US start-up company Accelerated Composites LLC has designed a composite hybrid automobile that will achieve 116.82 km•L–1 (330 miles per gallon) of petrol due to its design and through the use of composites in its manufacture.

The two-seater automobile, named Aptera, features an aerodynamic design that, the developers say, will give the automobile a drag factor lower than any other mass-produced vehicles of its type. Accelerated Composites’ founder and Chief Executive Officer, Steve Fambro says “Rather than designing to a styling aesthetic, like the big auto makers do, we hew to an efficiency and safety aesthetic.”

By constructing the vehicle almost entirely from composite materials, Fambro says the Aptera will be incredibly lightweight at 386 kg (850 pounds)—which would make it the lightest automobile on the road. Its construction is based on the so-called driver-protection “crash box” that is typically used in Formula One motor racing. “Composites are enormously strong and lightweight. That’s why all the aircraft manufacturers are switching to them,” Fambro says.

Over 90% of the automobile will be composed of composites, including the seat structure, swing, and upper and lower control arms. While Fambro does not want to reveal too much detail regarding the types of composite used, he does say that the prototype did not use any prepregs and was mainly constructed using wet lay up in a vacuum cure.

The vehicle uses lightweight core throughout the sandwich panels, some of which use synthetic materials, while others are engineered natural products. Reinforcements used include carbon, glass (Rutan weave 7715 and 7725) and aramid (Kevlar) fibres. The company is currently in negotiation with a manufacturer of environmentally friendly food-based epoxies, Fambro adds.

Presently the major automobile manufacturers have not converted to large-scale use of composites in their vehicles because “they haven’t figured out cost-effective manufacturing processes for composites,” Fambro notes. However, Accelerated Composites plans to use a proprietary composite construction that will significantly lower the cost of building the Aptera, compared with most other composite construction methods and even steel. The patent-pending process, called Panelized Automated Composite Construction, can effectively be used with parallel assembly, and will also allow off the shelf engines and electric motors to be integrated cheaply.

The automobile will be 4.3 m (173 inches) in length, with a front wheel track of 1.6 m (64 inches). Accelerated Composites forecast that the automobile will retail at $20 000.

Based on a “fairly conservative sales model”, Fambro predicts sales figures of 1% of the total hybrid market in the USA, in the first two years, rising to 4% by the end of the fourth year of production. The company expects Aptera to be in full-scale production within two to three years, if funding remains on schedule.

For further information, please contact: Steve Fambro, Accelerated Composites LLC, USA; tel: +1-760-908-3051; E-mail: sfambro@acceleratedcomposites.com; Internet: www.acceleratedcomposites.com