New Company Set To Resurrect the Aptera 98
Zothecula writes "Ever since it was first unveiled in 2007, many people were captivated with the sleek, futuristic looks of the Aptera. When Aptera Motors went out of business in 2011, not having commercially produced a single vehicle, those same people were understandably disappointed. Now, word comes that a new company may be manufacturing and selling Apteras as soon as next year."
Says the article: "Aptera USA has most of the original company’s prototypes, equipment, patents and designs, so it wouldn’t be starting from scratch. Given that fact, Deringer hopes that Aptera USA could be making cars as early as the first quarter of 2014. He’s currently in the process of hiring engineers, and the company has already put in an order for 1,000 bodies from its Detroit-based supplier." Until there really is a super-charger network from central Texas to California, I wish I could get one of the gas-powered (or gas-electric hybrid) Apteras. Why should Tesla have all the fun?
Re:What a lame ass piece of junk! (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, I've driven the 'tad-pole' design for a while. It is WAY more stable than the single wheel forward three wheelers. Stop being a dick.
That is false. (Score:3, Informative)
You can claim these are the same things, and Libertarian and Republican fat cats will totally agree with you, but they simply aren't. Let me explain.
A government can use empirical data of existing damage and cost externalization to guide taxation - thus picking losers or it can make uninformed decisions based on hypothetical projections - thus attempting to pick winners.
Notice that one of these two processes is easily manipulable by nearly anyone - when you aren't using empirical data, it's all just handwaving and shouting and the loudest sociopath wins. Tax breaks for Solyndra and Fiskar? Please. Those companies never had a chance in the market regardless of taxation because they had no customers or business plan. Giving them money was a political handout even though the clueless, technically ignorant politicians doing it had no way to know that.
But when Congressman Whitenose can look up and actually see smokestacks belching filth into the sky, and his staffers can analyze real data showing who is driving up healthcare costs in the Congressman's district, he doesn't have to guess at a mythical future, he can examine the past and present and know the truth.
So picking losers is not the same as picking winners. It's the difference between creating harmful market distortions and creating a fair market - not a totally free laissez faire market (where Murder Incorporated always wins) but a FAIR market, where cost displacement onto taxpayers by favored entities is not permitted.
Semantic quibblers and corporatist meme-shoppers will always claim that taxing known bad actors is the same as funding hypothetically good actors. Don't fall for it. You could also claim that Achilles can never outrace the tortoise, because the Greek continually has to cover half the ground and then half of that et cetera ad infinitum. But Achilles kicks the tortoise's armor plated ass in the real world. Future prediction is fundamentally different from acting on empirical data, and government should always favor the latter.