Aptera Turn Radius?

[Zac Courtney]

Hi All!

I’m wondering, has anyone come across what Aptera’s turn radius will be? I’m expecting it will be looser than a Prius C, but tighter than a honda civic.

• This discussion was modified 3 weeks, 3 days ago by  Zac Courtney. Reason: Found a better Gif

[Gordon Niessen]

I hope it is fairly tight. I have a 2001 Prius and have enjoyed being able to do a 180 in a normal city street. Really surprised drivers license tester that was trying to see how I handled a 3 point turn. I do hope the Aptera can get close to that.

[Zac Courtney]

@Gordon, Exactly! Since the two-seater will be wider and longer than my current compact, it’d be a tremendous advantage in cities to have tight turns and comfortable clearance. 🤠

[kerbe2705]

@Zac Courtney I’m guessing it’s another one of those “wait and see” questions: Until the design of the front wheel pants is finalized they won’t know how much the front wheels can turn without impacting the body.

[George Hughes]

If you go back through some of the Beta videos, I recall seeing them saying the Aptera’s front wheel geometries were improved for handling, including a tighter turn radius.

You’ve got to remember that in addition to steering angles, Aptera has another advantage, torque vectoring. This in essence means that with the proper programming and possibly a Harbor freight furniture dolly on a non-powered rear wheel, you could make tank turns.

How accessible this ‘feature’ might be is not clear, at least for a stock Aptera. I’m hoping someone will create an ‘app’ that will allow such turns in what I would characterize as “parade mode” along with some ot her practical limits on speed and operation. I don’t think HF dolly would be very safe at speeds above 15 mph – perfect for a parade.

[Jerry Freter]

I am not convinced that the Harbor Freight car dollies are safe at speeds above 0 mph, or even in a garage. I would want to load test them before I use them on anything important.

[David Marlow]

When the first prototype was built there were some tests done with torque steering (zero turn?), it will be interesting with how much of that will be allowed in the final version