Did you hear homologation mentioned right away at 0:37. I guess this might be a narrower suspension? What other homologation is required in the chassis/suspension?
@@daveinwla6360 i know right its Litteraly a trike motorcycle, with a shell over it. Jesus fing christ. If japan and china already have these things. How hard is it to do the same with solar built in.
Beautiful! The patented rear wheel suspension system is very impressive. This video shows how much thought and practical research has to be done to bring this wonderful car to the market. We are shown Aptera features that are so new and original, there was no existing hard data available from earlier experiences, until extensive tests were done. This is a familiar problem for engineers entering new territory (I am an EE). The Aptera team needs a library full of knowledge, about chemistry and physics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, finance and mass manufacturing, laws and regulations, etc , etc ... enough to make a sane person mad. And still this most innovative car is going to be huge success! Now, that is team work.
It makes sense to transfer crash loads into the battery structure, but please confirm the interior baffling is flame retardant. I'd rather not see thermal run away from accidents like in early Teslas.
Keep supporting the repairability minset and you'll succeed. People are fed up with wallgarden software and empirical hold onto schematics and service manuals. Looking forward to driving one
I love that Aptera is volunteering this interview. The suspension needs to have progressive springs and/or magnetically heterological shocks in my opinion, partially in-part due to the different battery configurations and variance in passenger weight distribution and load. I'm an engineer for space aeronautical systems and it feels like cost was a huge contributing factor here, albeit a reasonable compromise. Buyers might turn their backs if it isn't more plush and sacrifice a 0.1 lateral g-force skidpad mark. As it stands, my opinion is track-mode Lotus Exige right now for "comfort" with near-zero side-bolstering on those seats. You need to "plush-if-y" the ride and allow more wheel skirt clearance for normal road use.
I can't wait for Aptera to hit the market!! I live in San Diego, so really looking forward to seeing some of the first production units on the road... and in my garage :D
i think a "Southern California" model would have been faster and easier to design/produce, especially the SOL version. Those sales could have funded the "world" version that needs all this extreme design work for weather, rain, dust, clouds, etc to contend with. A San Diego commuter would have been faster to production and in huge demand, imho
Great presentation Nathan, there is a lot of information conveyed in this short video. Love what you are doing Aptera, and how you are going about it!!
Wow folks, I love this data. In addition to being embarrassingly excited to drive our Luna; you also feed the aspiring engineer in me. Keep up the drive to production!
This is one of those design projects that offers not only great promise of utility to future owners, but also great benefits in the form of fuller pocketbooks and cleaner air for owners and neighbors. Seldom does a project have so much social promise.
You need to cover the high voltage cable tester with road salt and sand to get a real world result. I live in New England and road salt is what kills vehicles well before anything else. Thanks for being so transparent with your development process. It is great. I’ve got a reservation, just need heated seats and to feel confident that it will support V2B or V2G with a future upgrade before confirming my order. Excited that day will be here soon.
Thanks, Aptera, for keeping us posted. Now, we'll wait for Aptera Owners Club (AOC) to break it down for us. Most of us don't understand much until AOC weighs in.
Suggestion to Aptera for the suspension test jig for the HV cables: put a bunch of UV light and warmth/cooling on the test rig to simulate how the sunlight and environment will affect the durability of the insulation. Save yourself some warranty headaches.
Add some dirt, road salt, moisture, road chemicals, etc. to the mix too, if the wires aren't going to be completely sealed away from such. The addition of those abrasive and chemical wearing elements can make a big difference over time.
Exactly! Use physical tests to validate the computer model, so that you can confidently tweak your design in the computer. For too long, engineers have been taught to use computer modeling for approximations, and physical modeling for the final product. But that's too slow. If you get the computer model right, you can run experiments in the model instead of building prototypes.
Create an alias (wife maybe) and invest a separate $12000. That should put you in the first 500 or so. This gets everyone closer to the 2000 for production start.
This is the kind of presentation that makes me wish I was in a position to invest more right now. I'll keep spreading the word to push for having an Aptera to take out on the road soon!
Great vehicle concept! I wish for Apteras to change the World! I'm a little concerned that if driven in my city, the wheel skirts on Aptivas would be terribly vulnerable to the ravages of our notorious neglected potholes.
