Right Hand Drive

[john-malcom]

Being left handed (In the right as in correct mind) I believe you have this backwards ????

[llewellyn-evans]

Do we know when the right hand drive will start coming off the production line?

[gabriel-kemeny]

I would not count on it till at least a year after production starts.

[LordChad]

I’d gladly take an aptera with wrong sided driving. It would give me flashbacks of 18 months in Japan. Over there I did stupid stuff in my Subaru Legacy………like going 160kph on their highways.

[john-malcom]

Not sure the market will justify a right had drive Aptera for some time even in Europe where the majority of driving is on the right side of the road. Certainly none of the prototypes being advanced to production are right hand drive

[andrew-mclean]

Is there any word that the international roll out will include RHD?

[harry-parker]

Yep. RHD option has been confirmed. Probably 2024 at the earliest though.

[steven-ball]

Is the Australian version a right-hand drive?

[harry-parker]

Doesn’t it need to be by law? Of course, that “2024” I wrote in early 2022 is “2025” now.

[steven-ball]

Thanks, @harry-parker

[Mike-Mars]

If I remember correctly, the Australian market also requires the vehicle to be narrowed by 0.2M, just like the EU+UK market (EU market needs a footprint of 2Mx4M or less for 3 wheeled vehicles under the L5e-A regulations, IIRC Oz has the same 2M width restriction, but as far as I know doesn’t restrict the length).
A year or two after production of the Launch Edition seems reasonable.

[steven-ball]

Thanks, Mike,

I’m new to this and that’s very helpful

[curtis-cibinel]

Changing the width/length and drive side while minimizing overall part changes will be significant reengineering. This is akin to the difference between the tesla model 3 and y. Seats, dash, batteries, powertrain, electronics, wheel pants, rear suspension and misc hardware could be potentially be shared but it is still a significantly different vehicle.

[Mike-Mars]

> “Seats, dash, batteries, powertrain, electronics, wheel pants, rear suspension and misc hardware”

The parts I see as most likely requiring a change are the body, front suspension, dash, and centre console. I’m not sure about the rear suspension, maybe the hatch can be truncated without changing that?

• This reply was modified 4 weeks ago by  Michael Marsden.