like it would survive an impact well.

Also there's no chance of the back passenger (snigger) feeling claustrophobic at all.

I guess there would be more room in there after you're 25 Gs lighter.. christ.

Driving it looks like a bit of a hoot. The width and passenger placement makes a lot of sense too - a slim design gives more parking and traffic movement options.

I suppose the usual dreary crap will surface about it possibly being dangerous in a side-impact accident. Shut up and stop being so miserable people, this is a valid and quite well considered little package. A vehicle like this would be perfect for younger drivers and the ignorant selfish cretins who strut the highways consumed by a feeling of indestructability.

If only the price wasn't so ridiculous. Sigh.......

book a flight on ryanair, they seem to have the same idea about personal space.

Okay, I'm happy to stand up and defend the Aptera's styling. But this is...it's just...

It's like, just buy a freakin' motorscooter. That's obviously what you want, and it's just about what you've got. Sure, a motorscooter won't be comfortable in inclement weather--but that's why God made windbreakers, and it's not like the Smera will be any safer in rain or snow than a motorscooter.

25K for a showerproof moped?

They are having a laugh, but April 1st was over two months ago

It looks like it would blow over in a storm though.

So you're that annoying git weaving all over the road...

Never got into motorbikes, but on the pedal variety I can't say I've ever found the need to "turn left before right, or right before left" in order to "initiate the proper leaning angle". You turn, you lean - job done! This ... thing ... while narrow, does have the stability of 4 wheels, so no need for any kind of steering delay.

First there were big cars. Then there were MPVs based on big cars. Then MPVs became very successful. Then there were MPVs based on just about every size and shape of car imaginable to satisfy the world's love for MPVs. There were even MPVs carefully targetted at people who didn't exist (the Renault Avantime). The car manuacturers were in clover. Take an existing car, stuff a taller body on it and suddenly it sells to a whole new market*.

Then someone did one based on an electrified Messerschmidt Tiger..........

*unless you're Renault and smoking weird shit at the time of course.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/3607415.stm

Shame they don't seem to have made it into production at £18k less

Looks like one of those inventions that nobody actually needs it simply exists because somebody worked out how to build it. It's neat, it's clever, but when it comes down to it what is the point of it?

I understand the Paris launch because of the popularity of leaning three wheeled scooters over there at the moment. There's been a huge surge in sales because licensing laws over there mean that you can drive a motorised tricycle of any capacity and power output on a car licence, so you get most of the advantages of a (fairly) powerful two wheeler without needing to go through the expensive business of qualifying for a new licence. As such there's a possibility that this will catch on over there. Can't see it having the same impact elsewhere.

Oh, and to Kevin McMurtie, you don't *have* to countersteer, but it helps especially if you're going quickly. It's the effect of giroscopic precession you try to force the wheel to turn one way and instead it does something completely different and forces to pivot around an axis at ninety degrees to the one you're trying to turn it on. At low speeds it's a different effect the castor of the steering meens that your steering moves the contact patch ton one side, so the bike falls the other way. There was something of a revolution in the eighties with sports/race bike design. When Honda we're trying to get the centre of gravity of the NSR500 lower and lower by placing the fuel tank under the engine and were surprised that it was harder to change direction on that bike than on the oppostion's more conventional layouts. The reason being that the higher CogG od the other bikes made them more prone to flop over into corners once the lean was initiated, the lean may have been easier to initiate on the NSR but that was only part of the problem. That may seem irrelevant in this application but you are only looking at the initiation of the lean rather than the act of cornering as a whole.

The sort of tech they are using has been tried before and shouldn't require any noticable delay, any more than there is a delay with electronic power steering in a conventional car. The computer will simply look at the speed you're going and the amount you're turning the wheel and initiate the lean electronically. Once the lean starts it will pretty much sort itself out. See, there was a point to my comments re the NSR500.

I'd be interested to know how it can handle overtaking a juggernaut on the motorway in a strong sidewind.

> you don't *have* to countersteer, but it helps especially if you're going quickly. It's the effect of giroscopic precess

Bikes have been built with counter-rotating flywheels to cancel the gyroscopic effects, proving that it really is insignificant.

You do have to countersteer, but generally not by enough to notice.

(Anyone who thinks you can steer just by leaning should try it with a locked headset. You can't. You can do the counter-steering with weight shift and steer no-hands, but that's not the same thing.)

Don't be fooled by the hype.

It leans. So what? That will mainly counter the instability inherent in a design with a narrow track and a relatively high centre of gravity. Without the expensive tilting tech it would roll on it's side if you tried to change direction quickly. Stability control would be no good as that just amounts to designed in critical understeer.

It's electric. So what? It could easilly have a petrol engine.

Take away that hype and there's nothing new at all. It's just a bubble car for the twenty first century. It won't catch on. The bubble car's day is long past and even in it's day it's advantages were it's low price and low tech. This thing is expensive and complicated so the things that made the bubble car attractive are absent. Replacing them with electric power, tilting and a vain hope that it will appeal to the fashion conscious will not help this thing sell at that price. Even at a quarter of the price I suspect they would have few takers.

Has anyone here seen those three-wheeled MP3 scooters by Piaggio? They just announced the hybrid version, declared fuel efficiency is 60 km/l. Price is supposed to be about € 9.000,00. Also, it tilts up to 40 degrees. Throw in a closed canopy, I don't think it would cost three times as much, even if it would require a bigger engine because of the extra weight. And we Reg readers already know that electric cars are a scam ;-)

Oh, and the fourth wheel is totally redundant.

(Disclaimer: I am not related to Piaggio :-P )