The only concerns I have about Aptera are: 1) Financing towards production 2) Real world suspension results. This video alleviates #2, especially potholes. Fantastic work, and thank you for this transparent information. This is, one of numerous reasons, why I invested in Aptera.
Does putting a lot of the crash energy into the battery pack increase the likelihood of it lighting on fire after an impact? How do you mitigate those risks?
of course it increases, you're putting energy into it, but the real question is does it increase the risk in a meaningful way. I think the bigger risk is puncture but their packs design seem to be pretty unlikely to allow puncture of cells enough that it would cause a fire.
I am planning on buying a 600 mile version for several reasons - one, I would rarely drive more than 6 hours a day on a road trip and with breaks, that would be under 400 miles. Second - I want to keep from using the top and bottom 20% of the battery for longevity, meaning that I would have an effective range of 360 miles. My question - will there be a setting in the software that I could set my own minimum and maximum charge ? Would I be able to toggle it on and off in case I am topping off the last 20% with solar during day to day use ? Thank you for your answer.
You offer three wheel motors but not three wheel steering. Rear hub motor with a king pin inside the center. Leave space for five degree steer so that research and development can advance possible benefits later on.
I'm looking at the steering column / linkage and wondering why Aptera didn't opt for Steer by Wire like Canoo did. Seems like it would reduce the number of parts which should be a manufacturing cost & time savings, as well as saving weight.
Yes, indeed a DBW steering system could reduce parts and probably weight, but it is not as safe as one with direct linkage of the steering to the wheels.
As with the suspension, they're keeping it passive/simple in the Launch ("Lame") Edition. Later, much more expensive models, I expect, would feature active systems.
Such exciting times! CONGRATULATIONS with progress on development! Impressive Simulations, FEA, and Chassis video. Nice durability test. Did you perform temp/vib ESS during any of those operations? My worry, it seems like alot of Fasteners and Parts in chassis design. Is a single casting NOT an option? Or is that expense pre-planned for after some degree of customer purchase history? Cheers. Eric
@@erickessler6094 - The plans are for the chassis parts to be forged by forcing a slurry of chopped carbon fiber and a plastic binder into 2-part steel dies. See RU-vid "Aptera is cutting steel ".
@Dave InWLA thank you! I look at the video, and the discussions and pretty panel shapes were magnificent but related to body, not the underlying chassis , as shown in the 1st 1/3 of this video. The renderings and the CAD dwgs show many parts and bolted members. I kind of expected the chassis with structural battery area to be 1 or 2 cast components. Thx again, Cheers! Eric
@@erickessler6094 I think they designed it in multiple parts so it would break into multiple parts like a formula car in case of a crash. at least that's my theory
Great work Aptera ! Will you bring and sell Aptera in African countries like Kenya theres a whole market of customers and funding from investors in Africa that should not be overlooked in the emerging strong African Economy seems like the perfect vehicle for many African people.
Testing wires with a moving jig is great and all, but what about environmental factors like long cold winters in more northern climates, and salt? I have a feeling both of those could be trouble for wire insulation. I don't need the power cables cracking when it's -30 F and stranding me. Note: I say this as a fan who wants the best for this vehicle.
-30°F can be mid-afternoon temps in Fairbanks, Alaska. in the winter. And how do the batteries perform at that temp? And at the other extreme, what happens when air temps are 140°F?
I asked for more car crash simulation, I got more car crash simulation. So cool. If you guys are done tinkering with the shape of the car, could you make the high res model publically available? This way the public can validate the aerodynamics.
This is the key area for me. I cant ride in cars with stiff suspensions due to my back. I ride in a civic ex with 16 inch tires, soft seats and soft suspension. Im wondering how that compares to this. Right now it looks like the suspension is pretty stiff.
Yes, it's overly stiff in compression damping, overly weak in rebound damping. Bad choice of shock absorbers. Just look at the video of the rear wheel motion and how it flings the rear of the vehicle upwards. Your back would be in pain.
I have concerns about the fender cowling scraping the ground at large potholes, rough roads, dirt roads, mud etc. Is the vehicle tested on these types of rough and damaged road surfaces?
You got the rear suspension information incorrect. It's not that the singe sided swingarm causes a change in wheelbase as it moves. It's the fact that there is a single pivot swingarm in the first place. Double sided swingarms also suffer from this problem. A four-bar link for the rear suspension is not, in itself, new. It's a well-known solution to this problem. I don't know what you got the patent on for that. Can you share the patent number please?
