The widespread use of huge, highway-built vehicles (that is, all American cars) for short trips in US cities has been sticking out to me recently as a major safety hazard and detractor from pleasant urban living. Highway-built cars are fundamentally incompatible with human-scale living: they are loud and accelerate quickly while being soundproof, isolating the occupants from the effects they have on their environment. Sleek, reflective windshields and tinted windows also make it difficult for pedestrians and bikers to make eye contact with car drivers, dehumanizing interactions with vehicles and increasing reliance on inflexible measures like traffic lights that would not be required on a more human scale.
I would love to see small cars like these come into more widespread use in the the U.S., with carsharing programs providing cars as needed for highway driving. This change could come much more quickly than the large-scale urban design improvements we will eventually need to totally reduce reliance on cars in cities.
As it is, many city streets are too fast for these cars to be comfortable. I would love to see a general slowing-down of vehicles in US cities and towns that makes city vehicles like these practical, and, on top of the obvious safety benefits for all the cities that claim to have “vision zero”, I don’t think it would come with many downsides. Even outside of a city center for in-town trips of a few miles, 28mph is really quite fast—a matter of a few extra minutes compared to current dangerous city speeds.
> with carsharing programs providing cars as needed for highway driving
I feel like this is the missing piece for me for the car-less life I dream of: what to do when I want to take a few-day trip to any of the beautiful places in easy driving distance of my dense urban core?
Car sharing is an option, but it's quite expensive. If I take a zipcar for 1 drive out to a campground on a Friday, then 1 drive back on a Sunday, I'm spending $240 or more.
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
I don't know a great solution here. Trains + long-distance buses only work if you're going exactly where they're going, or if you're headed to another city with good post-train transit options. Rent other people's unused cars (à la Getaround)? Prices for that seem to be barely better than Zipcar. Maybe rentable driverless cars, eventually: they can drive me to the campground, then drive themselves to the nearest town and rent themselves out to other people for the weekend until I need them again? I dunno.
> way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
First of all, the days of getting a decent car for $5k in the US ended with the pandemic and the supply chain insanity. But even if you could do that, you also need to factor in:
* Gas
* Insurance
* Registration and taxes
* Maintenance
If you don't use a car as part of your commute or regular errands, it's likely cheaper to rent.
Honestly, the best compromise solution is usually to share a single car for a household. Not helpful if you're single, but if you have a partner, then you can usually get by fairly well with just one car and now your individual costs are cut in half.
Another way to balance the trade-offs is to own a car that's smaller and more cost efficient but doesn't cover all your needs. Then rent on the infrequent times when you're traveling, camping, bringing a bunch of kids to a party, hauling lumber, etc. and you need the extra storage or passenger space.
I agree with using a single car for a household: my wife and I have done that for the past six years (living in Tennessee, Oregon, and Arizona) with a 2006 Toyota Highlander that we paid $7,000 in cash for. The last two years, we've had a baby/toddler. We've encountered a few (one or two per six months) situations where we might have _preferred_ another vehicle, but the inconvenience was so minor (I Ubered, or someone picked me up) that another vehicle couldn't remotely be justified. Recently we got a beat-up F-150 to haul lumber and soil, but don't use it day-to-day and have never _needed_ it as a second vehicle.
Regarding the sub-$5k car: it depends on your definition of "decent used car." Most people are unwilling to accept a used vehicle with a slightly broken interior or other minor issues. Just today, I was looking for comparative prices for a 2003 F-150 that I've got, and I found multiple in the $2-3k range in my area that are in good condition (running motor, A/C works, non-necessary repairs required). And that's a pickup truck: if you want a coupe or sedan, there are even more options below $3,000. You just need to be willing to accept some flaws: right now I've got several tabs open of good "A-to-B" cars with under 200k miles.
Not sure why gas is on there, it's not like rentals come with unlimited free gas.
And at $250ish to rent a vehicle for the weekend it only takes a couple weekends to pay for the insurance, registration, and taxes (or is it just that much more expensive on the coasts? I'm in the midwest). There's a reason people own instead of rent, and it isn't because renting never occurred to them.
Zipcar in fishtoaster's example includes gas in the price. The rental car comes with a debit card to pay for gas. There's a surcharge if you drive more than an 180 miles per day (averaged).
