The Weirdest “Car” I’ve Ever Driven
All right, this is a more risky video, I would say, because the car that I’m about to review isn’t out yet. A lot of talk about why it should be out and why it could come out soon, but it’s not out yet. But the idea of it is really appealing. 400 miles of range on a fully electric car with a lightweight battery that only weighs 2200 lb total and that has solar panels to get you up to 40 miles per day of free driving and a starting price of $35,000. Who wouldn’t want that? Oh, but it also it looks like that. So, I’ve had people sending me this car, sending me this website, sending me videos of this thing for years and years now. Marquez, you should check out the Upterra, the Abtera project. It’s going to be real soon. It’s coming out soon. And while that part hasn’t happened, there has been some noticeable momentum for the company getting to production. Uh, and that’s still not guaranteed, but they were actually able to get this car here to let me be the first outside of Atera to drive it and really get to know the thing and figure out if the idea is good or not. Spoiler, I think the idea is really good, but there are so many things about this car that are just very different from a normal car. And we got to go over all that stuff cuz as Doug would say, there are quite a few quirks and features and driving it should be pretty interesting, too. So, let’s just first of all cover what it is. So, this is a fully electric vehicle cuz it’s not a car. This is actually going to be licensed and registered as what’s called an auto. So, you might have heard of these, these little three- wheeled vehicles that are around that are essentially the same rules and regulations and insurance and registration as a motorcycle, which is why it has a motorcycle uh license plate here on the back and none on the front and even this little light, which is required by law to illuminate that motorcycle size license plate. You don’t need a special license in the US to drive it though. And that battery, which is 41 usable kilowatt hours, is mostly distributed along the bottom of the thing. And then there are solar panels on the roof. They’re on the back trunk part here. They’re on the roof of the whole vehicle up here. They’re on the nose cone up at the front here. And they’re actually also right behind the steering wheel or yolk in that dashboard inside the car. And so all of that is combined to get you roughly 400 mi of range base is what they’re promising. And then all of these solar panels all over the vehicle are supposed to have it gain roughly 4 1/2 kwatt hours of range per day in ideal sunny conditions like these. Uh something like 40 mi max range per day. So, if you commute less than 40 total miles a day and it’s sunny every day and you park outside, you can drive this for free. Now, those fundamentals, I think, are appealing to a lot of people, but there’s also, as you can see, looking at it, just an unbelievable amount of of quirks and features and weird things about this to achieve that. Sorry, Doug. I kind of have to use that term. But basically starting from the nose, you’ll notice the whole thing is designed around efficiency and aerodynamic efficiency is maybe the most important when it comes to cars. So this front piece here, which has your DRLs and your blinkers and even your headlights, this is the beginning of where it cuts through the air. No front plate because motorcycles and autocycles don’t require that and that would ruin the air flow. And the air just sort of flows around the entire shape of this teardrop vehicle from front to back. And you can see this long extended back here. I don’t know if you remember the video I did on the Mercedes EQXX, which is another similar project from Mercedes who has infinite resources to try to make the most efficient possible vehicle they can. It also kind of had that long teardrop shape. So the whole thing is supposed to glide through the air like a teardrop. You have this elevated rear section. The wheels are all covered. Obviously, you’d get a lot of dirty air flow over the wheels. So, it’s got this this sort of air foil here. Even over some of the suspension pieces, they’ve made some aerodynamic adjustments here. There’s lights on the wheels, which are separated from the extremely aerodynamic body. You have really slim side view mirrors, which have cameras on them. And you might also notice there is no door handle on the outside anywhere, which brings us conveniently to one of our biggest quirks/features, which is this door. Okay, I’m going to I’m going to do it from the driver’s side cuz I think it’s pretty crazy what they’re doing with the doors here. First of all, first of all, split window. You