My friend has a Tesla 4wd; he had a minor accident which was totally avoidable. The problem was the car's automatic features MADE him slide off the road!
Regenerative braking automatically slowing the car without him pressing brakes is what triggered the sliding motion. Then it seemed that other behavior triggered as he tried to steer and NOT press the brake or even at the last sec he tried to accelerate a bit to stop the regen. too late but he didn't hit quite as bad as he gained a little control.
The lesson here is that you should not have any automatic regeneration in the cold unless the driver explicitly presses on the brake and also to test the traction control systems in out of control situations. I doubt they are smarter than a seasoned skilled driver (my friend) who does not need to be fighting with the car in those situations. Until you can beat a human, you should consider disabling some features when it is too cold outside. At least make the user decide to leave it on when it is cold out.
The incident above seems very much like a stick-shift car where you take your foot off the gas on ice & the tires skid. Some automatics can do that too, but with a clutch you can just press it, & release again as needed. It would be a bit harder to flick a Tesla or Aptera shifter stalk in/out of N to switch from coast to power.
Now that ice has been brought up, Aptera's announcement of a "coast" setting for zero right-pedal regen might be handy after all. I usually prefer very strong right-pedal regen, but I think it should be easily adjustable on-the-fly, unlike the Leaf2.0 I drove.
For ARBS & traction control, Aptera's hub motors supposedly check 32 times per rotation, which is every 2.25" of tread movement on the OEM tire size.
The email from Aptera today discussed this very issue: “Next steps involve an exciting journey to Slovenia (later this year), where Elaphe's team will help to test one of Aptera's vehicles on a low mu track. Elaphe's facility provides optimal conditions for low-coefficient testing. This round of tests will be dedicated to regenerative breaking and traction control.”
The Elaphe website talks about having an Anti-lock Regenerative Braking System (ARBS). In theory, combining traction control and ABS into a single motor system for each wheel should yield much better results than all prior systems. Response times should be faster with an electric motor system (vs hydraulic ABS) and you won't have the motor fighting the brakes like in the old-style traction/ABS systems. I'm not sure why Tesla doesn't have this (or at least turn off regen during slippage), although it is much less effective with one motor driving multiple wheels.
With on-board sensors, it can disable stability control right when loss of traction is detected. My Chevy Volt does tgat.regen re-enables itself after a bit of time.
Aptera certainly has the technology to make this a safe vehicle in adverse scenarios while still having regenerative braking due to very fine motor control.