-
Can Aptera keep the manual steering?
updated 7 months, 3 weeks ago
9 Members
·
15
Posts
-
For those of us who have enjoyed old sportscars, one of the great pleasures of driving is the feedback from the steering – the surface of the road, the weight transferring onto an off of the front tires, the load building as you enter corners and fading off as you exit. Can the manual steering be kept as an option? The car’s light enough that 70-year-old Jay Leno didn’t have trouble with the effort.
-
While regular driving is not a problem with the manual steering, parking may be. Also keeping the number of mechanical options down keeps assembly simpler. A question of how many are interested in getting the self driving option or adding it later will be of concern with that issue.
-
I’m with you, Charles. I much prefer the tactile feedback of a manual steering mechanism. In the pursuit of minimal weight it would be one less component(s) in the curb weight of the vehicle. The parking effort that we might experience has to be considered I suppose. I believe the current iteration of the vehicle has 195 cross section tires. My 2006 Honda Insight weighed about the same as Aptera at <2,000 lbs. but had 155 cross section tires. These were no problem at all in a parking situation. Tires with 195 cross section would have much more resistance to turning in comparison. That said, I’d prefer manual steering if it wouldn’t take Dwayne Johnson biceps to park.
-
I also miss unassisted steering, and wonder why people perceive it as a necessity regardless of a car’s weight.
They have discussed using independent control of the hub motors to provide steering assistance at low speeds. This could be done with no increase in weight or mechanical complexity, and has been shown to work for Archimoto. Beyond low speeds, no assistance should be needed in a light car.
Narrower section tires would make steering easier and reduce rolling resistance as well as drag. The problem is that given the current fashion for wide tires, and the hub motors’ need for a relatively large diameter wheel, you risk ending up with a specialised and hard to get size such as that on the BMW i3 or the Smart For2
-
You can’t have manual steering and also have any sort of self driving. They are offering a Level 2 package, which I’ve selected on my reservation, so they are planning on having some features which I would guess would just be lane keep and hopefully dumb summon.
-
I guess given the choice between the two, I’d take manual steering, but I know I’m in the minority. Very few drivers today have ever experienced really good manual steering, and so don’t know what they are missing.
-
What I’d really like to see is three wheel steering which would make parking much easier. I doubt they will do that but I think they do have plans for torque vectoring which the hub motors make possible.
-
-
My current car (04 matrix) was my first vehicle with power steering. It doesn’t take a ton of strength to resist the feedback of a normal vehicle and the response was something I really missed (except when driving 60km up washboard dirt road). Losing safety features to get it back it really not worth it but I do wonder about the technical possibility of faking it with solonoids, sensors, and software.
-
The self-driving features are optional. I suspect the Venn diagram of customers who want self-driving features and customers who want manual steering is a pair of spectacles – power steering should come in the automation package.
-
-
I believe torque steering is only possible with steer-by-wire and that modern advancement might be worth more than the good-old-days mechanical feedback. After almost 60 years of driving, I’m willing to move on.
-
As deployed in the Archimoto it is definitely not steer by wire. The mechanical connection between the handlebars and the front wheels is still there. In fact it can be deployed to existing Archimotos (Archimoti?) by software update.
-
-
As mentioned in order to provide a level 2 semi-autonomous Advanced Driver Assistance System there needs to be an electronic power steering (EPS) that can respond to commands via the CAN bus. The negates any manual steering option. I’ve been running a level 2 system on my daily commute and it really does make the 62-mile one-way trip very ‘chill’.
Paul
-
electric steering could at least replicate manual steering at least at a less intense level of feedback, so its gives at least some interaction with just software switch on/off. they say porsche has recently done considerably well in this vs how its been. a screw on manual connection for more naturally progressive more intense steering feedback might be possible, would make the difference taking advantage of light weightness. yes its too wide, but that doesnt really ruin sportiness either. its hard selling this car in todays mass psycho culture, it needs whatever sportiness it can get, and a removable steering rack (screw in and out from inside, after screwing off the dashboard) would probably be lighter and less expensive than more anti NVH material plus more satisfying, b/c if most people buying 2 seater arnt buying 2 seater for exceptional NVH isolation that many other cars have and aptera already is rather harsh ride at least b/c of the rear suspension. best to excel at something than be mediocre at many things, especially for 2 seater car in curent market.
-
The ADAS is optional, so the EPS should be included in the ADAS package.
-
-
see bently continental all wheel steering system. also, emulating drifting without burning tires as much, less toxicity, smell, and potentiall another way of manual control over car via lever to make up for loss in manual tranmission. also aerodynamic effeincy during lane change improves while giving next level minimum drama action (fitting for minimum feeling cars like rolls royce phantom , panamera, style car)
Swingarms with steering are already a well proven design in motorcycles, see BMW and Vyrus. Rear wheel steering would also aid in maneuvering stability at speed, a la the Moose Test. it can also excuse away some weight in chassis.
Viewing 1 - 8 of 8 replies