Interior Climate control (HVAC, heat, AC)

[Fran]

I haven’t heard any news about progress on the HVAC systen especially the air conditioning that Aptera will have. I have even wondered how I would expect them to design and build it. I don’t know if the belly pan cooling system for the batteries and motors has enough excess capacity to handle the cabin air conditioning or whether they will have to depend on taking in air from in front of the windshield to cool a condenser and then exhaust this hot air out the back vents by the license plate. I remember Chris or Steve mentioned to Jay Leno that there will be a shared cooling loop for cooling the battery and the motors, but no mention of the air conditioning. Then of course the vents/defrost outputs need to be designed. I did see in the recent video in the background a source for automotive air conditioner units, but I can’t find where I saw that. Has progress been made in the HVAC system?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by  John Trotter. Reason: Title expanded for search clarity
• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[ray-holan]

Hi, Francis. We know Aptera has a commitment to A/C, but we don’t have any firm information as to how that will be achieved. I’m sure we’ll hear something definitive later in the year as production gets underway.

[kerbe2705]

@Francis Giroux – What @Ray Holan said and this: In the Beta renders defroster vents and what could be Model 3-style dashboard vents are clearly visible.

It’s highly likely that the AC system will take in air below the windshield both to provide air to that cabin AND to cool itself and then flush the heated air out the rear exhaust ports.

We also know that Aptera is actively seeking a supplier of heat pumps: One of the efficiencies of a heat pump is that it also provides AC, so one unit to both heat and cool.

[Biker]

Assume a transplant of the existing HVAC out of some Chery EV into the Aptera.

[daniel-hughes]

I think what most people are missing is that the Aptera is a hyper efficient vehicle so running a resistance heater will have a much larger effect on range than on other electric cars.

The 400 mile range aptera has 41 kwh battery. This means it uses 35 wh per mile, if assuming 60 mph that’s 2100 watts .

It is estimated that at 0 degrees C the tesla model 3 resistive heater uses 1000 watts.

So you should expect to lose about 1/3 of your range running the heater.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by  Daniel Hughes.

[curtis-cibinel]

5.7 hours at 60mph while drawing 1000 watts of aux load results in about 340 miles of range instead of 400. That is a 15% range loss. If heating needs more or you travel slower or could go up but remember the cabin is smaller

[boz-oclown]

Yes. I understand that A/C is standard. And I am concerned how well it will work. I live in an area where we get a handful of days that tops 100 degrees.

But another question I have for the engineers is will the HVAC system work when the car is parked?

I can foresee days when I go shopping during a hot day and I park my Aptera in the sun for several or more minutes. Well, there will be help from the solar panels, but will the car’s system allow the A/C to keep the car cool while it’s parked? Even if it meant using power from the batteries, I would like to come back to a cool, or at least a significantly less hot, car.

Plus, I can imagine recharging, while on a road trip, would be nicer with the A/C running while parked.

Also, let’s say my car is parked outside on my driveway and in the sun. Will I be able to pull up my app on my phone and have my car start to cool off a few minutes before I leave? Or even warm up the cabin on a cold day?

Just wondering, but that would sure be a nice application to existing systems.

[curtis-cibinel]

Sounds like something that can be added as a software update. It is important to be realistic and not expect software feature parity with tesla day 1. It takes a lot of time and man hours to add things. Pet mode, sentry mode and pin to drive hopefully won’t take too long to get added. Things like every possible streaming services / games will take time.

[arlen-bell]

My concern is how much heat can the bottom panel radiate if parked in 100° temperature on asphalt with the A/C running. Waiting to see some test results fro Gamma (hope they’ll be testing this).

[Shawgrin]

HVAC AC is run off an electric motor like most newer ICE AC units are now days. So they should only be limited by the software that runs them. And technically can be turned on at any time that you have the battery voltage you need.

[kerbe2705]

@Boz O’Clown Most EVs and PHEVs have the ability to turn on the cabin heat or AC remotely so that you can precondition the cabin. Many’s the time I’ll be grocery shopping and, as I approach the check-out, I’ll fire-up the AC in the car so that it’s cool when I get into it.

