Rotate Sprite in direction it is moving while beeing dragged

Question

I am working on a 2D topdown game where you have cars you can drag around. you can touch any given car and move it around. This kind of works but when I drag a curve the sprit of the car does not turn in direction of its movement but rather moves sideways.

I need a way to rotate the sprite towards input (touch,mouse) and be updated as long as the input "is down" but I am unsure how to calculate and update the angle each frame.

I do not want to use velocity towards the input but rather drag and drop while "clicking" on the sprite.

Answer 1

When you hold the mouse button down, begin tracking the location of the mouse.

Every frame, compare the current location with the location on the previous frame.

If the vector from previous to current is large enough, orient the car in the direction of the vector.

When you release the mouse button, stop: tracking, comparing and rotating.

EDIT

private bool PerformRotation = false;
private Vector2D LastFramePosition

OnMouseButtonClicked()
{
    PerformRotation = true; 
    LastFramePosition = Car.Position;
}

OnMouseButtonReleased()
{
    performRotation = false;
}

Tick()
{
    if(performRotation)
    {
        Vector2D CurrentMouseLocation = Mouse.getLocation();
        Vector2D LastFrameToCurrent = CurrentMouseLocation - LastFramePosition;

        Car.ForwardVector = LastFrameToCurrent.Normalize();

        LastFramePosition = CurrentMouseLocation;
    }
}