see the bottom half of the window here, which moves up and down, and the top section, which doesn’t move up and down. Second of all, the doors go up and out. So, kind of like spider doors. And third of all, how do you get in? There’s no door handle. Well, that’s easy. There’s a secret knock right about here. And that opens the door to reveal the inside. So, yeah, they go up and out. And you right away get a look at all this forged carbon fiber because this vehicle is built of a couple of really large pieces of forged carbon fiber. The body itself is one of the biggest pieces of forged carbon fiber in the world. And then this whole thing is like a top piece, a bottom piece, side pieces, the doors, a lot of forged carbon to be as light as possible. So that’s going to be really interesting when it comes to driving the car is just to keep an eye on like the visibility of the split window and the things like the tiny rearview mirrors on the side. But another little quirk/feature is that right there is your windshield wiper fluid. if you want to fill it up because you don’t get to open the hood, you got to go right back there. But then there is this whole back piece which obviously is great for aerodynamics and you can see the brake lights here. But there are more crazy features. First of all, there’s that center wheel. Less rolling resistance in the middle and more aerodynamic with less dirty air being only one wheel. Says a terra back there. And this motorcycle plate also conveniently moves over to the side to reveal the charge port. And yes, that is an NACS charge port. So, you can go to a Tesla Supercharger if you want to when this is out and you should be able to plug it right in with no adapter. And the magnet snaps it back in place, which is crazy. But then this is also storage. So, if you want to get in the back, there’s another secret knock. You might have seen a video. It’s right around here. If I get this right. Yep, there we go. And that lets you get into the back of the Terra with way more exposed forged carbon fiber. That looks kind of sick actually, not going to lie. This whole top piece is super lightweight cuz it’s carbon. And then you have all this storage in the back, which is honestly a ton. Like a lot of storage. It kind of reminds me of that big Cadillac that we had not too long ago, which had a ton of space that kind of just goes right up to the front two seats. So there you go. You have storage space in the back of the Upter. Now, some other design choices back here. You have one of the speakers, probably the biggest one. I’m guessing the subwoofer. You have a power outlet, which is a good spot for it if you’re going to charge bigger stuff. And you have all these tie downs. So, if you want to tie down bigger things to not sort of slosh around back here, that makes sense. And then back here, there’s a little bit of a sub trunk storage because the middle wheel is up there. So, you can put some private things, I guess, if you don’t want people to know, back here. And then this whole thing with that hood latch shuts just like that. I think it’s fascinating. I’ve seen a lot of videos and photos of this thing, and it’s really hard to get a sense of the scale of it. The width of the body itself is not very wide, and you can see these brake lights here and this cool heart-shaped top rear brake light with a rear-facing camera up here. But then when you add the extra width of the front wheels, it’s closer to the width of a full-size car like a Tesla Model S, for example. And so as you’re driving, I think you’re going to have to keep an eye on the extra width being beyond the normal, you know, rearview mirror in the door. You get a little extra width with these wheels. Now, just a couple more things before we get in. One, uh, all these different solar panels are all facing different directions, obviously. So, as you charge throughout the day, you know, in the morning, if you’re facing the sun, it’s these front ones that will do you the most good. Then in the middle of the day, the roof, and then maybe the back when the sun’s up there. Um, so you’re never charging all the solar panels to max capacity at once. But interestingly, they’re curved a little bit, too. So, typically glass and solar panels like on rooftops are pretty flat, but that is a curved surface. And that roof, you can see, is curved as well. And then that back is even a larger piece with all these curved solar panels in it. So, that’s pretty cool. And then there’s your logo. And then, well, we should get inside. So, let’s go ultra wide here. This is how you get into the Upter Terra in the Yolk steering wheel. And this is what it will look like in the driver’s seat. So again, I’ve seen a