The First Mass-Produced Solar Car Is Coming Soon, Sparking Excitement and Uncertainty
Reporter Michaela Haas takes Aptera's Sol car out for a test drive in San Diego, Calif.
The white two-seater car that rolls down the street in the Sorrento Valley of San Diego looks like a futuristic batmobile, with its long aerodynamic tail and curved underbelly. Called 'Sol' (Spanish for "sun"), it runs solely on solar and could be the future of green cars. Its maker, the California startup Aptera, has announced the production of Sol, the world's first mass-produced solar vehicle, by the end of this year. Aptera co-founder Chris Anthony points to the sky as he says, "On this sunny California day, there is ample fuel. You never need to charge the car."
If you live in a sunny state like California or Florida, you might never need to plug in the streamlined Sol because the solar panels recharge while driving and parked. Its 60-mile range is more than the average commuter needs. For cloudy weather, battery packs can be recharged electronically for a range of up to 1,000 miles. The ultra-aerodynamic shape made of lightweight materials such as carbon, Kevlar, and hemp makes the Sol four times more energy-efficient than a Tesla, according to Aptera. "The material is seven times stronger than steel and even survives hail or an angry ex-girlfriend," Anthony promises.
Co-founder Steve Fambro opens the Sol's white doors that fly upwards like wings and I get inside for a test drive. Two dozen square solar panels, each the size of a large square coaster, on the roof, front, and tail power the car. The white interior is spartan; monitors have replaced mirrors and the dashboard. An engineer sits in the driver's seat, hits the pedal, and the low-drag two-seater zooms from 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds.
It feels like sitting in a race car because the two-seater is so low to the ground but the car is built to go no faster than 100 or 110 mph. The finished car will weigh less than 1,800 pounds, about half of the smallest Tesla. The average car, by comparison, weighs more than double that. "We've built it primarily for energy efficiency," Steve Fambro says, explaining why the Sol has only three wheels. It's technically an "auto-cycle," a hybrid between a motorcycle and a car, but Aptera's designers are also working to design a four-seater.
There has never been a lack of grand visions for the future of the automobile, but until these solar cars actually hit the streets, nobody knows how the promises will hold up.
Transportation is currently the biggest source of greenhouse gases. Developing an efficient solar car that does not burden the grid has been the dream of innovators for decades. Every other year, dozens of innovators race their self-built solar cars 2,000 miles through the Australian desert.
More effective solar panels are finally making the dream mass-compatible, but just like other innovative car ideas, Aptera's vision has been plagued with money problems. Anthony and Fambro were part of the original crew that founded Aptera in 2006 and worked on the first prototype around the same time Tesla built its first roadster, but Aptera went bankrupt in 2011. Anthony and Fambro left a year before the bankruptcy and went on to start other companies. Among other projects, Fambro developed the first USDA organic vertical farm in the United Arab Emirates, and Anthony built a lithium battery company, before the two decided to buy Aptera back. Without a billionaire such as Elon Musk bankrolling the risky process of establishing a whole new car production system from scratch, the huge production costs are almost insurmountable.
But Aptera's founders believe they have found solutions for the entire production process as well as the car design. Most parts of the Sol's body can be made by 3D printers and assembled like a Lego kit. If this makes you think of a toy car, Anthony assures potential buyers that the car aced stress tests and claims it's safer than any vehicle on the market, "because the interior is shaped like an egg and if there is an impact, the pressure gets distributed equally." However, Aptera has yet to release crash test safety data so outside experts cannot evaluate their claims.
Instead of building a huge production facility, Anthony and Fambro envision "micro-factories," each less than 10,000 square feet, where a small crew can assemble cars on demand wherever the orders are highest, be it in California, Canada, or China.
If a part of the Sol breaks, Aptera promises to send replacement parts to any corner of the world within 24 hours, with instructions. So a mechanic in a rural corner in Arkansas or China who never worked on a solar car before simply needs to download the instructions and replace the broken part. At least that's the idea. "The material does not rust nor fatigue," Fambro promises. "You can pass the car onto your grandchildren. When more efficient solar panels hit the market, we simply replace them."
