🤔... Too much?... You are retired😎 There is just the two of you now.
You live on a set budget But your going to be needing to replace one of your cars soon.
You made a good recreational purchase and enjoyed the RV and can still use it but... it is a gas guzzler, massive RV, which is hard to drive off the highway. A motorcycle is not for you, to buzz around for short runs when the RV is parked. (You or your partner don’t care for heat, noise, bugs, bad hair days and sun exposure and there are safety concerns with a motorcycle. )...
... but an agile Aptera with Never Charge range can be a solution to complement getting around more on your adventures... and in style!
Why not get Hitched😁
I understand, “back in the day”, some past Aptera prototypes where towed to some locations on a dolly trailer like this!
( photo from bing.com)
If they design it so it can be towed, then great. But, I can't imagine driving an ICE RV. If you're going to do that, get an I.D. Buzz camper.
Ha! No I am speaking to the many existing huge RV owners who pull interesting “shuttle vehicles” behind them out here. Still very populat in the SW.
Free solar charge ( fuel) while in tow!
(I too could never justify a big RV, but it could make sense for others lifestyle/family
I have great childhood cross country trip memories with the family though! My parents could only afford a small pop up trailer pulled by the family’s only vehicle ( station wagon) and hey... It worked!)
A lot of people live in RVs. Makes a lot of sense - no RE tax, less insurance, lower utility bills, flexibility. A super energy efficient, light EV "toad" would be ideal.
can an ID Buzz camper tow anything?
Okay, got it.
Since all three wheels will have a motor, I do not see how it will be towable unless you use a trailer.
See my Jan 18 blog on this.
I was told my Aptera that it could be towable as shown, with the two wheels up on the dolly trailer. But we will not know for sure until at least the development vehciles are tested. I am sure this will be one of those accessories they will have and outside vendor supply. Surely the proposed wide front wheel width will be an interesting fit too. Not a priority for me but nice to dream
It should not matter having a motor in every wheel, there is no differential/transmission that needs to stay lubricated. Just have the vehicle in neutral so none of the e-brakes or parking pawls are active.
Apparently there's a FWD version. Should be no issue dolly towing that.
Be cool if it would push/pull with the rear motor while driving to help up hills or breaking.
There is no reason a 3 wheel drive could not be towed without a dolly. I tow a Lotus 7 like kit car with my motorhome, no problems. If the Aptera motor controller had a "towed" mode that would connect to the brake line/circuit of the towing vehicle the Aptera could charge during all slow down conditions. I don't think having the Aptera "push" would work well - steering conflict. But just taking energy out when going down hill or stopping would greatly benefit the towing vehicle. I paid $1000 for a brake controller for towing my Jeep.
You cannot tow an electric car with all wheels on the ground. There is no neutral for an electric motor, even when they spin free they generate electricity and that is either used to charge the battery (which would be great until it's full) or it is converted into heat and burns the motor up. With traditional electric cars they COULD have put a neutral gear in the reduction gear area, but that could lead to failures, while fixed position gears could last an extremely long time. But with hub motors in the Aptera there is literally no place for the disconnect to go. So you gotta pick it up off the ground.
As to putting the front wheels on a dolly it would have to be a REALLY wide dolly as the wheels are the widest part of the car. And then this big truck or RV is pulling that tiny rear wheel thru every pothole on the interstate and no one would know that something has happened to it as you would barely feel it in the tow vehicle.
I THINK the wheel electric motors do not have permanent magnets so no electric generation without any power supplied. Free spinning. Old cars had generators
( permanent magnets) so you could drive without a battery because as long as you got the generator to spin, you had electricity. New cars have alternators (no permanent magnets) so won't run without electric . I THINK. So, in wheel motors should be able to spin freely. I THINK, ITHINK, I THINK, therefore I am I THINK.
@chinkypoo1 I think the answer is "We don't know" until Aptera says so. But ALL the other electric car makers say you cannot. If you have pertinent info please share, but just saying "I think" w/o a reason WHY you think that isn't helpful.
An "open circuit" on a generator does not create heat. Heat = watts = power = current * voltage. Current = 0 power = 0, heat = 0. The controller could open up the circuit when charged.
Don't tell me, tell EVERY electric car manufacturer who prohibits towing wheels down
@Randy Spencer So what I would imagine then is that it should be ill advised to fully charge a Tesla (or ANY electric automobile) at Truckee California and then plan to drive it to Auburn CA or Reno NV? Gravity will be flat towing it for an hour. It will be "charging" the entire descent. Not being able to flat tow an Aptera for me is show stopper. This reminds me of the old Saab's (93) with the 2 stroke engines that mechanically disengaged the engine from "back driving" because the engine could not operate without oil that was not provided with a shut throttle. We see where that technology wound up.
Aptera not towable = cancelled order.
@Dan Perry Yes, if you are charged to 100% and start downhill (like at my cabin) you will not have regen braking as there is no where for the power to go. The battery pack in a Tesla is REALLY large, so all that heat will be spread out over the entire pack, and the car is turned on so it will correctly apply the power to the battery pack and once the pack is fully charged from regen the additional power will be converted to heat. The car will be on so it will correctly pump that heat to the cars radiator. There are extremely few situations where this will be an issue. Most locations are not so dramatically downhill that you will be overheating the battery and the few there are don't have chargers at the top.