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car
I don't think people arguing this have ever actually run the numbers and realize just how expensive rentals get. Every year my wife and I plan a week long road trip. If I price out this years trip from the midwest to Utah in a full size suv or truck (need 4wd and space for climbing/camping gear):
Base rental: $970
mileage fees: $350 (1400 miles at 25 cents a mile)
Tow fees: $180 (optional, but I like to bring my small teardrop so $20 a day for the tow package fees)
We're now close to $1500. At this price I can buy a truck, title it, insure it, and then sell it at a slight loss when I get home and still come out ahead of the rental. In just one trip.
It can entirely depend on the deals you get; I was able to rent a Tahoe (largish but not huge SUV) and drive it across the country and back for about a grand; unlimited miles; and I've done similar with a minivan. You get a brand new vehicle that you can put miles on and it's unlikely to fail you.
True, deals can sometimes be found but that's more work and worry when you should be relaxing on vacation. Combine that with the other drawbacks (dealing with pickup/return, worrying about scratches/damage, not able to have customizations like roof racks, going offroad or through mountains with crap rental tires, etc) and it's easy to see why renting is not more popular.
With that $5k used car, you're also paying monthly insurance and any required maintenance on it. If you were averaging less than once a month, the zipcar probably works out to be cheaper indefinitely.
Maybe? It depends if your car is in the shop for repairs, or has a dead battery (especially if driven infrequently), etc. For most people, the carrying-cost of a car is probably a few thousand dollars a year (insurance, maintenance, parking, depreciation, etc). If you're driving frequently and parking costs are sane, it's definitely going to work out to own a cheap car, but if you genuinely use a car infrequently and rentals are readily available, it's worth running the numbers carefully.
Just get a Toyota and keep up with annual servicing. Too many people get "exciting" or "fun" cars as their daily drivers that are not reliable. It's entirely on the owner. What's the point of owning a car if you are not going to drive it? A light electric golf cart isn't much cheaper either.
I just got my annual registration bill from the DMV. $768. In most cases, it's probably cheaper, but that's another significant line item in the mere ownership of a car.
As someone in the US who doesn't own a car, I can rent a car in the event of an emergency. Emergencies are rare, and spending $200 (including gas) for a one-off rental is still way cheaper than the TCO of owning a car.
There's no fundamental reason a zipcar - profit should be more expensive than a personal car. After all, if it's an equivalent car, you'd expect equivalent purchase cost, financing costs, insurance, taxes, fuel etc.
The only difference is that Zipcar has a much stronger market position than an individual consumer, and thus can get better contracts & economies of scale for things like purchasing, financing, maintenance and insurance.
And there's no reason to think profits are a very significant part of the pricing. It's a competitive market and Zipcar has never turned a profit in the past 20 years.
There's overhead both for Zipcar and for consumers, e.g. to arrange for repairs on cars. Consumers are just doing 'unpaid labour' by arranging a car to get repairs for example and pay in 'opportunity costs', while Zipcar will pay staff to arrange such repairs, and charge the customer ultimately to pay their staff. But economically there's no difference, opportunity costs are still costs. And again, I'd expect Zipcar to get economies of scale, dedicated professionals working with optimised processes and tightly negotiated contracts on the overhead, to do better than an average joe having to arrange the same repairs.
So while I won't argue the $240 bill you referenced, or calculate exactly the equivalent costs of a personal car, I hope you'd agree there's no fundamental reason equivalent use of a car via a sharing service should be more expensive.
I do hope you agree that it should be as cheap, or cheaper for two reasons. One the economies of scale & professional approach to car ownership, being more efficient. But two, that some of the costs (like manufacturing the car) don't scale with usage, and thus become way cheaper when spread over multiple users. If you only use a car 1 out of 10 days, there's no way I can see how a personal car can get close to as cheap as a shared car.
So apart from personal convenience & psychology around personal ownership, I think car sharing wins as an economic model long-term. Just like we share airplanes, hotels etc. Now convenience wins because there's not a car available everywhere and always. But as soon as every car has self-driving tech, given the amount of cars I see around me in a city that are just sitting there, I think in urban centres car sharing will become the norm. In less dense places personal cars will likely remain.
> I would love to see small cars like these come into more widespread use in the the U.S
While I agree with the sentiment, I don't think this is possible.
The first layer of the many problems is that people don't have unlimited funds to purchase multiple vehicles. Remember that every vehicle must also be insured.
This means they must make a selection based on life's realities. For a family, in most urban areas in the US, that means highway travel to go just-about everywhere, including shopping for food, school and work. A relatively small percentage of people in most towns have the luxury of living so close to work, school, stores, church, whatever, to be able to use this type of vehicle.
