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Turning radius
updated 2 months, 1 week ago
19 Members
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23
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Hello, new member here. Live in Oakland, Ca. I did a search but couldn’t find anything. Anyone know or hazard a guess as to the turning radius?
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It’s all on the structure of the front. The pods could turn about 60 degrees without hitting the body and provide their own thrust. I suspect it should be better than basically anything that doesn’t have 4 wheel steering
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The only comment that I recently heard about regarding the turning radius was from Aptera’s website update: “Roush, recognized global leader in engineering, prototyping, testing and manufacturing, is driving new advances in Aptera Motors’ solar electric vehicle (sEV) as the company nears completion of its Beta development phase. Among the enhancements to the ultra-efficient design include improvements to turning radius, geometry, door seals and latches.” So whatever the turning radius was, it’s better now.
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Probably not related to turning radius but to other unknown reasons, I noticed on the Jay Leno spot, his turns were always very large, often going into the next lane before straightening out. I’m thinking maybe they were a function of the video production needing certain things to happen. But it got me wondering.
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Have taken this out of some Aptera video. Won’t say how big it is though.
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Yes. in the early days I heard.. “ Similar to a same size car”. IMHO with Roush’s help and the betas coming I’d wait to ask after they hit the road. Production intent model is what counts. We don’t even know if the three Alphas had torque vector, which may factor in to that turning radius FWD vs AWD ¯\_(~̃ ͜ʖ°̃)_/¯ But ….what do I know….
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Just estimating based on the website graphic:
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Hope it is better than 23 ft. My Hyundai Ioniq hybrid’s turning radius is 17.5 ft.
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23 feet is still quite reasonable. most cars are ~30+ feet. Really surprised how tight the ioniq and current fortwo are.
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Turning circle is another relevant specification. My Hyundai Ioniq hybrid’s turning circle is listed as 34.8 ft. Turning circle not to be confused with turning radius. For comparison, the turning radius of a Jeep Cherokee is 18.6 to 19.0 based on tire choice.
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I’ve gone from a Ford Fiesta with 17.8 feet to a Honda Accord with 19.8 feet to a Cadillac DeVille with 22.0 feet. As I’ve aged, the rides have gotten nicer, but the parking lot experience has gotten annoying. With the estimated Aptera being 23.8 feet 🙁
Curtis, I don’t know how you got the figure that most cars have at least a 30 ft radius.
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I found a big chart but must have missed that it was turning circle not radius. Your right 23 kinda sucks. When you consider it doesn’t need to transmit physical rotation from the body to the wheels you’d think it could be extremely tight. Hopefully we will get something official eventually as that graphic might just be for illustration and not scaled correctly.
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Possibly the radius could be reduced by applying some torque vectoring when the steering hits a limit.
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It is also possible to dramatically reduce turning radius by replacing wheel pants with smaller fenders and modifying the steering to give it more angle. Note practical but an idea.
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From what I have gathered torque vectoring provides turning assistance when a vehicle is in motion at or above a threshold speed. I don’t believe it will help for low velocity (like slow parking lot maneuvers or stationary) turning.
Paul
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Paul,
Arcimoto has just added torque vectoring to its 3 wheeled FUV. One of their main reasons for doing so was to improve low end speed problems with turning the heavy front end, especially when parking. Videos from reviewers have confirmed that it makes an amazing difference.
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Torque vectoring will definitely tighten the radius by slowing the inside wheel. On 3 wheel drive Apteras, the inside wheel can be reversed while the outside wheel is equally forwarded and the tail wheel spun to reduce friction. Messy but effective tank turn. Mind the glass…
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That’s a different issue though. Archimoto’s problem was that it was physically difficult to turn the heavy front end. Their torque vectoring at low speeds acts basically like power steering. For Aptera, the problem is in the geometry itself. Longer vehicles inherently have bigger turning radii, and larger wheels (or large wheel covers in this case) also exacerbate this issue, as it is difficult to design for them. As it is, the Aptera’s wheels are pushed out sideways basically to the limit, and moving them forwards would just increase the length issue.
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My old 2001 Prius was 15.4′ I do like being able to make a U-turn on a city street without having to do a three point turn. In Europe they are really going to need a tight radius.
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I remember the video that turning radius picture was taken from. It was showing that the turning radius was improved over that of the Alpha. Notice there are two circles in that picture. One is about 39.4 feet diameter or 19.8 feet radius while the other (Alpha) is about 46.6 feet diameter or 23.3 feet radius. If you want other evidence that the turning radius will be good go watch the video of the skid pad g-force testing where Beta is squealing the tires in a tight turn in a parking lot.
https://youtu.be/V88RhwLEb3I at 11 seconds into the video.
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This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by Francis Giroux.
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This reply was modified 3 months, 1 week ago by
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I would like to see a video of the Aptera doing a U-turn at an intersection onto a two-lane street. Anyone have any ideas on if that is possible with all these radius numbers being thrown around in this thread?
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I would suggest waiting until a gamma or delta vehicle is ready. Until that point there will be many configurations of Aptera Betas for specific testing which will not be representative of the production configuration of the vehicle. the Alphas don’t have power steering, the revised suspension, or production size batteries. The steering system Yoke, power, and any surprises is not finalized as well.
The net of all of this is that old turning radius diagrams or data are no longer valid and no production turning information will be available for a while.
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So same as a honda accord at 19.8 feet. Can a Honda Accord do it?
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