lot of videos. I’ve seen a lot of pictures online, but it’s hard to get a sense of scale and what’s going on here. I’ll also mention, and I probably should have said this earlier, this is not a final vehicle. This is a development prototype. This is what they hope to send to validation. And it’s nearly finished, but a lot of these things are not fully complete. There’s some 3D printed parts and some unfinished suspension and things like that. But this should give us a good idea of what it’s like for customers to live with this thing, which starts with this big wide yolk right here, which has a horn button. Nice. And a volume up and down on the left. No play pause. I thought they would also have like a play pause control, but that leaves you some good visibility of this screen in front of you, which is just for your side view mirrors. So, let’s close this door here. And you can see that’s my side view mirrors, which is good because visibility wise, can’t really see over my shoulder very well here. So, that’s that front screen. Then over to the middle is your primary screen. They said they aim to have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto support which will be in this window over here to the right. But until then, there are really no other major buttons in this car. There’s the hazard button which is I think required by law. But then even these lights and everything else you do in the car uh is operated on the touchcreen. So you have this center console storage space which is nice. Uh, and you have these two cup holders in the middle here, a place to charge your phone, and then I believe there will be not diagnostic ports, but two USB type-C ports in the middle here. But then even things from like AC controls to window up and down are all on the touchcreen in the car, everything. So, as I look around, as I’m sitting here, it’s not it’s not totally unfamiliar. I mean there’s some normaly about it. It feels like the size of a small car. The way the windshield is shaped, feels like a small twodoor coupe, but then obviously behind me there’s a whole lot of nothing right now because there’s no visibility. And so it should be working in the final vehicle ideally, but they’re going to go full camera to see behind you with that camera that I showed you that’s on the back of the vehicle. And so you have all your closed storage space back here. I think they even might have made some accessories to let people like camp and sleep in the back. I don’t know if I would do that without any sort of windows, but that’s a lot of space back there. And then I also noticed that these split windows have a pretty big border to them. And that border is right around eye level for me. So, as I look out the window, I’m basically looking right at this split window. And then over my shoulder, I got to look at the cameras. Other than that, sun shades, pretty good headroom, good leg room. I’m sitting on batteries, so I’m actually not too low to the ground. This is good. I’ve also noticed that the AC is coming from vents around this screen, which is kind of funny. All the way around is where the AC is popping out. Nice. So, you know, I can’t do too much analysis of things like how comfortable the seats are cuz they could not be final, but you know, these are cloth and have a pretty interesting design and they feel fine to me. Also things like the glove box over here or this extra little documents compartment or the width of the footwell or you know how good the speakers sound. I can’t pair my phone to it. A lot of this I can’t really analyze because it’s not final and it’s not even necessarily good in a prototype yet. But the idea is this is an extremely minimal interior efficiency, simplicity, even easy to repair ideally. Uh, but that does mean things like uh the lights that are above you, the dome lights are on the touchcreen. The windows up and down are on the touchcreen. That’s crazy. Your park, reverse, neutral, and drive are all touchscreen controls. And so there’s there’s a lot going on on the screen and they’re going to have to have pretty good software, but also, you know, CarPlay and Android Auto support would be nice to have. Now, you know, my initial reaction to any car like this is it feels so clearly built around nice weather, like nice weather regions. Uh, I’m going to get out by pressing this button here, which lets me open the door. Uh, but similar to when I had that Prius, one of our most popular videos ever on autofocus, the the solar panels only do you a lot of good if you live in a sunny place where you get a lot of sunshine during the day. And a car like this with knocking on the side to open the doors is not going to be great in some place that gets icy or