And then you have the issues you alude to: Speed and size. My street, which is in a nice neighborhood, is supposed to have a 25 mph speed limit. I can't tell you how many people who live here fly down this street doing 40 to 50 mph. It's mind blowing, really. If you can't be considerate in your own neighborhood, I hate to think what someone might be like on the highway.
I have almost been hit a few times in the 25 years I've lived here just coming out of my driveway. People are moving so fast that you look right and left, it's clear and, when you are on the road someone suddenly is right on your ass. It's terrible.
We've had multiple neighbors call the police for some enforcement. They put on a bit of a show and nothing happens (those signs showing your speed). They don't want to write dozens of tickets on a neighborhood street. They have more important things to look after, I guess.
And so, most people look at a car like this and think "That would be nice, but...".
I suppose there might be a potential future where self driving cars might be software-limited to maximum speeds based on where they might be and actually cooperate to increase safety (the car coming down the street knows my car is pulling out onto the street and plans appropriately, etc.).
I think that's the only hope really. Which means it is at least 25 years away.
What does your residential street look like? My guess is that is is wide and has no physical traffic calming features to make it uncomfortable to drive fast. If you and your neighbors want to slow people down on the street, you should fight for measures that make people feel like they should go slow naturally. Studies have shown [1, 2] that drivers often base their speed more on the "design speed" of the road more than the posted speed limit---and this likely resonates with most drivers.
Certainly software limits on self-driving cars would solve the speed issue, but I don't think that is the only hope---nor do I think it (or self driving cars in general) is the best answer.
> Remember that every vehicle must also be insured.
The vehicles in the OP aren't in the same vehicle class as cars. For example, you aren't required to get insurance or have a license to ride a bike. These are basically just e-bikes with a passenger seat (or alternatively, electric mopeds), which may or may not require insurance based on your jurisdiction (usually maximum speed is the determining factor).
I would not drive anything on the road without insurance. Imagine if someone were to hit you and leave the scene after causing serious injury. Or, of course, the culprit does not have insurance or is under-insured.
The bottom line is you could be a serious financial trouble if you are not insured. You can also be sued if you hit someone or cause injury. In the US, it simply isn't smart to expose yourself by not having insurance for activities where injury or liability could be a factor. An unrelated example: I have been flying model airplanes and helicopters for decades. I have a million dollars insurance to cover that activity.
Try telling a family who needs to haul multiple children, dogs, and gear for even short trips to the park for soccer practice that they should use a tiny city car instead of a van or SUV. You buy vehicles for the life and city you have, not some aspirational version that exists in a fantasy of urban design.
You're supposed to buy a second car just for long trips? Even if you live in a dense city, America is inescapably huge and requires highway travel unless you never want to leave your neighborhood. We don't have a functioning passenger rail network like China etc.
Even if this were remotely feasible, which it's not, this kind of tiny car is a total death trap for your family when everyone else is driving large vehicles. I would love to see a crash test video of this against an F-150.
Finally, let's say you do live in a city and you are already a two car household. Try telling your wife that she has to buy this ugly toy-sized car that she looks ridiculous in while you get to drive a Tesla or Rivian. Like it or not, cars are lifestyle status symbols where the aesthetics matter.
Fine, I will tell you that. The Station Wagon format was perfect for all of that before the CAFE (Corp Average Fuel Efficiency) standards came in with the exception for trucks, btu not a requirement that those trucks have commercial license tags.
At that point, the entire production and marketing of the major car companies shifted towards SUV form factors, since they didn't count against their fuel mileage standards. Now, the behemoths are the norm, but what is really selling is the "Crossover", which is in fact indistinguishable from the old station wagon format.
Yes, this thing won't likely do well when run over by an F150 or Yukon. Which is why standards should be set such that the larger vehicles are not such a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and smaller cars (eliminating the front "wall" would be a start). It's likely you can do just fine with a station-wagon/crossover format, although this is obviously small for a bunch of kids and dogs. No car is not made for every purpose, and I wonder why the mere existence of this thing seems to annoy you so much?
The existence doesn't annoy me. It's the sanctimonious tone that this should be the norm, when it's clearly not even remotely built for the reality of how families actually live, despite their marketing.
