International Aptera Info

[fredrik-sandberg]

Hi!

I have a preorder but I live in Sweden. Any news about deliveries to Europe? Can I expect having the car next year?

[Biker]

Foreign deliveries are likely to be later than next year.

[bhtooefr]

A few days ago I posted a few thoughts on modifications to the design so that Aptera could fit into the L5e-A vehicle class over on Reddit, and thought I’d bring those comments here, with a few edits.

Realistically, I don’t think the first model will actually be sellable in any region following UNECE vehicle regulations – you can’t make a three-wheel category M1 or N1 vehicle, they’re forced into category L5, and category L vehicles are maximum 2 m wide, 4 m long, both of which they exceed.

The length (currently 4.37 m)… shortening that simply will increase Cd and decrease solar panel area, no way around it.

The width (currently 2.24 m)… apparently they don’t actually need such a wide track for stability (source from the FAQ spreadsheet), they need it for aerodynamic reasons, to keep the wheel pods away from the body shell to minimize Cd.

The ways to deal with that:

• Narrow the tires and then the wheel pods, which would reduce width and frontal area, at the expense of front traction, although Cd should be relatively neutral. Realistically, I’m thinking about 145 mm wide tires are about the narrowest they could practically go, from the currently specified 195 mm wide. (125 mm wide LRR tires exist, but only on 13″ wheels – AFAIK the Elaphe motors that Aptera’s using require a minimum of 15″ rim size – and only designed for a vehicle half the weight with an 80 km/h limiter.) That only gets you at most 100 mm of width back (this assuming you keep the inside edge of the tires’ location fixed, and therefore reduce the track width by 50 mm), though, and you need to get 235.2 to fit in the 2 m maximum.
• Narrow the body shell, which would reduce interior space, safety, and potentially solar panel area, but would reduce frontal area. Shouldn’t affect Cd significantly. Worth noting that Aptera ‘s moving the seats inboard by 25 mm (each I think – source from Transport Evolved), so that means there’s 50 mm of free real estate if Noir’s side impact space was acceptable. Now we’re to 150 mm of the 235.2 mm needed (and may be able to take more of that).
• Bring the wheel pods closer in to the body. This increases Cd due to accelerating the air between the wheel pods and the body shell, although it might slightly reduce frontal area due to reducing suspension arm length. It also reduces stability, but that should remain within acceptable parameters, and widens the turning circle. (There may be a point where it makes sense to take a frontal area hit and fair the wheels and suspension into the bodyshell as well to keep Cd down, instead of having separate pods.)

There’s also a couple things I don’t like about the 145 mm LRR tire selection – 145/65R15’s two applications are the front tires on the 450 Smart ForTwo and the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, both of which are RWD, so none of the 145/65R15 tires on the market are designed to be drive tires. If going for i-MiEV tires, though, it may also be reasonable to downsize the rear tire from 195/45R16 (or the potential for something 205 wide) to 175/60R15, which is the rear size for the i-MiEV, and therefore is available from the same vendors. That’d save a touch of frontal area to offset additional drag elsewhere.

A couple other thoughts I didn’t put into my Reddit comment: with 9″ of ground clearance for the belly, there may be potential to drop the bodyshell 2-3″, which would reduce frontal area for the rear wheel further, as well as restore at least some lost stability from narrowing things.

Worth noting that every modification other than narrower tires and wheel pods may well require a different bodyshell – hence my stating that I don’t expect the first Aptera to be available in UNECE regions. (And, the current FAQ does hint at this outcome.)

I’m not sure if the Elaphe motors are narrow enough to support a narrower tire – if not, then that option wouldn’t be practical without a motor redesign (and subsequent reduction in performance, although the European market may well accept that reduction in performance – a 0-100 km/h time of 8 seconds is decently quick there as I understand, where a 0-60 MPH time of 8 seconds is slow here).

[bhtooefr]

…so I decided to do a quick and dirty photo edit of a pic on the site, to show what an Aptera narrowed to 2 m wide solely through bringing the wheel pods in would look like.