The issue with towing is that the car is NOT on, and so the battery is not set up to receive the power as regen and the pack is not setup to be cooled via the radiator so the Tesla cannot be towed wheels down.
So could a FWD Aptera with front wheels placed on a dolly be towed?
Yes most dollies are 80” but here is one company with a 90”...
which is still close for the 88” wide Aptera
I assume the odometer is connected to the front wheels????
..
I assume you could, it is certainly better than my Model 3 which is RWD so I cannot tow with the front wheels in the dolly as it's the rear wheels that have the electric motor, but if I put the rear wheels in the dolly the car could steer wildly unless there was a steering lock to hold the wheel in place.
But as I stated, the downside of a middle wheel is that if there is something in the center of the lane, like a pothole, the wheel is gonna go in it, or hit it. If you were driving you might see and avoid it, but with the RVs wheels at the edges of the lane you might forget. AND if you do damage the car and it's dragging down the road you might not notice from your perch on the other end of the RV. Perhaps if there was smoke.
On my current toad, I still worry about getting a flat when hitting a pothole or a nail. I run wireless TPMS with a display in the RV so if something does happen back there I'll know. I am not sure about the ODO, but I think in my car even though the car key is used to unlock the steering (all wheels are down) I believe the ODO is electronic and not mechanical so it doesn't tick over when I tow.
@Randy Spencer And a flat on a trailer or a dolly will never happen.
@Dan Perry It won't happen on a trailer, though the trailer may get one. It could still happen on a dolly, I would say it's 1/3 as likely, but the pot holes between the tire tracks are less likely to be quickly repaired, so you may hit more on that rear tire that's still on the ground.
Thx
When might you design the AWD Aptera so that it may be flat towed? There are a lot of us RVers that would love to buy your light weight fuel efficient vehicle to help offset our RV's thirst.
Towing a dolly is just something extra to worry about. I have received several emails back and forth from Aptera and they have NEVER yet said it can't be towed wheels down. I think they are still evaluating the design. I will have AWD if I buy one and I will buy one if it can be towed.
From my latest communication with Aptera
"Hello Dan,
Thank you for your email. Teslas cannot be towed, they recommend being towed on a trailer but certain electric vehicles can. We plan on offering towing from front and rear. We are currently working on the details but it is in the works seeing how it is an issue with other electric vehicles. More details to come, follow us on social media for the latest news! Best, Aptera Team
Just hook giant lights to the wheel structure that can bleed off extra power coming from the wheels when towed.
The Aptera folks are pretty much wizards, the skin of the vehicle is a "heat dissipating" element.
@Dan Perry If it works. Nissan Leaf is an example of a big name car manufacturer that failed to properly manage the lithium battery heat.
"Just hook giant lights to the wheel structure that can bleed off extra power coming from the wheels when towed. - Randy Spencer" Whatever works! I too will order as soon as it can be flat towed.
Believe it or not, I had to control a giant pylon rotator out in the middle of White Sands missile range years ago and needed place to bleed off power from a rotator motor, light bulbs!!!
The rear wheel shroud would be damaged if the front wheels are dollied up.
@Craig Alberhasky Do you KNOW that or are you supposing that? If this is just supposition you should preface it with "People are saying..." or "Everyone knows..." so that we know it's not an expert talking.
They plan to sell an off-road package with less wheel coverage so it may be possible to go with those, or even remove the wheel pant before the towing.
By the looks of it, if that rear tire fell into a deep Omaha, Nebraska pothole the road would contact that shroud on any of the wheels and that is without being lifted and towed. And no I do not know that for a fact, but I do know how deep the potholes in my city are. "People are saying" or "Everyone knows" is something that the former occupant of the oval office says when he is making things up. I am an expert on the Aptera in no way, shape or form. I really am looking forward to real life data about the Aptera and in the mean time don't want anyone blowing smoke up my backside about things that really might be better designed for certain parts of the country. Maybe Aptera Motors should post what the off road model differences in physical attributes and likely mileage delta for that option. Anyone that thinks that a first year vehicle is going to be without teething problems is most likely going to be very disappointed.
RV's ( recreational vehicle) most people love to live in it which includes living quarters designed for accommodation. They comes in motorhomes, travel trailers and camper trailers purpose, fifth-wheel trailers, popup campers, and truck campers. Adventures people love these type of Automobiles specially those who likes to travel a lot in their life time.But travelling vehicles also needs to be take care of and if it needs to be towed specially in New York area than the best people for you to do this work is nyc towing service . All prices are affordable and complete satisfactory service. No need to panic for your RV's specially for New Yorkers.
Thanks? Say, what's your first language?
looks like Klingon.
old chevy or ford 4wd had lock outs on wheels so tech is there to make wheels free spin. what's wrong with blending different designs that have proven them selves .
"lock outs on wheels so tech is there to make wheels free spin"
Where were these lock-outs? The Aptera has a hub-motor, so it's directly connected to the wheel. That makes it hard to put anything between the motor and the road, but if you have a suggestion I think we ALL are interested.