The actual solution to this short trips problem is better mass transit and cycling infrastructure, with cars reserved for highway travel and other long trips or cargo hauling. Good pre-car suburban neighborhoods existed on a network of walking and electric streetcars. That is the future of urban design, not cars designed for Oompa Loompas.
The typical household != the typical new car buyer. The average age of a car buyer is decades older than the average American, and >90% of them own their home. So they're likely to either be families or elderly. https://hedgescompany.com/blog/2019/01/new-car-buyer-demogra...
Except having 1 young child hardly requires an SUV. The “minivan years” is really a small percentage of the average American adult’s lifetime.
Exclude people who never have multiple kids, and those you have yet to have kids or whose kids have left home and large vehicles simply don’t fit most people’s lifestyles.
Which is why pickup trucks can be so popular cars just don’t have many passengers on average.
> pickup trucks can be so popular cars just don’t have many passengers on average
Where I live they mostly drive enormous, 4-door "pickup trucks" which can seat 5 grown adults very comfortably. While it's not quite a 7-passenger full-sized SUV, I just want to make sure you're picturing the most popular size and shape of truck when you think about pickups :D
“4 door” pickup trucks are the most popular but many of those don’t actually fit 5 full sized adults. Some don’t even have 3 seatbelts on the second row because people really need to sit sideways.
The breakdown is somewhat vague but Regular, Extended, Crew, Quad are noticeably different cab sizes.
> Fine, I will tell you that. The Station Wagon format was perfect for all of that before the CAFE (Corp Average Fuel Efficiency) standards came in with the exception for trucks, btu not a requirement that those trucks have commercial license tags.
Eh... we have to thank CAFE for SUVization of the world... the stupid trend is slowly trickling over the pond and it's getting more and more annoying... I do hope that either US will fix CAFE or UE will regulate to have smaller cars (usually hatchback is enough and wagon for bigger families)... or ideally both.
Aren’t they selling more for higher eye level and more upright seating position/posture, than that people are tortured into buying by conspiratory schemes among international corporations?
> You buy vehicles for the life and city you have [...]
Agreed, there's a place for all forms of transit. I think the argument that the parent commenter was making was that we already have the density in many places for vehicles of this type make sense for residents, but the barrier is that road infrastructure is built to prioritize larger vehicles, making these vehicles unsafe.
In places where safe infrastructure exists, families frequently plan their lives differently, and I know many (with the means to choose freely) who get by with carshare, good transit, cargo bikes, etc...
OP suggested that the solution should be to regulate in favor of cars like the one in the link. This is totally unrealistic and wrongheaded idea, because there are real use cases and needs that drive the decision to purchase larger, faster vehicles. Outside the functional reasons, there are also highly intractable cultural and emotional forces driving car trends in the opposite direction today.
The viable solutions are 100% to encourage the kind of alternatives you listed to give people meaningful tools to decrease overall single family car use of any kind.
> [...] actively discourage or outlaw normal car designs in favor of cars like the one in the link.
I read their comment as encouraging city-specific measures. They specifically reference "urban living", "human-scale living", or slowing down vehicles for "in-town trips". I agree that use-cases exist for larger vehicles, as even in the densest city centers delivery vehicles continue to need access. IMO larger vehicles need not be the vehicles we optimize for, or even allow at all times, in city centers, where such vehicles aren't needed by most residents.
> [...] 100% to encourage the kind of alternatives you listed to decrease overall single family car use, not try to force everyone to change car designs [...]
Honestly I'm thinking of this more like a large cargo bike, and less like a car. It's like a Canta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canta_(vehicle)) in the Netherlands. It's not meant to serve the same purpose as today's cars, and we probably both agree it would feel unsafe to drive one amongst fast-moving traffic. It fills a gap in the transportation spectrum that's well-suited to certain areas, and I believe we should devote more infrastructure to vehicles which match the needs of an area, which I don't believe is always full-sized passenger vehicles.
We’ve already seen that vehicles like the Canta are abysmal failures in America. Smart Cars finally exited the US and Canada market in 2019 after years of poor sales.
Meanwhile, cargo bike sales are climbing steadily.
I used to be a near pathological classic car fan. It's a unique kind of terror driving a 1500 lb '73 beetle or 2500 pound 1995 ford escort alongside 7000 pound modern SUVs.
That being said, I'm sure these cars will see some adoption in dense/regulated historic neighborhoods. Manhattan has had tolling debates for the last decade - on current trajectory I'd expect lower manhattan to be restricted access by the end of the decade.
