Would skin cooling be affected by wrap?

[Joseph Cook]

If I wanted to customize the look of my Aptera with a vinyl wrap, of course avoiding the solar panels ????, would that impact the vehicles skin cooling system?

[Raj Giandeep]

I was under the impression that all the colors are wrapped. Custom or white, silver, black.

[Joseph Cook]

I hope not as, from what I’ve read, average durability of a vinyl wrap is only ~5 years. Well maintained paint should last decades.

[Bob Kirchner]

Paint requires a paint shop in the production facility, which is very expensive and has significant environmental problems, so Aptera is pursuing the path of least resistance, given their limited captal resources.

[GRAUSS Thierry]

What would be nice is having the pigments embedded inside the composite itself.

[Bob Kirchner]

I agree. In any case, if the wrap begins to look shabby (or in my case, really REALLY shabby) you can always either re-wrap it or paint it at that point. At least by that point, rust won’t have set in.

[GREG MIRICH]

The life span for a wrap depends on the quality of the vinyl and how it is taken care of. There are products on the market that prolong the life of wraps

[Bob Kirchner]

Also, I would imagine, on the environment in which it is used. Gravel roads and winter grit will take their toll, probably.

[John Malcom]

All of the colors offered by Aptera will be raps.

[Riley ________________________________]

I think the color of the wrap would affect the cooling much more. A black car in the sun is hotter to the touch than a white car.

[Oz (It’s Oz, just Oz)]

The wraps however are confined to the lower portions of the vehicle for the most part. You will not be able to wrap or change the color of any area with solar. Except for the hood (If not solar optioned.) and small edge areas, the upper area that is mostly exposed to direct sun will either be solar array or glass.

[Riley ________________________________]

You can wrap the top of Aptera just need to cut out all the solar cells. I hope Aptera or a third party sell a kit for a full solar car to match any color you want.

[Henry Kitt]

This is actually my primary concern with Aptera, the wrap. Cost cutting on their end costs the consumer more down the line. The base without wrap is actually a gloss finish, so you can get the car without any wrap at all and it should look nice. It seems the reason for the wrap is that possibly the base composite shell might not be scratch resistant. To counter this, you can immediately take your new Aptera to have it clear coated, which would be less expensive at least, than getting a full on paint job, and less expensive down the line.

From Aptera: “The base of our Alpha vehicles has been black to start. However, we anticipate that the colors of the production versions of Noir, Luna and Sol will be Black, Silver, and White at their base, without a wrap.”

These pictures are what the Noir looks like without a wrap. It is admittedly cool to have the color contrast of matte black and gloss black though, a look that would be sacrificed if buying it unwrapped. Though the cost of having a professional remove a wrap and put on a new one will likely run you $2,500+ in this inflated economy. Clear coat should cost less in the long run but more up front unless there is a discount for buying the Aptera unwrapped.

[Gabriel Kemeny]

Yeah, that idea of a discounted unwrapped vehicle has merit.

[John Malcom]

If you choose custom color you may be able to negotiate what you want. I am satisfied with a wrap applied by Aptera during normal production. The efficiency features of the Aptera far out way any concern I would have about the finish. (Function over form)

[Llewellyn Evans]

Are radiative cooling films to be used on the solar panels for the purpose of getting more power from the panels? Radi-cool or similar? They are cheap, light weight and increase solar panel efficiency.

It may also be possible to use them for radiating heat from the smooth body of the car as a plastic wrap.

[Michael Trieu]

It probably wouldn’t be a great idea to place a radiative cooling film on top of a solar panel because it would block all the spectral frequencies that the solar panels use to convert sunlight to electricity. Your best bet is to wrap all the other areas not covered by solar panels with the radiative cooling film and low-E glass for all the window surfaces. That should cut down on the AC load. What’s great is that some radiative cooling films (especially ones based on BaSO4) can achieve sub-ambient temperatures, even in full daylight, and can be colored practically any hue or shade and still be tuned to reject the rest of the UV and visible light while still allowing LWIR to pass through. Maybe Aptera should get in touch with SkyCool Systems. I hear they’re willing to discuss automotive applications, although their main marketing focus seems to be building HVAC augmentation.

Edit: Actually, I was mistaken. The same guy who founded SkyCool Systems also figured out a way to reject heat from solar cells without interfering with their power-generating capacity!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281911166_Radiative_cooling_for_solar_cells

• This reply was modified 2 weeks ago by  Michael Trieu. Reason: Added information about radiative cooling for solar cells

[Llewellyn Evans]

It is a 3M product designed specifically for putting on solar panels.

[kerbe2705]

Remember that the alpha prototypes are made of fiberglass – the production vehicles will be made of other composites that may or may not share common color from panel to panel. Some composites are not paintable and others are molded with color integrated into their surface resin layer.

[kerbe2705]

Founder Steve explained in a recent video that the belly of the Aptera serves as the radiator – cooling channels do not run throughout the body. If you look closely at the belly rendering you’ll see that there’s a panel distinct from the rest of the body – note the connector-holes.

I believe it was CTO Nathan who said that the belly material has not yet been selected – that it might be aluminum.

[Oz (It’s Oz, just Oz)]

IIRC the belly panel will also end up being the battery support tray. I’m not fully versed in how most EV’s are designed, but is the normal practice to enclose the batteries in a combustion resistant chamber? (If so I would imagine Aptera will follow suit.)

[Joseph Cook]

And also to resist impingement.

[Len Nowak Nowak]

In a video with Nathan, he said the composite, at least, is not combustible because inflammable ingredients are used in the composite recipe

[Oz (It’s Oz, just Oz)]

@Leonard Nowak not combustible is good, but as Joseph mentions resisting impingement is probably more important, the composite can still melt.

[Len Nowak Nowak]

I must have missed that comment about an aluminum belly considering that area is used for cooling, dent resistant body and the fact that the strength comes from the composite four piece composite capsule. In there lean manufacture I thought avoiding tooling for pressing a metal belly made sense???

Crash testing ahead too… to also validate assembled decisions!

But Aluminum is used in some framework I was told

We shall see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lots of “reality” fitting together in development!