Writer: H M Remi

Do you know a typical passenger vehicle emits around 4.6 metric tons of CO2 on average every year? One metric ton of CO2 equals a cube of 10 meters in width by 3 meters in height, nearly the size of a house!

Everyone knows that carbon emissions will cause climate catastrophe, but it is also impossible to ask people to stay home and not travel. So, what can we do?

Generally, most energy would be transferred into heat in the car engine, causing 72% energy loss for gas vehicles and 69% for hybrids. Although you may say that all-electric cars are good enough to have only 10% heat loss from their engines, wind resistance and friction also take away 20% of efficiency, thus wasting lots of energy in vain.

A California-based start-up has a solution to this. They have developed a car solely powered by solar energy, namely Aptera. Solar-powered cars have always been viewed as non-practical, mainly because of their poor energy transition rate. Nonetheless, related technology has been evolving. The Aptera team claimed that Aptera is 13 times more efficient than gas vehicles and 90% of the energy generated by the car’s solar panels goes to making the car move. Eventually, every Aptera car owner will reduce 14,000 pounds of CO2 annually. How do they do it?

Aptera only has three wheels instead of four as typical cars do, looks like a speedy aircraft with a curve at the nose, wide along the sides and tapered toward the trunk. Its undercarriage is the shape of a dolphin’s belly, and all these features construct an overall aerodynamic structure that hugely reduces friction, air drag and wind resistance. 

Moreover, the car is built with a steely-strong frame of fiberglass and ultra-light carbon composites. Combing with 3D printing and AI technologies, the production of Aptera cars is rapid and highly cost-efficient. Plus, the light car structure needs fewer materials to build with and less energy to power up. This also means that it is overall more friendly to the environment.

Finally - the solar panels. The Aptera team has developed the "Never Charge" technology. With its 100kWh battery, the solar panels laid on the arch-shaped top of the vehicle have a capacity of accumulating energy for 1,000 miles of driving distance with just a single charge. The car will consume only 100 watt-hours of energy per mile. It equals the same energy consumption of a desktop computer in 30 minutes.

The black body of the Aptera car is nicknamed the Batmobile because it does look like a superhero’s car. Perhaps, one day when Aptera, the solar-powered vehicles, are popular enough, every driver will be like a hero protecting the environment while we drive. 

Story Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/solar-car/
https://aptera.us/
https://www.epa.gov/
https://www.chero.org/blog/top-3-ways-to-visualise-carbon-co2-emissions-

Image Source:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2021/solar-car/