It’s an ugly one, as I didn’t address the background properly.

At that narrow, you actually would need to fair the front wheels into the body instead (and then you’d want to consider going even narrower to minimize frontal area, at which point stability starts becoming more of a concern, as well as footwell packaging).

Also, it looks like, based on counting pixels (582 pixels between the outer edges of the wheel pods, 454 pixels between the outer edges of the body shell), the body shell is about 68.6″/1.74 m wide.

[max-conrad]

From FAQ:

What is the width across the front wheels?

Aptera is 88″ wide. We realize this may be wider than local regulations permit for some of our global customers and we working through this process with industry experts to ensure we can make Aptera available in Europe and the UK.

[robert-klasson]

I personally hope they don’t make any compromises in the aerodynamic design for the european market. Hopefully they can find another way, fitting it into one category or another. If there is no vehicle category where it fits in the EU regulations, I would like to believe this is a major oversight which should be corrected on the regulatory side, not circumvented by redesign.

[fanfare-100]

Hej Fred. Aptera said it would deliver anywhere. If you’re in Sweden that likely means an extra month logistically. It would also need to be a narrower Aptera variant for European specs. Aerodynamics would likely not suffer much but it may come at the expense of a little bit of stability, though some of that may also be mitigatable. Let’s see what the engineers come up with. My thoughts are that if your reservation number is anywhere beyond 17000 you’re likely to see your vehicle some time in 2023 if you’re in Europe.

[david-edward-ginty]

I am in Australia and the 2m wide restriction applies. I am now researching why Aptera cannot be classified as an M passenger vehicle. Autocycle is a US classification and there is an interesting discussion here https://www.ncsl.org/research/transportation/transportation-review-autocycles.aspx. Aptera has yet to resolve all the issues mentioned in this article. I believe they have employed a specialist to resolve the “Harmonisation” problem. Hope they can get it done before my order comes up.

My research so far indicates that many autocycles do not comply to safety requirements of M passenger vehicles but in Australia I have not discovered any reference to the number of wheels. I think Aptera may comply to the safety requirements. Do you have a link which specifically excludes 3 wheelers from being a M class car?

[joshua-rosen]

Just curious, why does Australia have the same width restriction as Europe? My recollections about Australian roads is that they were pretty much the same width as American roads. I get it about Europe, there are medieval streets in Italy that you have to walk down sideways but Australia was founded after the US and they don’t have any medieval streets.

[david-edward-ginty]

Australia is a signatory to the UNECE. My reading of the regulations is that someone has mostly done a cut and paste job between Australian Design Rules, ADR, and UNECE regulations and they got the 2m rule in the L class vehicles. A notable exception is that UNECE seems to require M Class vehicles to have 4 wheels. In the ADRs I have found no mention about 4 wheels for M Class vehicles.

As for wide cars, Australia does have wide open spaces and exceptionally wide roads especially where road trains (53.5m long usually 3 trailers and 2.5m wide) operate, and we do have urban areas and shopping center car parks. The widest vehicle you commonly see in Australia is a Toyota Landcruiser which is 183cm wide excluding mirrors. These often don’t fit in carpark spaces. The width of an Aptera is a concern, but if the design improves efficiency, and delivers the claimed performance I want one.

[llewellyn-evans]

Hi David,

This document says light vehicles (below 4.5Tons) can be 2.5m wide in NSW.

https://roads-waterways.transport.nsw.gov.au/documents/roads/safety-rules/standards/vsi-05.pdf

Am I looking at the wrong thing?

