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The Aptera Width Issue
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The Aptera Width Issue
updated 1 year, 4 months ago
71 Members
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119
Replies
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Not a problem in Alberta. Vehicles may be 8’6″ (102″) wide.
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Wheel width vs mirror to mirror width is comparing apples and oranges
Mirrors can be folded in. Tires. Not so much
The Hummer H1 is 86.5 inches (2.2 meters) wide
My friend had an H1 and it was nearly impossible to find a parking space it would fit in.
A motorcycle with a sidecar is only 64” to 69” wide
I’d be more inclined to believe the width of the aptera is based more on using “off the shelf parts” from other vendors to make them easier and less costly to build.
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I ordered my Aptera from here in Southern California about an hour north of the factory in Carlsbad. I would plan on using it here for at least a year.
I actually live on the east coast of Spain (lots of sun). As an American, I wouldn’t have to pay import duty (21%) if I’ve owned the car for a year or longer, it would be treated as personal property.
The width concern has caused me to think about the cars I’ve used there and how they worked out. I now have a Hyundai XG30, a car that is frequently compared in size with an Audi A6. That Hyundai is about 72″ wide. Parking in underground or enclosed public garages is frequently a challenge, from the size of the spaces to the small turn radii sometimes requiring me to back and fill to make it around the turn. Yes, it’s harder than other cars to parallel park but not impossible (usually). In other respects the size of the car is not a problem.
I once rented a Citroen C6 for two months so I got very familiar with it. It’s close to 74″ wide and I guess I wouldn’t want to go too much wider. Again, enclosed public garages were a challenge but nothing I couldn’t eventually triumph over. I used that car to take my mother, now 95, from Barcelona to Paris. I took a roundabout route that had me traversing the city of Toulouse on market day. You know how, when you squint your eyes enough, you can no longer see how close the sides of the car are to the carts and stands but can only see ahead and “feel” the space on the sides? Well that worked for me. Don’t ask me how, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Amazing, my mother was curled into a ball in the passenger seat but I never hit anything (that I know of). Aside from those examples, the size of the car was not a problem.
In Spain I would use the Aptera the same way I would use it here, errands and trips to the store. I live in the foothills of the coastal plain just north of Valencia. It’s not an urban area, there’s lots of room. I have a house that has plenty of secured outdoor parking. Occasional outings in the mountains, a trip to Madrid every couple of years.
Probably the biggest problem I, and anyone else in Europe, would face would be getting the car past it’s inspections. England has it’s MOT, Spain has it’s ITV. I’m sure every other country has it’s equivalent. I don’t know if Spain is worse but it can be very hard getting a vehicle through those inspections, especially if it is imported from outside Europe. I would expect to have to pay an automotive engineer specializing in “conforming” vehicles ($1000), bribes here and there (who knows!!), and the outrageously nitpicking and expensive “modifications” necessary (could be thousands).
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Guess what – Looks like Aptera is actually 85 inches wide (2.159 meters). They were able to trim a little off.
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Mirror to mirror width is a completely different animal than wheel to wheel, mirrors can be folded in out of the way, you can park with your wheels up against the edge of the curb i and 4-10 inches of mirror will overhang the curb, you put the aptera wheel up against the curb and you got 88 inches out into the roadway.
Also keep in mind. The average parking space in the USA is 7.5 feet to 9 feet
9 feet. Not an issue. 7.5 feet ? Big problem, considering how people don’t seem the be between the lines perfectly centered or straight.
7.5 feet = 90”. Leaving you 1” to spare on either side. Good luck with that. Or just don’t go there anymore.
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My concern is that Aptera is allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good-enough, and in their commendable zeal for lowest coefficient of resistance they will be reducing a niche vehicle to a micro-niche one—and in particular the width of the front wheel pants will prove to be its Achilles heel once it is out in the street in real numbers. Some here have pointed out that the full wheel width is no more than some other cars’ wing mirrors, to which I reply, But wing mirrors are sacrificial!, and a misjudgment in a “normal” car that results in a wing mirror scratch could, on an Aptera, result in serious damage. Here’s an example: have you ever tripped over one of those tall child dining chairs whose feet splay out for stability? You judge the width of the base by the width at the top, right? Wrong! So if your minimalist Aptera pod is parallel-parked curbside, with the outside wheel on or over the line, that distracted oncoming SUV driver who is late for child-care pickup and is trying to get around the double-parked UPS truck is going to make on-the-fly assumptions about where your wheels should be, and pretty soon you have yourself a two-wheeler.