I think you loose your pathological classic car club membership by touting a '95 Ford Escort. Just because it is 25 years old and qualifies for gov't definition of classic car does not make it the ideal car someone thinks of when the phrase classic car is used in normal conversation. (=
We're a one car family for two working parents and two kids, living in Pittsburgh (in the city, not the burbs). We make it work but there's a bit of Uber involved sometimes, and some compromises. Generally worth it - cars are both very convenient and a burden that requires ongoing care and feeding and money.
If we do decide we need a second car as the kids get older, this is _exactly_ what I want. No gas stations. Super easy parking. Low capex and opex. Awesome on all fronts. (But as a second car.)
Like it or not, not all marriages are dysfunctional like that. Sometimes (okay, rarely), the people in the marriage like each other! Two uneven sized cars is not a problem for every marriage, but for those that have that sort of weird power dynamic, the solution, of course, is not talking to each other, or couples counseling/therapy. No the solution is to buy two ugly toy-sized cars, and one more Tesla.
Everything about the suburbs makes sense when you have kids. Nothing about the suburbs makes sense without them.
I’m not arguing that the US style suburb is the best we can do, but you’re not going to come up with anything better that really sticks without understanding why it’s built the way it is.
For people who don’t have kids I don’t feel like I can even explain it to you. Nothing can prepare you. You have to experience it.
What about the fact that your kids are reliant on you to shuttle them between school, activities, friends’ houses, etc? This makes no sense to me. In a city they can walk from age 11 or so.
That’s great for pre-teens and teens as long as the city is fairly safe for kids. I was talking about smaller children and babies.
It’s also important to note that not all cities are kid friendly. Some are places I’d never allow a kid to go, with open air psychiatric hospitals on the street and people passed out everywhere on drugs. Of course this is a different problem that has more to do with incompetence and corruption in government and non-profits.
We can also prevent people from driving 50MPH through residential neighborhoods with good street design. Current safety standards with open roads encourage people to ignore the speed limit. Safety features like raised crosswalks, curb bulb-outs at intersections, and roundabouts at small intersections like those used in Seattle all make it uncomfortable to drive fast. This would go far in reducing egregious speeding without the claims of authoritarianism that would certainly come with technological speed controls.
I live on a street that is an arterial in Oklahoma. Generally in tulsa people drive 45-50mph on our grid (major streets every mile). I had to have a 125cc scooter to keep up with traffic. Even on an e-bike going 25mph I had people trying to run me off the road if I used the full lane.
I am seriously wondering if we just need to setup camera speed traps and red light cameras to solve this and fund better human scaled infrastructure. Imagine trying to cross one of these streets where there isn’t a crosswalk for a half mile
You're right and the thought of this always makes me chuckle and think of a neighborhood nearby that has enacted these traffic calming measures along a heavily trafficked corridor. The curbs of the pinch points and chicanes are black from tire rubs. You probably don't have to wait more than 10 minutes to see a car come along and smack into a curb.
I think about the all the time, as I'm in one of tens of thousands of cars blowing by "55 mph" signs at 75-80 mph regularly, right past cops who are supposedly looking for "speeders", etc. obviously if civil society wanted to actually eliminate "speeding" this solution is one of many that can do it immediately.
however I suspect there are various large political roadblocks, not the least of which it would eliminate the jobs of cops who sit on roadsides and make money giving out tickets but I'm sure also including car manufacturers, consumers, maybe DMVs for some reason I can't think of, etc.
you know it's one of those things that would be commonplace in an imaginary "imagine we traveled 50 years into the future" things, but how it actually happens is not at all clear.
We already have that technology for any non-manual car. But nobody would want to buy it - I'm not sure geofencing is reliable enough to do what you're asking for, GPS drifts.
In the US, I think it is more likely that we will regulate automobile speed than guns. I thought there might be a joke here, but sadly, this is just true.
When all cars are connected we will 100% have geofencing that controls cars. I suspect that this will become a political wedge issue. The right will see it as unnecessary government control, and/or the left will be pissed that rich people coordinated with officials to prevent most people from driving through their neighborhood.
You obviously don't live in LA. Google maps does everything it can to route you around rich neighborhoods. And there are countless extremely rich neighborhoods with no gates.
But slowing down means every vehicle is on road longer, so even more vehicles in peak traffic.
I think problem is that many of high speed roads are also very "interfering"; highway circling a city is not really a problem and can be decently isolated, but high speed road full of streets flowing into it just makes for many more chances for accidents.
