News Reporter: Welcome to Future Coach

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By Michael J. Coren

I’ve covered climate change, the environment and our planet — and what you can do to better sustain it, and yourself — over the past three years as The Washington Post’s Climate Coach. It remains one of the most important stories of our time.

But the questions that define our future have never been just about climate. They are bound up with how we build our homes, feed our families, innovate and use technology, earn and spend our money, raise our kids and protect our health.

So Climate Coach is becoming Future Coach, where I’ll field test this future. My goal is to bring you the most original ideas, experiments and practical advice that improve your life and our collective future. That means reporting from the frontiers of science and culture, where the most consequential answers are emerging.

I’ll publish my column each Tuesday and share it in this newsletter. A second email on Thursdays will answer reader questions and share your ideas.

Send me emails with suggestions for what I should cover at futurecoach@washpost.com (I read them all). Now let’s dive in.

Aptera's solar-powered two-seater is due to go on sale later this year. ((Maansi Srivastava for The Post))

Driving on sunshine

On a recent drive along the California coast, I passed gas stations knowing that the sun was filling my tank free of charge. Gas prices, I hardly knew ye.

The first electric vehicle debuted in the 1830s. Powering one with the sun? A (pipe) dream for decades. In the 1960s, one intrepid engineer bolted solar cells to a 1912 Baker Electric that maxed out at 20 mph. Drivers have raced on nothing but sunlight in the Australian Outback since the 1980s. But none of these science experiments have ever made it into the hands of a driver like me.

Until this summer.

I recently test-drove what is set to be the first solar-powered production vehicle capable of completing the average American’s daily commute on sunshine alone. To see if this concept had wheels, I headed down to Aptera Motors, the lone survivor of the solar car race, in Southern California.

I was braced for disappointment.

Solar-powered cars have a long, distinguished history of failing. In 2023, Dutch start-up Lightyear went bankrupt, and Germany’s Sono Motors gave up. Aptera itself shut down in 2011, after burning through tens of millions of dollars from investors, before being resurrected in 2019 by its founders, Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony.

When I arrived at Aptera’s factory in Carlsbad, I was greeted by a vision clad in carbon fiber and solar panels. Imagine a marriage between an airplane and a speedboat, if the nuptials were held on Mars. That’s an Aptera. When I took the validation vehicle out onto public roads, I learned I’m not the only one who thinks this is a good thing.

I’ve never attracted more attention around town than I did test-driving this head-turner. As soon as we came into view, people stopped to snap photos or rushed over, curious or covetous, wanting to know where to buy one or asking if this two-seater spaceship was from the future — which, in a way, it is.