better to have a shell to do that.

Two weeks before that I drove from PDX to Santa Cruz in twelve hours. The mountains are on fire, and I can't stop and wait. Same for if the mountains are covered in snow ^-^

That's what the Aptera is for. That once-a-month I drive all day and all night.

Same for our Mazda 3. We planned on replacing it in 2022. So the Cybertruck is... Well, perfectly targeted.

-Crissa

 

[jhogan2424]

While waiting for my Cybertruck, I can wait for something else.
Currently I plan to wait for an electrical helicopter from Tesla.
I am pretty sure, it will be the next after electrical plane.

If that happens I will have to sell everything I own to fund my purchase and rotorcraft ticket. You can be sure a Tesla aircraft of whatever design will be almost too easy to fly. And probably their own in-house avionics to help keep some costs down.

 

[Ogre]

That's what the Aptera is for. That once-a-month I drive all day and all night.

This is the other thing with the Aptera which makes me anxious, if I’m driving 5-10 hours in a day, autopilot is a killer feature. Just so much more relaxing doing those long stretches along 5. Redding to Woodland is brutally boring.

If Tesla made the Aptera it would be a lot more interesting to me. For that matter… if Tesla were willing to license out their tech to them. I know the Aptera has their own, but I’m comfortable with Teslas, a small car company’s implementation is a bit of a gamble.

 

[Crissa]

Yeah, I am guessing that Tesla will get to the point of licensing Auropilot out eventually.

The Aptera is what my spouse considers 'her dream car' even though it doesn't have the requisite seats.

I'm also guessing as we see how the rollout of charging access works, we'll start seeing other parts of Tesla become products as well. If their Autopilot works great, if their chargers work great, well, they're just more ways to make money, save lives, and get people into EVs.

-Crissa

 

[John K]

There are just somethings you cannot look cool while doing...or driving.

Cool is attitude. That ride says big genital energy.

 

[Diehard]

If you really want to be environmentally friendly or economical then you won't be driving your CT by yourself for commuting long distances without a load or need for a truck.......

You are probably correct. Most of us don't need a truck most of the time. However CT is suppose to replace two vehicles for me. Having a companion vehicle defeats the purpose.

I would like to verify your assumption that CT will use 3 times as much energy as model 3. In my case most of my driving is local (under 50 mph) with occasional highway driving. Energy consumption difference will be mostly due to tire rolling resistance and Regen inefficiency. I don't have a led foot and doubt in my case I would be using three times as much energy in CT. On weekends (highway driving) may be. My household total annual mileage is fairly low so even with ICE I don’t do that much damage.

If you have a second vehicle while your 6000 Ib CT is sitting on those non moving tires, you will still have to replace them, except now you will replace 8 (7 in case of Aptera) tires instead of 4.

If I had to get a companion vehicle, I would probably take this so I can charge it with CT:

 

[Quicksilver]

The CT will be my DD but at my age that averages out to a few hundred miles a week if that. We live about 10 miles from downtown but I usually plan my trips so I can do multiple errands at one time. Sometimes I don't leave the farm for several days at a time.
I will keep the 2015 Nissan cargo van until the wheels fall off since the Boss Lady can haul feed in it if she doesn't want to drive the 04 Dodge dually.
We will keep the Dodge for hauling the livestock and hay trailers unless it pukes an engine but the Cummins diesel is pretty long lived. And to replace it with a new one would cost almost as much as a Trimotor CT.
She also has an older Ford Focus for hauling the grandkids around in if she doesn't want to drive the Dodge although she feels safer in the dually.
I still have the Pierce firetruck chassis and I just bought another firetruck to take to car shows and truck meets. Neither of them are driven much and I have them both for sale since the big two stroke Detroit engines are getting a big following now due to the high cost of traditional hot rodding.
My daughter is considering a new car but she doesn't make a lot of money working for the city. She was watching YouTube videos with me the other day and they were talking about the 25K Tesla and she said she would buy one if there were more chargers in our area. Currently the only Tesla chargers are about 30 miles away at a Love's Truckstop on the Interstate. But I could go ahead and install a charger since I will need it when my CT is built.

 

[Crissa]

Tires wear down by time and use. Merely getting your miles out of it doesn't mean you're getting the value out of it. Doing something that raises your cost per mile (or per trip) does consume more resources.