Slowing a road down doesn't decrease its throughput (at least not until you get to very low speeds). The minimum spacing required between cars is proportional to speed.
Slowing down roads also means they are more comfortable to bike in and to walk alongside, which will move some people from cars to other modes and decrease peak traffic for drivers.
True but people don't have that either, regardless of speed.
> A fancy 10GBe switch without any flow control or collision detection is basically useless.
basic 10Gbit switch works far better than fancy 1Gbit switch in vast majority of cases. Only if you need single digit ms jitter while running storage loads on same switch does it start to matter.
It's also absolutely terrible comparision at every level because
* now even lower end switches can sustain max speed between every port at once, while traffic often have clear bottlenecks
* pentalty for stopping traffic (by congestion) for 10ms is 10ms delay. Stopping car traffic (with say red light) means multiple second delay till everyone gets up to speed. Even single car acting badly can make massive traffic wave slowing down people behind them for minute or more.
>pentalty for stopping traffic (by congestion) for 10ms is 10ms delay.
That's because Ethernet has flow control, while car traffic doesn't. That's why my example was about a very fast switch with no flow control or collision detection. Basically, a fast but otherwise terrible hub.
We can't solve the inherent problems of hubs by making them faster, but somehow we think it's okay to solve inherent problems of bad road design by adding more lanes or increasing speed limits.
> Highway-built cars are fundamentally incompatible with human-scale living: they are loud
Most modern cars are very quiet. There is an alley behind my house, I mostly hear the stupid whirring noises that electric cars make and large trucks, I don't even hear modern ICE cars go through the alley. The safety systems for blind people in electric cars are much much louder than the exhaust of a modern car.
Urban living detracts from pleasant urban living. Pleasant urban living is an oxymoron. If not highway-built cars disturbing the peace, then it's the emergency vehicles, the sirens, the construction. Sound aside, the pollution, the disease, the trash, the smell. It's always something in the city.
Many people in these comments are saying "this is stupid, why not just use a bicycle?" and I just can't fathom this line of reasoning.
The point of this car is not to replace bicycles. It's to replace big cars.
Smaller, lighter, slower cars on the roads will make cycling safer. This is a net positive for bicycles and e-bikes and cargo trikes and the rest of the fun things that you are suggesting. This is not an all-or-nothing decision. If we don't support car alternatives, we'll be stuck with cars.
The people who say that probably live in California (or equivalent) and can't fathom that some people live in places where weather is a thing.
Or maybe they're the kind of hardcore cyclists that wouldn't mind cycling in a Michigan winter or an Arizona summer. Good for them. But there's nothing wrong with needing an air conditioned enclosed vehicle to get around.
I live in California. Cycling in Michigan winter and Arizona summer are great! I wouldn't mind either. People do it all the time. Having the right clothing is very important.
It's okay to have options. Many people who live in those places and have bikes also have cars. Why not have a small car instead of a big car?
I live in Madison, which is an incredibly bike friendly city and there is almost no bike usage once winter starts over here. This is in a city with dedicated bike paths and lanes all over town. Under heavy snowfall and -20 C temperatures with wind screeching in cause of the lakes, I really doubt this is a doable scenario.
I live in Seattle, it's cold and rainy all year long (more or less). I still prefer using my bike over a car (though I have no problem with small car that replaces big car.)
I also live in Seattle, bike to work three days a week, and don't mind biking in the rain and cold.
Even so, I think mobility vehicles like this are excellent and should absolutely be part of our transportation systems. Sometimes you:
* Have a disability that prevents you from biking.
* Need to pick something up from the store that won't fit in your paniers.
* Want to bring a passenger who doesn't bike.
* Need to bring a small child who can't bike or doesn't have the endurance.
* Need to carry something you can't get wet and won't fit in your panniers.
* Are going somewhere nice and need to arrive without your hair and clothing discheveled.
* Won't have a safe place to park a bike.
* Need to leave something with your vehicle and want to be able to lock it away.
There is a reason cars are so popular. They are amazingly useful and convenient. I dislike arguments against cars because so many of them try to downplay the benefits as if car consumers are idiots. The benefits are real and profound. The problem with cars isn't that they aren't as great as people think they are. It's that the externalities often don't make the benefits worth it.
Any vehicle that can give you many of those same benefits while reducing those externalities should be applauded.