snowy. Uh, and even these big covers on the wheels aren’t going to do you much good when there’s more than about 3 in of snow. So, this is going to be good for, you know, your Californiaiforns and your warmer climates where it doesn’t necessarily ice over and snow as much. But in those places, I mean, I get it. It feels like a really compelling idea to make the world’s most efficient 100watt hour per mile EV and sell it as cheaply as possible and hopefully make it repairable and customerfriendly in a lot of places. But then you have to drive something that looks like that. Is that going to be weird? Is that going to be challenging? Do we have to get used to it? This is a good time to start driving. Let’s do it. All right. driving the Aera. First first people to ever drive it. Did you think this was ever going to be a real thing? Did you? No. That’s a sentence that I did not expect to ever say out loud. And this soon, too. 2025. Right off the bat, it’s two doors. All the storage is behind us. You can see there’s no rear view. This would typically be a camera. It’s not working right now, but that would be how you look backwards, which is not totally unique. We’ve seen that in some other vehicles. My blinkers are on. There’s no sound, but but that will be coming at some point. Yeah, I think that’s the theme of some of the experience is it’s not finished obviously, but this is giving us a pretty good idea of what it’ll be like. Visibility is forward pretty good. Yeah, sideways. Noting the split window is not incredible, but it is a window controlled only by the screen as well. Yeah, no buttons for that. rear visibility like my rear 3/4 I just have to use the cameras. That would be a blind spot for me. And this is a pre-production validation vehicle. So the overall driving experience isn’t 1,000% representative of what the final production version will be according to Aterra. But it’s more or less a version of the car that’s usable enough for us to uh like evaluate basically. For example, they mentioned they have another version that they’re doing more suspension development on. So, this is not a final suspension. It’s a little rougher, but yeah, we’re driving it. Yeah. It is interesting, though. This It’s a weird amalgamation of like different vehicle concepts. It’s like it’s a tricycle. Uh-huh. But you can use it as a car. It It’s a hatchback. It’s a lot more storage than a motorcycle. Like actually a respectable amount of storage. No, like you can genuinely fit a lot of stuff in there. Normally when you drive a car, you’re thinking like the width of the car ends right here and maybe like the width of the window. This one you got to think a little bit more about the the extra width of the wheels sticking out. So I can I can see them. It’s fine. I know I’m not on the lane lines, but that’s something to keep in mind, which is good. Not being able to see them would be very uh misleading. I If you were a little shorter, that would be tough. Yeah, I think that’s going to be a theme of this ride is uh people wondering what it is. So, he’s he’s like gesturing to like be like like fly, go fly. Now, one thing that I’m not crazy about is the footwell space that I’ve got. It’s very narrow. So, it’s like my my feet are almost touching because of how narrow this space is. Interesting. The Atera team didn’t mention this being a not final thing. So, I’m not sure if this will be comfortable for people of all different sizes and heights and and shapes. It’s a little awkward for me right now. It feels like cuz normally you have more uh horizontal space for your your feet to move around in within the cabin, but other than that, I mean, it it is it’s fine. It’s comfortable. These aren’t the most comfortable seats I’ve I’ve sat in, but I’ve sat in worse, you Yeah, seats are right. They’re cloth seats. We’ve got I would say my my footwell space is also okay. Yeah. So, a little shallow. I will say this is probably one of the most chill, peaceful carbon tub cars I’ve ever been in. So far, I mean, even the Remont Nea that we drove, there was a lot of chatter, a lot of like rock chip noise. I feel like that was just a noisier car than this. I think that maybe because of how much wider the wheels typically are on those cars, like just picking up stones, cup twos, throwing them up in the wheel wells. But I agree. I mean, this feels reasonable. I wouldn’t think too hard about like, oh, this is the lightest thing I’ve driven. The steering ratio is is a little it’s super slow and light, so I feel like I’m doing a lot of movement for not a lot of turning. that they can change that obviously, but um it does feel like they’re tuning it to be a little more like a daily Civic type of experience, nothing