Like that trip into the city, driving a truck would mean taking even longer to get there, paying more for parking, doubling or tripling my energy use... And more expensive tires ^-^

But it all depends on where you need to go, how many miles, what roads and weather, and if you need to be in more than one place at once.

My motorcycle won't ever pay itself back in dollars - but in time, energy, and emotion, it wins. Of course, I get to lane share with it in California. And rarely pay parking.

-Crissa

 

[Tinker71]

You are probably correct. Most of us don't need a truck most of the time. However CT is suppose to replace two vehicles for me. Having a companion vehicle defeats the purpose.

I would like to verify your assumption that CT will use 3 times as much energy as model 3. In my case most of my driving is local (under 50 mph) with occasional highway driving. Energy consumption difference will be mostly due to tire rolling resistance and Regen inefficiency. I don't have a led foot and doubt in my case I would be using three times as much energy in CT. On weekends (highway driving) may be. My household total annual mileage is fairly low so even with ICE I don’t do that much damage.

If you have a second vehicle while your 6000 Ib CT is sitting on those non moving tires, you will still have to replace them, except now you will replace 8 (7 in case of Aptera) tires instead of 4.

If I had to get a companion vehicle, I would probably take this so I can charge it with CT:

I agree that low mileage people that could get away with one vehicle, should stick with the CT. Having an extra specialized vehicle in your household fleet only makes sense if you drive a lot. Unfortunately my family does. I tell my kids go ahead and figure $.50 per mile for that 8 mile round trip to Starbucks and add it to the drink. They are starting to pay their own repairs and it is sinking in slowly.

I am going to guess that a tire change on the CT is $1600 or more - Aptera $600, model 2 $800. If you get 30k miles on a set for the CT that is $.053 per mile, assume 40k for the Aptera that is $.015 per mile. In order for sun rot and flat spots to be a real factor you would need to drive very infrequently < 4k miles per year.

 

[Tinker71]

I look at it this way. I have a square meter of yard. One kWh arrives on that square meter per hour on a sunny day. If I do nothing, the kWh gets changed to longwave and delivers 3412 BTU to the planet.

Alternatively I can put a solar panel over that square meter and collect about 220 Wh per hour which I can send to the battery in my CT or whatever. The planet only gets 780 Wh but the other 220 Wh are stored in the car and dissipated as heat when it is driven. Total delivery to the planet: 3412 BTH though some of it deferred.

So are you saying if you have solar charging it is OK to consume more energy than you need to because it has no effect on the energy balance? Are you considering nights, cloudy days, the impact of producing the panel and big batteries? Fancy math but BS.

While I can get a discount for driving less my insurance company does not charge per mile. Tires, yes, but if you are going to drive something else instead of the CT you'll use the tires up on that too. To save the tyres on the CT you will just have to train yourself to resist the impulse to "leave rubber" out of every stop sign and traffic light. This is difficult at first but I think you will probably be able to control yourself eventually.

I hope insurance and road use impact is charged on a per mile basis in the future. With more advanced car computers and connectivity I could even see the insurance company differentiating between me driving the CT and hypermiling and my 16 year old flooring it at each intersection. The road wear per mile of an Aptera will be half that of a CT. We need to pay accordingly.

A 2500 lbs. car will consume half the rubber as a 5000 lbs. car. That is probably a pretty safe rule of thumb.

Well you don't want to be driving a BEV on electricity you are buying from someone else if you can avoid it. Among other things it's often "dirty". Recognized you can't always avoid it.

I hate this argument. The grid is getting more renewables every year. If we taxed GHG properly this would accelerate. Support a escalating CO2 tax and cut all the incentives. The market will solve the problem.

Driving is inherently bad, driving a lot of miles in a comparatively inefficient vehicle his worse. Yes there is a tipping point when economics and environmental impact says it is better to have a single vehicle.

I used to figure my old Toyota Corolla had a cost per mile around $.22. My Dodge diesel was $.58.
That was significant with a long commute.

 

[VI Tesla]

If it's just 1 person driving both cars, I think you've got your math wrong. 1 car is better than 2 as far as efficiency goes. If you really want to be efficient and you're a solo driver, buy 1 car.

But my wife and I often need to be in different places at the same time as she's a doctor and I'm a vintner. So I'll be taking the truck and she'll be in the model 3.

That'll be me too. CT will also become our family travel vehicle.

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