[david-edward-ginty]

In order to import a Motor Vehicle into Australia, we need gain approval from the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communication. Part of the approval process is compliance to Australian Design Rules (ADR). Once this is done we can import our Aptera into Australia. Then we take it to our State Authority. NSW as you point out allows light vehicles to be 2.5m wide and further into the document I found this:

“Car means a motor vehicle built mainly to carry people that:

• Seats not more than 9 adults (including the driver), and

• Has a body commonly known as a sedan, station wagon, coupe, convertible, or roadster,
and

• Has 3 or more wheels. “

It appears that NSW may well register an Aptera for road use but we still need Federal Approval. The ADRs have a 3 wheel category which has a 2m width limit but as I stated earlier the passenger car category doesn’t mention the number of wheels. Hopefully there is a way.

3 wheelers in Australia which have steering wheels and seats are rare. The Morgan 3 Wheeler is one and reading their web site it took 2 years to get approval. At the current pace Aptera may be ready to deliver our cars before that. Aptera is setting up an Ambassador program which I hope will support us in applying for Australian approval.

[mark-langenhoven]

I recall Chris saying something in one of the webinars that they might get an exemption to the width regulations due to being a low volume manufacturer. My concern is that they’re thinking of this as a solution to the legal problem rather than reducing the width to solve the practical problem.

Here’s a link to the relevant section… https://youtu.be/yIuv_igjfLI?t=2874

[Roshiyu]

I wonder if any of the Beta or Gamma models will be constructed to EU specs? If they’ve even worked that out by now.

[peter-van-achter]

88 inch or 2235 mm isn’t exceptionally wide by European standards. The total width (mirrors included) of some cars that are popular in here in Europe ;

Audi Q7 2212 mm , BMW X5 2218 mm , BMW X6 2212 mm , BMW X7 2218 mm , Citroën Spacetourer/Peugeot Traveller/Opel Zafira Life 2204 mm , Land Rover Discovery 2220 mm , Range Rover Sport 2220 mm , Range Rover 2220 mm , Mercedes V – Class 2249 mm , Renault Trafic 2283 mm , Tesla Model X 2271 mm , Volkswagen Transporter 2297 mm.

I don’t see a practical or regulatory problem.

[kevin-lyda]

I live in the west of Ireland in a rural area. The 2.2m width is a problem. Not just a regulatory problem, a driving problem. I find the 1.85m width of the Model 3 to be uncomfortable to drive. I’d honestly prefer a 1.8m width on most of the roads I drive.

I put my deposit down on the Aptera hoping to switch to it from my Model 3 for two main reasons: a smaller car and range. Being an even wider car is a problem for me.

If some folks on the Aptera design team want to pop over to Ireland I’m happy to drive them around and they can see how uncomfortable a 2m wide car is. They’ll see what I mean the first time they encounter a tractor/bus/lorry on L and R roads – and quite a few N roads.

[bruno-causse]

There is F150 pick-up alteady in France, so vehicule Can be large and légal.

Yes , WE will have some problèms with narrow streats into médiéval cities ????????????

Good news if mirror caméra légal in EU , i see on Honda E , it is great !

There is spécial advantage for 3 wheels in EU , perhaps it will easier to get COC .

For exemple , this 3 wheels is légal

[olivier-laroque]

This T-Rex is 3.5m x 1.98 m, so for sure, it’s legal

[Volker.Berlin]

Hi Aptera, can you shed some light on the requirements for homologation in the EU? What are the biggest challenges there, and how do you intend to deal with them?

[Volker.Berlin]

Hi Aptera, in the charging section of the Specs2022 document, there is mentioning of 50 kW DC charging and 110 V single-phase AC charging:

https://aptera.us/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Specs-2022.pdf

In Europe, 3-phase charging is standard, and there are two levels of it:

3 phases x 230 V x 16 A = 11 kW and 3 phases x 230 V x 32 A = 22 kW

Can you confirm that the Aptera will offer 11 kW AC 3-phase charging for Europe? I think that can be regarded as a minimum requirement. It would be very nice if Aptera could charge with 22 kW AC, too. Given the extreme efficiency of the Aptera, 22 kW would add approx. 200 miles of range in one hour, which is pretty close to “fast charging”! Public or semi-public AC charging stations are far more common, than DC chargers, and much cheaper.