The only way I could leave the AC running when I left my vehicle would be to leave it powered on – but then it won’t allow me to lock the doors…

[Russell]

@Boz O’Clown, I’m with you on this. How are they going to keep the cabin cool in still air when the aluminum cooling pan is resting just inches above a 115 degree asphalt surface? Not having an external radiator and fan will certainly challenge Aptera’s engineers.

[joseph-wall]

I’ve been thinking about the possibility of taking the Aptera to the extreme and maybe even sleeping in it, as I’m small enough to probably sleep in the back comfortably with the hatch closed. So if I were to do that, and I parked in a place with bad weather, let’s say it’s excessively cold or rainy or really hot, will I be able to sleep in it overnight with the climate control system active without waking up to a dead battery? I have the 400mi version reserved for this reason, as I was hoping that would be enough of a buffer.

Maybe it’s a dumb question, but there’s been very little data released about how much energy it takes to run the A/C or the heater, and the car is specifically designed to be able to get by with as small a battery as possible because the actual locomotion aspect of the car is incredibly efficient, so how much is really left over for the equivalent of a small space heater? My ideal condition would be that the energy required to sleep overnight with climate controls is less than or equal to the amount I get back for free from the solar charging, but maybe that’s being too optimistic, being that most space heaters run a kilowatt and a half and the solar system is max 700w. But maybe with the small space and if the cabin is well-insulated, it might not need to run all night to keep the interior warm enough to sleep.

I know we all have access to the same info and if I couldn’t find any final info on this, probably nobody else can either, but I’d love to have some other community members’ input.

[Russell]

I have wondered about camper mode too. I think before heading out for a remote location I might load a solar panel or two (space provided) before loading the rest of the gear. Aptera says there will be a way to plug some additional solar directly into the vehicle to assist with battery charging.

[Big_red]

It will depend a lot on how well insulated the Aptera is along with the climate your camping in, and if your using the tent attachment I feel like you would basically be wasting power as I dont think fabric tents hold in the heat or cold super well. My Volt will pull between 1kw to 3kw for AC. Heating on the other hands will pull a lot of power for me it’s up to 9kw in my car so idk about winter camping. I feel like this will be a thing without a good answer until someone does it irl.

[larry-kaiser]

I intend to pick up at the factory and drive back to Nebraska even if I get the call during the winter. An electric blanket will work just fine. I expect that there will be a 120V outlet in the cargo area. I think a twin size blanket uses about 80 watts so an 8-hour rest would use .64KW. I will check that power draw and edit this post if I am off. I have given a lot of thought to what I will take on a camping trip or keep in Aptera during the winter. I think a person could be quite comfortable for a long time in all but the hottest weather. edit) It looks like the power draw of an electric blanket ranges from 50 to 400 watts. That is probably a twin on low to a king on high. there is another category of heated covers called a throw. Smaller than a twin and so should draw less wattage.

How is this for a scenario. You are caught in a blizzard. You climb into the back of your Aptera, get under your electric blanket and set it to medium. If you are not warm enough you cover with your sleeping bag. In the morning you open a window and get a cup of snow. Using your immersion heater you bring the cup of water to a boil (you will have to add snow several times). Since you have tea bags, instant coffee and granola bars in your survival supplies you have a nice breakfast. After a blizzard the sun generally comes out and so, after breakfast you clear the snow off your solar panels and get back under the covers and read, surf the net, text or nap. I can hardly wait!

• This reply was modified 1 year, 9 months ago by  larry kaiser.

[leo-shapiro]

Looking at the smallest portable AC/heaters. Assuming extreme climate and a constant need to have it on to maintain climate. You will probably lose around 10kwh a night. Since there isn’t any passive charging at night i wouldn’t use it for that. You wouldn’t make it back with the solar cells unless you had numerous supplemental solar panels for charging in the day. Which would in turn leave you with minimal storage/sleeping space.

