That is it for Aptera

[Frank Lee]

And now VW is on course to disappoint by pricing the XL1 at $50,000 or so.

I figured they'd be high, but not that high. It's time for Ford or someone to step up with their clone of it.

[drmiller100]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

It did not help them at the X Prize did it.

you can see that you can have more weight "on the front" yet still have more weight on that singular rear contact patch if the weight isn't biased forward ENOUGH.

?????????????

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

It did not help them at the X Prize did it.

Well actually it did help.
It did improve stability.
Stability was part of the competition.

Help yes ... compensate for all other Aptera deficiencies compared to all other x-prize competitors in all other parts of the competition , no.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

It is not enough for there to be a simple weight bias towards the two-wheel end on a trike. If you don't want oversteer on a tadpole- and you probably don't- you need to look at the load on each tire. When you do that, you can see that you can have more weight "on the front" yet still have more weight on that singular rear contact patch if the weight isn't biased forward ENOUGH.

Perhaps.

'ENOUGH' depends on the context / conditions , and criteria of what is 'ENOUGH'.

I'm not them so I can't know for certainty ... but perhaps that is why it was originally designed to have the comparatively lighter motor in the rear as a rear wheel drive to keep the comparatively heavier battery component in the more forward position... but the new company management wanted it done differently ... good or bad , they pulled rank , and ordered the redesign.

Of course 2 tire front wheel drive pulls out / handles significantly differently than a one rear wheel drive pushes / handles ... which is another reason I think the choice to change has pros and cons.

[Frank Lee]

?????????????

Let's say I pull one back wheel off a Metro to make a trike like this one. Let's say the empty car had 60% weight on the front axle and 40% on the rear, stock. Let's say it weighs 2000 lbs; there is 1200 lbs on the front axle and 800 on the rear. Definitely a huge forward weight bias right? As a four-wheeler each front tire has 600 lbs on it and each rear tire has 400. When we remove one back wheel, the remaining back wheel now has 800 lbs on it- MUCH more than each front at 600 lbs even though it "still has more weight on the front"! When the rear contact patch(es) are more heavily loaded than the front(s), it is easy to get oversteer.

Oversteer isn't automatically a bad thing- I have several rear-heavy cars. But it can get drivers who are accustomed to understeer in trouble.

Of course 2 tire front wheel drive pulls out / handles significantly differently than a one rear wheel drive pushes / handles

Without getting too far into the dynamics of handling by now getting into accelerating and decelerating in corners, as far as steady state corning, fwd or rwd shouldn't matter.

Actually I think fwd would have been the way to go on a consumer Aptera, but it has to be done right.

[gone-ot]

Frank -- is that picture titled: "And That's The SPARE Tire!"

[Frank Lee]

YES!!! If you're Smokey Stover!



Speaking of plag... I mean, sources of inspiration, I think I see where Dr. Suess got inspired...

[NeilBlanchard]

In general, I agree with many of the points that have been made; in particular the need to start small and improve and adjust as they went, and that the new management bunged it up royally. They wanted to go big -- like 10K units in a year, and that was not really doable.

But some of the details are not quite correct: the front wheel drive was a decision by the original management, and there were very good reasons for this. They strayed big time by insisting on full roll down side windows (instead of partial openings). This necessitated a complete reworking of the doors, and the chassis, and the weight was increased, which then required a bigger battery pack, which then moved some of the cells to the rear floor, which shifted the Cg -- and the original efficiency was transformed into a very average EV.

And yes, the front wheels were very wide, and the original intent was to be classified as a motorcycle.

We may yet see an Aptera 2e sold and on the road -- the IP is up for bid, and the founders will (probably) be in the hunt to buy things up. Or, at the very least they can redo based on what they have learned.

[Frank Lee]

What IP? There's Morelli's body shape, which after 30+ years must be public domain by now, and everything else needs rework.

[drmiller100]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Let's say I pull one back wheel off a Metro to make a trike like this one. Let's say the empty car had 60% weight on the front axle and 40% on the rear, stock. Let's say it weighs 2000 lbs; there is 1200 lbs on the front axle and 800 on the rear. Definitely a huge forward weight bias right? As a four-wheeler each front tire has 600 lbs on it and each rear tire has 400. When we remove one back wheel, the remaining back wheel now has 800 lbs on it- MUCH more than each front at 600 lbs even though it "still has more weight on the front"! When the rear contact patch(es) are more heavily loaded than the front(s), it is easy to get oversteer.
.

ahhhhh..... I hadn't thought about that. but, now that I have, I'm not overly worried.

In rainy or snowy conditions, it is actually entirely possible the more heavily loaded single tire will have more "traction" then dual rear tires, just like narrower tires are better then wider.

Also interesting is to look at roll centers - pretty hard to have a roll center for a single rear tire anywhere but at the ground, which makes the front roll center fairly interesting if your goal is "straight down the road with side winds and pavement grooves".

[Frank Lee]

It only gets worse when you add passengers and gear, as most layouts put passenger and gear weight overwhelmingly on the rear.