Readers of this blog know that I want an Aptera, a new superaerodynamic electric car scheduled to come out sometime Real Soon Now. One of my friends who’s a real car freak pointed the Aptera out to me, and also more recently pointed out that Jay Leno, also a real car freak, has test driven the Aptera in a segment on Jay Leno’s Garage:
http://widgets.nbc.com/o/47f1317f105123ad/4acd7cc7e156d655/4a12be5cd515d142/a947b45b
As we watched Jay made a crack about his century-old Baker Electric, and when I expressed shock my buddy said, “What? All the early cars were electric.” Maybe not entirely true, but the Baker had an 100 mile range, better than some modern electric cars. I think a quote Sergey Brin dug up put it the best:
“THE fundamental reasons why the electric car has not attained the popularity it deserves are (1) The failure of the manufacturers to properly educate the general public regarding the wonderful utility of the electric; (2) The failure of [power companies] to make it easy to own and operate the electric by an adequate distribution of charging and boosting stations. The early electrics of limited speed, range and utility produced popular impressions which still exist.”
This is from the 1916 issue of Electrical World. Oh, my:
Well, the Aptera has been delayed in the past, and even I can only wait so long. Here’s hoping the Aptera will not follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, and will instead usher in an age of new electric cars.