More than 11,000 potential buyers have already signed up; the cheapest model costs around $26,000 USD and Aptera expects the first cars to ship by the end of the year.
Two other solar carmakers are vying for the pole position in the race to be the first to market: The German startup Sono has also announced it will also produce its first solar car by the end of this year. The price tag for the basic model is also around $26,000, but its concept is very different. From the outside, the Sion looks like a conservative minivan for a family; only a closer look reveals that the dark exterior is made of solar panels. Sono, too, nearly went bankrupt a few years ago and was saved through a crowdfunding campaign by enthusiastic fans.
Meanwhile, Norwegian company Lightyear wants to produce a sleek solar-powered luxury sedan by the end of the year, but its price of around $180,000 makes it unaffordable for most buyers.
There has never been a lack of grand visions for the future of the automobile, but until these solar cars actually hit the streets, nobody knows how the promises will hold up. How often will the cars need to be repaired? What happens when snow and ice cover the solar panels? Also, you can't park the car in a garage if you need the sun to charge it.
Critics, including students at the Solar Car team at the University of Michigan, say that mounting solar panels on a moving vehicle will never yield the most efficient results compared to static panels. Also, they are quick to point out that no company has managed to overcome the production hurdles yet. Others in the field also wonder how well the solar panels will actually work.
"It's important to realize that the solar mileage claims by these companies are likely the theoretical best case scenario but in the real world, solar range will be significantly less when you factor in shading, parking in garages, and geographies with lower solar irradiance," says Evan Stumpges, the team coordinator for the American Solar Challenge, a competition in which enthusiasts build and race solar-powered cars. "The encouraging thing is that I have seen videos of real working prototypes for each of these vehicles which is a key accomplishment. That said, I believe the biggest hurdle these companies have yet to face is successfully ramping up to volume production and understanding what their profitability point will be for selling the vehicles once production has stabilized."
Professor Daniel M. Kammen, the founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the world's foremost experts on renewable energy, believes that the technical challenges have been solved, and that solar cars have real advantages over electric vehicles.
"This is the right time to be bullish. Cutting out the charging is a natural solution for long rides," he says. "These vehicles are essentially solar panels and batteries on wheels. These are now record low-cost and can be built from sustainable materials." Apart from Aptera's no-charge technology, he appreciates the move toward no-conflict materials. "Not only is the time ripe but the youth movement is pushing toward conflict-free material and reducing resource waste....A low-cost solar fleet could be really interesting in relieving burden on the grid, or you could easily imagine a city buying a bunch of them and connecting them with mass transit." While he has followed all three new solar companies with interest, he has already ordered an Aptera car for himself, "because it's American and it looks the most different."
After taking a spin in the Sol, it is startling to switch back into a regular four-seater. Rolling out of Aptera's parking lot onto the freeway next to all the oversized gas guzzlers that need to stop every couple of hundreds of miles to fill up, one can't help but think: We've just taken a trip into the future.
Will religious people reject organ transplants from pigs?
Scientists are getting better at transplanting pig organs into humans. But religious followers of prohibitions on consuming pork may reject these organs, even if their bodies could accept them.
The first successful recipient of a human heart transplant lived 18 days. The first artificial heart recipient lived just over 100.
Their brief post-transplant lives paved the way toward vastly greater successes. Former Vice President Dick Cheney relied on an artificial heart for nearly two years before receiving a human heart transplant. It still beats in his chest more than a decade later.
Organ transplantation recently reached its next phase with David Bennett. He survived for two months after becoming the first recipient of a pig’s heart genetically modified to function in a human body in February. Known as a xenotransplant, the procedure could pave the way for greatly expanding the use of transplanted vital organs to extend human lives.