@@thatchwhistle - This whole 3-wheeler thing is a kludgey compromise. The best to hope for is that Aptera gets the capital to design and build a safe 4-wheeler.
@@thatchwhistle - Keep in mind that virtually no one in the public has actually driven a Delta model, and that a good percentage of "enthusiasts" are Aptera's unpaid "Team of Communicators". I can see this autocycle becoming a kit car for homebuilders, though. Novelty has its attractions.
@@thatchwhistle - :-) Aptera doesn't have to disappear. Who would supply the flexible solar panels and specially configured batteries and the in-wheel motors and the forged carbon parts for the kits?
@@skipondowntheroad5833 no kidding? It shouldn’t add more than 65 lbs and should provide many miles of extra charge if they can pull it off. I would only add it to the rear wheel. The tech has been around for 30 years on semi’s. The car weighs so little not sure how much energy they can get from it but it seems to bounce a lot so who knows.
I believe regen shocks are in the works at Elaphe, and they could well be combined with active suspension - also an Elaphe skill. And regen shocks would be irresistible to the Greenies. Maybe with the Lunch (pricier) Edition
We anticipate being able to start production 9-12 months after we meet our current funding objectives. We are hoping for later this year or early next. Your delivery timeframe will depend on several factors, including - how quickly we get to the start of production, our final regional rollout plan, which you will be notified of upon solidification, the date your reservation was made, and your configuration. Your patience and understanding are very much appreciated by all of us here at Aptera. Your aptera.us account dashboard will always have the latest information. We will have a more exact delivery timing estimate closer to the time of production. To receive your vehicle as soon as possible, we encourage you to configure the Launch Edition Aptera. You may also choose to participate in Aptera's Accelerator program for the opportunity to receive one of the first 2,000 vehicles produced.
3:10 what is meant here? The single swingarm and the four-bar linkage will both move forward or backwards, closer or further to the front suspension, as the spring is compressed or uncompressed. There is pretty much no difference. And because your vehicle is not RWD, there is no effect from the chain pulling on the suspension either, so really what is the difference in functionality between a single swing-arm and four-bar linkage in this case, can someone explain?
So in the Front Suspension Architecture there are two (2) fluid reservoirs, one of which is obviously the brake one. Any idea as to what the "floating" one might be?
They are constructing over a dozen production intent (PI) vehicles to be used f validation and crash testing. Real testing with real instrumentation for real results. I hope it passes with flying colors as any major reworks at this point would really hurt their production timeline.
Even a tiny seat or infant seat connection point might be helpful for young couples. Once the first kid gets to 5 it might be time for a new car. Seating for 3 adults might be a stretch without a redesign.
If you want to sell vehicles outside the southwestern deserts of the US, & in sunny California, please pay attention to corrosion protection. Engineers with aerospace backgrounds would be beneficial. Put your vehicle in a wet cold climate, & suddenly all your testing in ideal conditions becomes invalid.
I sourced high flex cabling on a few projects in my machine design days. It was always very important to control the bend radius effectively. Will the drive to motor cables be free standing at the flex points or will there be guides to keep them from flexing at too tight a radius?
I expect that the coil of cables and coolant hoses at the rear swing arm is to maximize flex radius. Temperature extremes plus ultraviolet light do exacerbate the effects of flexing, though. Time in the Real World does tend to surprise in that regard.
First question that popped into my mind is the elephant in the room. If this is going to be manufactured in different countries, whether it’s some of the pieces or many of them, then does that mean the price of that car is going to be drastically different in let’s say Cambodia than it is in the United States? I love the Aptera but I do think it’s fairly expensive for the common family. As of yet there’s no real policy for rebates for anyone and because it’s a three wheel it’s not eligible for any of the local underserved communities. I’m hoping policies are being influenced and that Aptera is looking through a larger scope as to access.
Aptera is trying for a different kind of production than most. Instead of building a few factories and shipping from a distance i do believe they intend to have portable assembly lines that they can set up in basically any warehouse
I wish that Aptera has used drive by wire like Canoo. It would make the yoke more useable with variable steering ratio. Also it would make it easy to provide right hand steering setup for the many places in the world that drive on the left.
