At 1:50 of the vid re-posted by @loswa (click here):
Elsewhere on this forum someone pointed out the Alpha suspension is "1980s" tech. I think I replied that a huge number of current cars are fine with "1940s" tech MacPherson struts. Their subsequent application to the rear by car genius Colin Chapman was fantastic on my 1970s Datsun 240Z. However it appears to ME that Aptera's Beta version may have had a HUGE redesign.
Apparently many vehicles, particularly those with a high center of gravity, struggle with the moose test. There are some impressive fail videos on YouTube.
I recently learned that (1) the moose is not native to California, and (2) “it is more likely that the moose will continue across the road than remain in place or turn back, making it more advisable to brake hard and try to slip behind the animal than to swerve in front of it.“ (Wikipedia).
Finally, the Swedes developed a moose test crash dummy to simulate actual collisions with said oversized mammal, while in Australia they have designed a crash test kangaroo for analogous purposes.
@bcjankowitz Thanks for the correction. So it passed HALF the moose test with ease. No reason to doubt that it wouldn't finish it equally well, since it's just another swerve, only right-then-left, instead of left-then-right.
@pistonboy The Alpha passed the moose test with ease. They said they're adding a swaybar which should eliminate the tiny rear wheel slide. Any Beta/Gamma/Production should be at least as good as that.
I hope they show us moose and track test results of the new Beta suspension.
I bet there are major updates to suspension design in progress. The June 9th webinar mentioned redesign to the hub motors to integrate the uprights! Saving unsprung weight and possibly making the front narrower (maybe only and inch or so, but good nevertheless.)
I'm so glad Aptera is going to work with Roush. They have 7 post shaker tables from Nascar that will be a HUGE help in tuning the shocks, springs, motion ratios, exc. Plus the expertise to do it. It would be impossible for a small company to put this equipment and expertise together in right time-frames.
Now my concern is the large orange power wires to the wheels breaking from turning cycles. Their picture showed extremely tight bends to fit in the aero covers. I'm worried the wires will fail from fatigue. Maybe they need to invent some kind of swivel electrical joint with sweeping brushes? I'm not as worried about up and down motions as they seem to move over smaller range than the wheels turning ~90 degrees.
To ME it now looks more like a pushrod design on the front, than a rocker arm.
As rcnesneg said: this might be a gross simplification, just for visualization purposes, and not a detailed representation. But we will happily over-interpret the morsels we get... In the first image (by kiteboarder) the rear suspension spring is vertical, while in the links from rjcnesneg (referencing an alpha build) it is near horizontal. The vertical position makes intuitive sense, and also would allow for that bit more shaving off from the wheel skirt as indicated elsewhere in this weeks' update. So yeah... I think we see a different rear suspension. As for the front, the image is too fragmentary for me to make sense of.
It looks the same for the front - The rocker arm (blue part on top) appears to be the same as before. Same with the lower control arm (Red). I'm not certain where the sway bar is, and if the center part we see is a tie rod? As far as I can tell it's just a gross simplification for the simulation program to process. Like depicting a fancy contoured hammer as a rod shape.
Just like the body of the car - Way different!
Like they would always say in engineering school - "Let's approximate this horse as a sphere and see how much heat it needs to expel at 10 mph"
Front suspension pictures
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a28860453/aptera-ev-1000-mile-range/
Rear suspension pictures
https://www.aptera.us/forum/aptera-tech-questions/rear-suspension
Are you looking at something else I'm missing?