Clinical trials would have to be held in the U.S. before xenotransplants become widespread; Bennett’s surgery was authorized under a special Food and Drug Administration program that addresses patients with life-threatening medical conditions.
German researchers plan to perform eight pig-to-human heart transplants as part of a clinical trial beginning in 2024. According to an email sent to Leaps.org by three scholars working on the German project, these procedures will focus on one of the reasons David Bennett did not survive longer: A porcine infection from his new heart.
The transplant team will conduct more sensitive testing of the donor organs, “which in all likelihood will be able to detect even low levels of virus in the xenograft,” note the scientists, Katharina Ebner, Jochen Ostheimer and Jochen Sautermeister. They are confident that the risk of infection with a porcine virus in the future will be significantly lower.
Moreover, hearts are not the only genetically modified organs that are being xenotransplanted. A team of surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham successfully transplanted genetically modified pig kidneys into a brain-dead human recipient in September. The kidneys functioned normally for more than three days before the experiment ended. The UAB team is now moving forward with clinical trials focusing on transplanting pig kidneys into human patients.
Some experts believe the momentum for xenotransplantation is building, particularly given the recent successes. “I think there is a strong likelihood this will go mainstream,” says Brendan Parent of NYU Langone Health.
Douglas Anderson, a surgeon who is part of that kidney xenotransplant team, observes that, “organ shortages have been the major issue facing transplantation since its inception” and that xenotransplantation is a potential solution to that quandary. “It can’t be understated the number of people waiting for a kidney on dialysis, which has a significant mortality rate,” he says. According to the advocacy group Donate Life America, more than 100,000 people in the U.S. alone are waiting for a donated organ, and 85 percent of them need a kidney.
Other experts believe the momentum for xenotransplantation is building, particularly given the recent successes. “I think there is a strong likelihood this will go mainstream,” says Brendan Parent, director of transplant ethics and policy at NYU Langone Health, a New York City-based hospital system. Like the UAB team, surgeons at NYU Langone have had success coaxing modified pig kidneys to work in deceased humans.
“There is a genuinely good chance that within a generation, (xenotransplantation) might become very common in reasonably wealthy countries,” says Michael Reiss, professor of science education at University College in London. In addition to his academic position, Reiss sits on the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a nonprofit that is one of Britain’s most prominent watchdogs regarding medical and scientific issues. Reiss is also an Anglican priest and has studied xenotransplantation from both a scientific and religious point of view.
Moreover, genetic modifications could one day lead to organs being specifically optimized for their recipients. That could ensure issues like donor rejection and the calculated risk of artificially suppressing recipient immune systems become concerns of the past.
Major bioethical, religious concerns
Despite the promise of xenotransplantation, numerous bioethical issues swirl around the procedure. They could be magnified if xenotransplantation evolves from one-off experiments to a routine medical procedure.
One of the biggest is the millennia-long prohibitions Islam and Judaism have had regarding the consumption of pork. Will followers of these religions assume such rules extend to those taboo materials being inserted into a human body?
“Initially, one’s instinctual reaction is that, oh, crumbs! – how are Jews and Muslims going to react to that?” Reiss says. But in a world where science and secularism are accepted on an everyday basis, he notes it is not a significant issue. Reiss points out that valves from pig hearts have been used in human patients for decades without any issues. He adds that both Islam and Judaism waive religious dietary restrictions if a human life is at risk.
“While nobody's saying an individual patient is to be forced to have these, the very high proportion of people who identify as Jews or Muslims when given this option are content with it,” he says.
Concurring with Reiss is Michael Gusamano, professor of health policy at Lehigh University and director of its Center for Ethics. He is currently performing research on the ethics of xenotransplantation for the National Institutes of Health.
“Leaders from all major religions have commented on this and have indicated that this is not inconsistent with religious doctrine,” Gusamano says in written remarks to Leaps.org. “Having said that, it is plausible to believe that some people will assume that this is inconsistent with the teaching of their religion and may object to…receiving a xenotransplant as part of routine medical care.”