[peter-jorgensen]

FYI – Aptera doesn’t pop on here super often but sometimes an employee does.

This is a very common question and there are multiple answers:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11Of3g6RYqstbXecs7j2UHHd_b8s5MebxEs-ZwkyMiiQ/edit?usp=sharing

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[Tom]

According to this The Driven article, published 2/1/2022, yes. The caveat (as is also the case for US availability) is that it could be earlier or later, they’ll know better as they get closer to production. But the article does confirm that “Aptera is looking at the regulations it would need to comply with to make the vehicle available to drivers in Australia.”

[John Higgison]

Hi.. hopefully this wasnt covered but i couldnt find anything.. If I pre-order an Aptera but I live in Canada what happens if they arent even making them for canada? Does anyone know if Aptera has any solid plans for when it might have cars in canada?

[bruce-mengler]

Three questions immediately come to mind.

1. Does Canada or your province have an “autocycle” vehicle classification?

2. Will you need a motorcycle license to operate the Aptera?

3. Will you need to wear a motorcycle helmet to operate the Aptera?

[993cc]

Also, any vehicle imported to Canada will have to meet Transport Canada specifications and be certified by them. Those specs differ in small details from US regulations.

[John Higgison]

This is what Im thinking about… I hope they have at least started a dialogue with appropriate regulators in certain states and provinces. It would certainly be in their best interest. I desperately want an Aptera but if I have to abide by some idiotic law and wear a helmut I’ll be looking at a tesla instead.

[KayleighVenne]

Hi everyone! We’re working with regulators to comply with the regulations in Canada so that we may begin selling it there in early 2023-2024, but we’re still working through our production schedule and this could be sooner. We are currently focusing on the finalization of our production-intent vehicle in the States; however, we will provide you with updates on the timing on your Aptera account page as we begin to ramp production. We’re excited to bring the Aptera vehicle to Canada and see no issue with receiving approval from Transport Canada. As more information is finalized, we will share it with all Aptera preorder holders in Canada. We are very grateful for the support we have received there. We’ll keep you updated on progress and timing as we continue our Beta phase of SEV development. Please let us know if you have any questions!

[rmy-bouchardy]

Hi every one,

I also live in Switzerland and the “major” problem with Aptera to be considered as a three wheels car is its dimension. The maximum width for a tricycle is 2 meters and the maximum length is 4 meters, that means 23cm too wide and 36 cm too long. So until the dimensions are changed, in Switzerland, the Aptera is considered as a normal electric car…

You can find the info here ( https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/1995/4425_4425_4425/fr ) Art.135 ( No english, sorry).

And yes, a smaller version for Europe would be better for our roads and park places. 🙂

[bdcoder]

I posted updated at:

https://aptera.us/community/discussion/ev-rebates-in-canada-information/

According to the Government of Canada Transportation site:
Funding of $92,919,522 was provided on April 1, 2022, to continue the iZEV Program. Budget 2022 provides an additional $1.6 billion to continue the Program until March 31, 2025. This funding will become available once Budget 2022 is approved.

https://tc.canada.ca/en/road-transportation/innovative-technologies/zero-emission-vehicles/program-statistics

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  Brent D..
• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by  Brent D..

[albert-koers]

Anyone else in the Netherlands (or Europe generally) having pre-ordered an Aptera? Please get in touch: a.w.koers@gmail.com. We may need to join forces on things like vehicle approval, insurance, etc.

[gert-ouderits]

Hi all,

My name is Gert, I live in Belgium, Europe. I am thinking of pre ordering an Aptera.

Are there already a lot of foreign pre orders, and which countries do most come from?

It’s a bit weird for me to place an order this far up front, as delivery will probably take years from now, but I would like to support the builders, even with the small pre order fee.

Grtz,

Gert. ✌️

[Tom]

Future Aptera Owners Map

This is definitely not a comprehensive map (only 500-600 of the reservations are shown; it’s up to the reservation owner to add their location to the map), but it does indicate a fair number of reservation holders in Europe.