ian-george
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They have already reported ‘active battery thermal management’ .. which means they already have a heat exchange medium (air or liquid) inside the battery compartment to add or remove heat to the battery as needed .. the only place the Aptera has to remove heat would be the aero skin exterior radiator .. one could have the layer of insulation in the composite sandwich between the battery case and that skin radiator .. like putting a hot oven (radiator) right next to and touching your colder fridge (air conditioned battery/cabin) .. We know those two are right next to each other on the bottom of the car .. To avoid a bunch of wasted energy by the two fighting each other .. It would be best if there was a highly thermal insulative layer between those two hot and colder items … For my 2 bits .. the best option to give the most insulation in the smallest space and lightest weight , to do that would be something like those super thermal insulative vacuum insulation panels Panasonic makes.
<div>When sitting in the winter cold teens or single digits over night .. or over a holiday weekend .. without insulation .. or wasting allot of energy keeping it warm .. the battery will drop to those cold ambient temperatures .. ice cold batteries have poor performance. Which is why every BEV on the market has a winter time battery heating system .. but my 2 bits .. a well insulated battery will need far less of that energy to keep it warm in winter .. and insulation also vastly reduces the amount of energy needed to keep the battery cool when parked backing in the hot summer sun all day .. or keep the battery cool from the hot skin radiator right next to it when under heavy load / use during those hot summer days.
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I’m wondering if Aptera will be using any of the advanced insulation technologies for the batteries ?
Things like the Panasonic Vacuum insulated panels (R45 of thermal insulation from only 15mm thick) .. or other similar advanced options that insulate very well without consuming allot of space or weight.
Some other modern BEV can spend allot of power/energy on the battery counteracting the outside air temperatures .. like a house cooling it in the hot summer days , and heating it in the cold winter nights .. and like a house , passive measure like insulation make a very big difference in how much energy needs to be spent .. but many other BEVs seem to put nearly no heat insulation in at all .. and like a old drafty house they have to spend allot of power/energy to heat it or cool it .. I’ve read the Tesla3 for example has ~3kw of battery heating capacity .. and sure it isn’t always used on every winter night at full power , etc .. but .. like insulating your house .. closing windows when the heat is on in the winter .. putting on a coat when you go outside in the winter .. insulation just seems like a much more energy efficient way of approaching that.
With the Aptera’s lower operating consumption per hour or per mile (better aero , weight ,etc) , tat means less waste heat .. thus less available to ‘self heat’ the batteries with .. and smaller lighter batteries also mean less battery thermal mass , while parked (unplugged) over cold winter nights or 3 day weeks and such .. but to me .. modern insulation options seems like a perfect solution.