Look, I will hold up my bleeding-edge car creds against anyone (my Insight is pining for Mt. Fiji), and am on the lookout to replace or supplement my i3 Electronaut in a few years time, and, well, I’m still looking.
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Ian, that is the best analogy I’ve heard or read yet. How many times have I tripped over my grand-kids high chair? Almost every time. I blamed it on wearing glasses which limits my peripheral vision. I am a cheapskate (free energy and very little maintenance costs) and I love the look and potential performance of the Aptera but I’m not going to take delivery until I see real world driving experiences.
” Here’s an example: have you ever tripped over one of those tall child
dining chairs whose feet splay out for stability? You judge the width
of the base by the width at the top, right? “
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Hi all.
Living in the UK the huge width of the Aptera is my main concern, that and the fact that you may not be able to see the extremities from the driving position, and other people also may not see how wide the vehicle is coming towards them on a dark leafy narrow twisty country road. I hope the marker lamps will be at the very furthest out points rather than on the prototype where they are in the middle of the wheel housing. I would rather a narrower body was offered as an option or Europe/UK spec.-
It will have to be narrower due to the L5e-A regulations. Maximum width 2M.
They’ve said that they have a homologation expert working on any changes required to sell into Europe.
Note that making it narrower might make the turning circle a bit bigger (the limiting factor is the size of the wheel pants, and the available gap between the body and the pants). … swings and roundabouts.
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The best solution includes narrower tires. Tires now are almost 8″ wide. Tires on my Honda Insight are about 5″ wide. You can save 6″ right there. The width is about 84.75″ now and we need 78.74″ (2 M). 84.75″ – 78.74″ = 6.01″ I’m sure they can squeeze another .01″ more out of the suspension, when they shorten the suspension and build new wheel pants, to fit the narrower tires. This way they won’t have to change the main body. Actually I am surprised that such a light vehicle is using such wide tires anyway.
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It’s the width between the outer hub surfaces where the rims make contact with the hubs that determine the width of the track. Rim offset won’t have much effect on the total wheel width…you can only have so much before putting extra stress on the bearings. So having narrower rims/tires will only change the distance between the insides of the rims/tires, not the overall track width. The body and/or the suspension arm dimensions will need to be altered to narrow the track width.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by V Pilot.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by
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Looking at the 12cm per side they need to save I did some crude editing of the nose in the old 43:1 STL. I rescaled it to 10:1 (mm=cm) then separated the wheel pods. By narrowing 12cm on each side, narrowing the nose and adding a notch to the body to receive the turning wheel pant it should work. It definitely isn’t as clean visually or aerodynamically as the original but given europeans TYPICALLY drive slower this shouldn’t be too bad (especially if removing the mirrors offsets some or all of this). The way the parts are shown in the CPC reveal the nose is separate and I deliberately kept the edits infront of the other components so only the nose and suspension would need to be changed in this concept.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WQ8wz4ZoZqW6U_QSnx9NgHKO4e82ZBPt?usp=sharing
Important: This is a very crude edit of the old 43:1 Aptera STL Model using meshmixer. It shows the concept only. Source files are in the above.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Curtis Cibinel. Reason: Removed images showing the length. Will add shortened version details and impacted major parts details soon
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Looking forward to the US intent APTERA, but at the same time I would rather have something narrower to actually drive and park in a more congested area like Chicago. I haven’t measured the newer markings that Chicago now seems to be expanding through out their main streets, but the new street markings now include a fairly wide bicycle lane. Even when driving my 70” wide i3 it feels like a squeeze. I try and avoid driving my 78” wide q7 all together unless absolutely necessary. It definitely has the effect of slowing traffic down, which I’m sure was the intent along with creating a bike freindly environment. Without getting ahead of myself, I would buy a narrower European version and forgo a bit of efficiency, if it were available?