[neville-cawood]

I was thinking about the 40 miles per day drom the sun/solar thing:

How hot is the interior of the Aptera in direct sun?
or does it run ventilation (fans) while charging?

Will the interior handle the UV, IR etc and heat?

Interior temperatures of a white Aptera vs other colours?

There’s nothing worse than getting into a hot car thats been in the sun and frying your rear and hands on the seat and steering wheel etc.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by  Neville Cawood.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by  Gabriel Kemeny.

[Riley]

The interior should be kept at ambient temp, i know my Tesla runs the air conditioning once it gets over a certain temp. I wonder if once the aptera battery is full it can use the excess solar charging to run the air conditioning.

TBD on how durable the interior is to UV damage, they haven’t finalized all of the interior materials yet.

The color shouldn’t make a difference to interior temp as the whole car is a well insulated composite sandwich material, also no matter what color you pick the top will always be black anyway.

[len]

Hi

This have been discussed in many threads.

✅They have said the vehicle will have a UV reflective type glass

I personally will have a Full Solar Aptera

I will have the window glass tinted (as we do all our vehicles in the SW )

✅One of the basic things the solar provides is ventilation of the interior air.

I plan to try a simple reflective pop up solar screen, like “something like” the attached. BUT not placed as typically used. I would place from the rear view mirror/ screen direct down behind the dash screen, so NOT to block the solar dash array.

That screen would reflect heat on the dash ( electronic ) screens. As with any panel I suppose you would not want a completed seal to allow air circulation around it.

(✅As you may know…the Aptera HVAC air blows from behind the center screen into the vehicle)

There are so many screens “out there” and Aptera said they would share their vehicle Auto Cad drawings to promote aftermarket products, as they focus on the vehicle itself.

So until we have the final model, we have t wait. But have fun planning!

[wingsounds13]

Your description for placement of a windshield sunscreen closely matches my own. My thought is that it will also reflect light onto the dash panel solar array and increase its output. PV cells are certainly sensitive to light levels and their efficiency goes up with increasing energy input. Not just output level, but _efficiency_. Thus, is it possible that 24% rated PV cells might improve to 26% or so (just a guess) with a 50% increase in light reflected from the sunscreen – yielding more than a 50% increase in output.

People talk of a foldable PV sunscreen to fill the entire windshield, but I think that the above idea would be even better and substantially less expensive.

[boz-oclown]

I live in the Southwest and we have several days (weeks?) of over 100° days. With the announcement that vents for the A/C will be only from around the center display panel, I have concerns of whether this will provide a decent level of comfort on hot days.

My last car that had center only vents (1974 BMW 2002) for the A/C never really provided a decent level of comfort during those demanding days. My knee, shoulder and arm nearest the center would be very cold while the rest of me was too warm.

I cannot imagine cruising for hours like that. Please consider supplemental side vents like those found in every other car sold since 1976.

[ROMAD]

Also will there be directional vents for the footwells? BTW, the side dash vents on cars replaced the vent windows in front of the front door windows.

[993cc]

There will be footwell vents and defroster vents.

[wingsounds13]

There are supposed to be windshield and side window defrost vents. Hopefully the side window defrost vents will deliver cool air along the sides too. Better yet there would be AC vents on the sides, but maybe the side defrost vents can be made to work.

[william-anderson-3]

how will heating for drving in snow work

[iskren-petkov]

hi William, if you mean how would the cabin heat up when is cold outside – initial design rollout will use resistive heating. Later Chris Anthony said they will look into replacing it like Teslas with heat pump for better efficiency.

[joshua-rosen]

If you are asking about the loss of range due to the resistive heaters, my guess is about 50%. My Tesla has resistive heating and I see my energy consumption jump by about 100Wh/mile when the heater is on sometimes more. It’s possible that the heat losses in the Aptera will be a lot less than a Tesla and that could mitigate the effects of the heater. My 2019 Tesla’s has an uninsulated glass roof, Aptera has a plastic roof with a layer of solar cells. The body of the Tesla is aluminum, the Aptera is plastic. Plastic is a better insulator than glass or aluminum which will help.