too like sporty. And that’s what they said. They said in any scenario in which you could drive a Honda Civic, you should be able to drive this car. I have an interesting comp. Yeah. All right. A little more regular roads. Yeah, it’s firm. Yeah, it’s definitely firm. That’s fine. I mean, we’re not super low to the ground, but it is it is firm. So, the car is pretty small and pretty low, but you are sitting on top of batteries, so you’re not feeling super low to the ground, which is nice. And I think we’ll we’ll have to wait until we get into higher speeds to to truly find out. But I mean, I think people see a car like this not understanding how like things like a carbon chassis work and they’ll think, “Man, there’s no way I could drive this where I live. If I got into an accident, I would be smooshed. I would be destroyed.” Does it actually feel like a notsafe car? To me, I feel I feel fine. Yeah. Like heightwise off the ground and like enclosure-wise, I feel surprisingly safe. I see this thing from the outside and I did not think I would feel that way. Yeah. And now I feel like I’m just in a small car. And that’s just the way small cars feel. Yeah. All right. Now we’re moving. All right. First real above 30 mph test. Yeah. How does it corner? It’s a bit wy. The front Yeah, the front is is wide enough that you feel planted. Obviously, the back is still one wheel, so you can only do so much, but Right. Nothing too dramatic. Yeah. the pedal response is. So, this is a front-wheel drive. I don’t even know what the horsepower rating is, but it does have the quick torque. Not like instant punch, but it has a quick torque of uh of an EV, so you feel like you can place yourself on the road pretty well. Yeah. What does your butt dyno tell you? Cuz I mean, based on the range and the 0 to 60 claim, I would guess it’s probably somewhere around high 100s, like 200. It feel that was wide open throttle. I don’t know if you even noticed. So, I would say that felt closer to like the 200 horsepower number. Oh, no. It is. Yeah. What? 2,200 lb. Yeah. Wide open throttle. Yeah. I don’t want to spin anything. Yeah. It’s like good enough to to place myself among the cars on the road. It’s not It’s not quick. So, you don’t feel like it’s too slow to the point of like not being able to survive amongst other East Coast drivers? No, I would say it’s not too slow for that. Okay. If you want something sportier, they’re going to make one that also has a motor in the rear, which will make it all-wheel drive. It’s three wheels, but it’s all-wheel drive. And that may get a little more punch. That may do a a quicker 0 to 60. And for those who want it, great. But yeah, this is the most efficient version of this vehicle. Frontwheel drive, cutting through the wind. Feels fine. Yeah, I need the Aera RS with with a 285 rear section. Oh god. Yeah, it’s a sunny day in New Jersey. We are gaining a little bit of battery as we drive. Not gaining battery, but we’re gaining some energy. Yes. From the sun, even as we drive right now. One thing I was nervous about is watching you go through the toll booth. Yeah. because of the width of it. Yeah, the width of it and not like having a the clearest idea of like where each side of the car ends. Yeah. But I think I was in the middle there. I felt like I was good. Yeah. I think if you just go based on instinct, you’ll be you’ll be fine. So, even just based on riding shotgun, it feels like a car that you don’t really need to learn how to drive if you already know how to drive a regular car. Yeah. And so despite being such a completely different take on this kind of transportation, it’s it there’s really no learning curves for general stop and go. I I thought I would notice the rear being one wheel more. I mean, I notice when I’m turning and thinking about it, I can feel the weight distribution, but like you don’t need a special license. It’s a it’s basically a motorcycle. Yep. Uh it’s registered as and it’s insured as a motorcycle, but you just have a regular license and you’re good to go. And I think that tracks I don’t think it’s it’s dramatically different in the way it behaves. Nope. Which is a good thing. So now that we’re on like a regular driving road, it it’s pretty smooth. I feel like you can get used to the actually the I know it’s not final, but the calibration of the accelerator pedal is pretty good. So I can modulate my speed really well. Yeah, it feels smooth as a passenger. Okay. One thing I will say, this has happened more than once now. When I’m driving at the right angle and the sun is in front of me, the sun reflects and glares off of this dashboard worse than any glare dash I’ve ever seen in my life. It literally blinds me to whatever’s in front of