A history of clashes
Despite those assurances, science has long clashed with theology. Although Galileo proved the planets revolved around the sun, the Catholic Church found him guilty of heresy and rewarded his discovery with house arrest for the last decade of his life. A revolt occurred in mid-19th century India after native-born soldiers believed the ammunition supplied by their British occupiers had been lubricated with pork and beef tallow. Given they had to use their mouths to tear open ammunition pouches, this violated both the tenets of Islam and Hinduism. And one of the conspiracy theories hatched as a result of COVID-19 was that the vaccines developed to fight the disease were the “mark of the beast” – a sign of impending Armageddon under evangelical Christian theology.
The German xenotransplant research team has encountered such potential concerns when the procedure is regarded through a religious lens. “The pastors in our research suspected that many recipients might feel disgust and revulsion,” they write. “Even beyond these special religious reservations, cultural scripts about pigs as inferior living beings are also generally widespread and effective in the western world, so that here too possible disgust reactions cannot be ruled out.”
The German researchers add that “Jewish and Muslim hospital pastoral workers believe possible considerable problems in this respect, which must be dealt with psychosocially, religiously, and pastorally prior to a possible transplantation in order to strengthen the acceptance of the received organ by the patients and their relatives.”
Parent, the director at NYU Langone, shares a concern that xenotransplantation could move “too fast,” although much of his worry is focused on zoonotic disease transmission – pig viruses jumping into humans as a result of such procedures.
Another ethical issue
Moreover, the way pigs and other animals are raised for transplants could pose future ethical dilemmas.
Reiss notes that pigs raised for medical procedures have to be grown and kept in what are known as a designated pathogen-free facility, or DPF. Such facilities are kept painstakingly antiseptic so as to minimize the risk of zoonotic transmissions. But given pigs are fond of outdoor activities such as wallowing in mud and sleeping on hay, they lead “stunningly boring lives” that they probably do not enjoy, Reiss observes.
Ethical concerns with using pigs may push transplantation medicine into its next logical phase: Growing functional organs for transplant in a laboratory setting.
“There’s no doubt that these research pigs have gotten much better veterinary care, et cetera, (compared to farmed pigs). But it’s not a great life,” Reiss says. “And although it hasn’t so far dominated the discussion, I think as the years go by, rather as we’ve seen with the use of apes and now monkeys in medical research, more and more theologians will get uncomfortable about us just assuming we can do this with…pigs.”
The German research team raises the same concerns, but has taken a fairly sanguine view on the topic. “The impairments of the species-typical behavior will certainly provoke criticism and perhaps also public protest. But the number of animals affected is very small in relation to slaughter cattle,” the German researchers note. “Moreover, the conditions there and also in several animal experiments are far worse.”
Observers say that may push transplantation medicine into its next logical phase: Growing functional organs for transplant in a laboratory setting. Anderson, the UAB transplant surgeon, believes such an accomplishment remains decades away.
But other experts believe there is a moral imperative that xenotransplantation remain a temporary solution. “I think we have a duty to go in that direction,” Parent says. “We have to go that way, with the xenotransplantation process (as) a steppingstone and research path that will be useful for bioengineered organs.”
The Friday Five: Scientists treated this girl's disease before she was born
In this week's Friday Five, scientists treated this girl's rare diseases in utero. Plus, how to lift weights in half the time, electric shocks help people regain the ability to walk, meditation is found to work as well as medication, and much more.
The Friday Five covers five stories in research that you may have missed this week. There are plenty of controversies and troubling ethical issues in science – and we get into many of them in our online magazine – but this news roundup focuses on scientific creativity and progress to give you a therapeutic dose of inspiration headed into the weekend.
Here are the promising studies covered in this week's Friday Five:
- Kids treated for diseases before they're born
- How to lift weights in half the time
- Electric shocks help people regain the ability to walk
- Meditation just as good as medication?
- These foods could pump up your motivation