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It was brought to my attention by the Aptera Owners Group discord that the L5e spec also limits to 4 meters long. This requires edits to the tail but are all behind the rear wheel. I will update the models to reflect the possibility of saving the required 37cm from the tail. I don’t think this would impact suspension and is essentially a different CF-SMC mold for the main tub, SMC side panel and hatch.
European localization to comply makes Aptera a substantially different vehicle from the outside but with some smart choices the majority of mechanical and cabin parts can be unaffected.
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I believe Gamma is even longer, so there might be more to cut off in length to reach 4 meters. I found another homogenization issue we might run into. The rear license plate: US version is 7¼ x 4¼ inch (184 x 108mm) – right? The smallest plate I found for Europe exceeds that with 255 x 130 mm and appears to be reserved for light motorcycle with max. speed of 80 km/h. Plus I found a ruling the so called “Harley-Davidson plates” are prohibited in Germany. Some guy was unsuccessful challenging court to use it for his Harley. The court argues a plate that small can’t be read properly on a bike that fast.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Titus Meusel.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Titus Meusel.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by
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By changing the rear CF-SMC tub to end shortly after the rear wheel, replacing the SMC side panel and the hatch they should be able to reuse the vast majority of the rest of the vehicle (drivetrain, rear suspension, battery, interior, wheel pants, roof, etc). This is obviously still a very big change but if really well designed the pack, drivetrain and cabin components can all be unchanged. Hopefully Aptera can get an exception to the L5e rules because this is still a large number of changes overall. Shaving length and width while keeping the majority of the vehicle the same would be a very expensive engineering rework.
- Front suspension shortened
- Nose pointed and indented for the relief when turning
- CS-SMC tub shortened
- SMC side panel on each side shortened
- Hatch shortened (and less solar as a result)
Files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WQ8wz4ZoZqW6U_QSnx9NgHKO4e82ZBPt?usp=sharing
Reminder: Models are very crude to just show the basic concept.
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It doesn’t matter how efficient it is when it can’t go where you want. The width between the 2 front wheels is too wide for a 2-seater autocycle. Here is the solution: less than 20% efficiency but can go almost everywhere you want.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Tim Ngo.
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To narrow aggressively isn’t just a question of efficiency. Without major changes to the nose like shown in my mockup the wheels wont be able to turn effectively which is kinda important. 74 inches means shaving another 2.5 inches per side above my mockup. Eliminating the center console and narrowing the body would result in massive parts rework but might be something to consider for a Aptera V2; Inline seating is another option when reworking at this scale.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by
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The width problem makes the Aptera likely impractical for us living close to downtown Santa Barbara. Our driveway is 90-92″ wide so constant damage to front wheel cover. A lot of roads here are fairly narrow with cars parked on both sides allowing compact cars to pass easily but wider SUV and trucks often have to stop to allow one to pass. Having the front wheels significantly wider than most SUVs in contrast to the main body I assume a lot of other driver will misjudge the width of the Aptera. This will also happen with the Aptera parallel parked on these streets. So not only a problem in Europe but also in urban situations in California.
I reserved the the all wheel version and I foresee width issues with driving on unpaved forest roads between rocks and also trees and other vegetation. Driving with a standard SUV both sides often will scrape bushes but being almost a foot wider could be even more an issue especially considering the width of ruts on the road.
The rut issue could also make winter driving problematic on not freshly plowed roads, especially if these snow ruts are frozen. Maybe the center back wheel also could driving with higher snow cover challenging.
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I have two cars, one 71.5″ wide (incl. mirrors) and the other 79.5″ wide (incl. mirrors) in a 16′ (192″) garage which leaves me about 30″ between them. If I park the Aptera and the 71.5″ car in the garage I’d have about 22″ between them; between the 79.5″ car & the Aptera will reduce that down to about 14″. However the distance will open up a little if I park the Aptera at a slight angle rather than straight in.
I’m planning on building a small 15′ x 25′ workshop/garage and had planned on an 8′ garage door. I now plan on having a 9′ garage door.
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