me. And they that they got to figure that part out cuz that could be dangerous actually. Like I know that that’s a good amount of like solar coverage and you want to maximize coverage, but because it’s basically reflective glass and it’s at an angle. It’s if you’re driving the right direction, it’s literally blinding you. So that I don’t think they can keep that. So what do we think is missing from this driving experience that could actually be improved and doesn’t compromise on the mission of this car slash tricycle? Um, most of my things I’m noticing are are little things. They definitely took a minimal approach to the interior, which is efficient and repairable, but also it means everything from the AC controls to the the window controls and everything, it’s all on the screen. Yeah, I don’t love that. that I would rather have a window switch and a door lock switch, but uh other things are just kind of like minor and aesthetic. I think in general they’ve they’ve gotten the fundamentals down, which is encouraging. I don’t know how hard that is in building an EV. Yeah. But they did do the fundamentals. Accelerator pedals calibrated. Suspension is good enough that I don’t feel like I’m swaying even though there’s only three wheels. Um, they do need to add a blinker sound. Yes. That right there. That Did you get the glare there? Yep. Oh, yeah. Right. Yep. I briefly could not see what was in front of me. Wow. And it’s a good thing we’re turning cuz it was brief, but straight line roads sometimes that’s going to be challenging. Yeah. Other than that, it’s got the one windshield wiper. It’s got quirks. It’s got features. cameras are are decent, but they look like kind of the first gen Rivian cameras which are like magenta tinted and not very high resolution. Yeah, I’m I mean resolution I think it’s usable. I’ve seen worse even in some cars like the 911. But it’s just very dim. That’s kind of my issue with it that I just can’t see it that well on an average sunny day. You know what’s funny? It’s, and this might be a weight thing, like it handles the bigger bumps better than I expect and it handles the smaller bumps worse than I expect. Like whenever we get a like a huge pothole, we’ll go through it and I’m like, “Oh, this rides really well.” But we go over some of those like paint lines on the road and I’m like, “I can’t believe I can feel that.” Yeah. And as feel it as much as as we do. Yeah. Overall, I’m I’m I’m curious to see where this is where this goes. I I mean just the fact that we went from this is never going to be real to we just took it to Wawa and plugged in a a Tesla supercharger cable. I mean, it wasn’t actually charging, but the fact that we were able to do that, I mean, now I’m kind of just looking forward to seeing where where this uh mountain peaks. So, I want it to exist. And I we’ve talked to the people at the company who have told us something I’ve heard and read for over a year now, which is roughly 50,000 pre-orders. Mhm. Why do you think there’s not more? Like, it’s 100 bucks to get in line. It’s only a $35,000 vehicle potentially to buy. Everyone seems to be interested in it when they see it and hear that it charges with the sun. Like, why why isn’t more? I think people are into it when they see it, but I don’t think, you know, they haven’t had a super strong marketing push for this car yet. Um, and so I think once it gets in front of more people’s faces, I think then we’ll see an uptick in the amount of people that actually want to put their money behind this potentially. But I mean, it is compromised in very specific ways that would make it hard to live with in certain regions. in certain regions like here. And so there’s only going to be so many people in California that want to spend $40,000 on this versus a Tesla or, you know, an EV6 or or something along those lines. Yeah. Norm equivalently priced efficient standard EV. It’s interesting. I think my my theory is that it it’s different and that’s what’s getting all the attention. It’s maybe too different to get people to commit to buying it. But it is interesting enough that it could potentially push the industry a little bit, which is exciting. Yeah. I think if you’re just looking for practicality and to do something different and not spend a a ton of money on an EV, because a lot of these EVs are very expensive and not giving you a whole lot for that money as far as usability. Yeah. I think that’s where, you know, this car might have a pocket to to sit in. All right. Well, give it a year. See where we’re at. Yeah. Check back in. Yeah. Thanks for watching. Catch you in the next one. Peace.
The Aptera EV is finally real??
Shot on iPhone 17 Pro Max
Rode Wireless Micro: https://geni.us/FBnQh