Thank you so much for posting this sane response. As the spouse of someone who can't walk due to a disability (and also can't move themselves in a wheelchair), reading these discussions where people assume everyone is young, able-bodied, and lives in great weather gets really tiresome. It often feels like they're intentionally not arguing in good faith because some of the points are so obviously incorrect.
I don't think that's an assumption (it's certainly not one for me). Bikes are great, most folks could use bikes. Some folks cannot, and we should ensure our spaces are available to all of us.
And I deal with a similar issue in my own life -- not due to a disability, but due to another form of discrimination. Believe me, I'm well aware that spaces aren't designed for everyone. If I gave the impression that bikes were the only or universal option, then of course I apologize!
Of course. I explicitly tried to say this -- bikes are fantastic, small cars like this are ok too (though, building for cars carries a lot of externalities with it).
You are weird. I am a born-and-raised PNW resident and a very small proportion of the population can tolerate having to wear a rain suit to bike home from work or go to the grocery store for 6-8 months of the year.
Do the napkin math on how many of the residents (don't forget children and old people) in your neighborhood bike year round vs. the number who use a car daily. Being on a bike seeing the few other people who bike in the rain is a form of availability bias.
I don't think this works. Plenty of people where I live bike throughout the frigid snowy winters, other places people bike regulatory even though it often rains.
Agreed, it'd also be a helpful trend-breaker to the ever bigger sizes of cars. We've never had such a high share of SUVs and trucks on the road, it makes everyone less safe.
Road safety has essentially become a typical social dilemma now: everyone's self-interested pursuit of safety (driving a bigger car), leads to worse outcomes for all, and if we coordinated better by all driving lighter vehicles, we'd all be safer off.
Still quietly hoping for solutions through regulation here in Europe, to severely limit the number of large cars (either requiring a special license like for busses, or through taxes based on their impact of weight on road maintenance and size on parking requirements). But I don't really see it happening. We really, really love our freedom of choice in the cars we buy, even if some of these cars are approaching the size of literal tanks [0] and can be driven by teenagers on the same streets shared with kids playing or people cycling. It's absurd to me.
I'm also really hopeful about driverless tech. If the majority of cars are driverless, I'm sure the majority of vehicles on roads will become unmanned taxis, at which point we can have way more differentiation in size. Right now we all buy personal cars with a size/capacity to accommodate even the least frequent occurence of travelling with 4-6 friends, even if 9/10 trips we drive solo. But if you can just call-up a ubiquitous taxi, 9/10 taxis would probably be 2-man pods at most. It should reduce average car sizes (as it's cheaper to manufacture and operate) and increase average occupation, making driving cheaper and safer. But that may be 2 decades away.
>Still quietly hoping for solutions through regulation here in Europe, to severely limit the number of large cars (either requiring a special license like for busses, or through taxes based on their impact of weight on road maintenance and size on parking requirements). But I don't really see it happening.
Cars in Europe are not that big, already limited to 3500kg.
If you put a limit at say 1000 kg that means that driving a delivery van, your plumber, small scale public transport, driving around a cleaning crew will all require a "special" license. In practice this special license will just become the default license.
I dislike SUVs but the kind of things we drive in Europe aren't like American SUVs, most are the size and weight of a Golf or a Polo with 10 cm extra height.
> An average car has a stationary footprint of around 10 m2, a very inefficient use of the scarce space in city centers. A Squad has a footprint of only 2,4 m2, or 1,2 m2 per person. 3 Squads can easily park on 1 car parking spot.
This is the biggest issue in the US in my opinion. I believe Smart cars and just generally smaller cars like the Fiat 500 would have been far more successful if US cities allowed cars under a certain size to be able to park facing the curb and extended other benefits like reserving corner spots near the crosswalks for small cars(to improve daylighting intersections)
Massive ‘cars’ didn’t come out of nowhere. US policies and subsidies at the federal, state and city level all incentivize them at practically every turn.
Seems like a nice practical city car and an overall great platform for building all sorts of vehicles on for local traffic. It is a glorified golf car indeed. And that's exactly good enough and optimal for a lot of people. I could imagine a few variants of this form factor that are equally practical. For example, a mini pick up truck version, a convertible (remove doors and roof), stretch limo version (the East German trabant exists in such a form factor), etc.
There is the Kei standard in Japan for vehicle sizes. Being one of the most prominent societies as regard dense development practices, I'd trust that following Japanese standards elsewhere takes a lot of the development cost out.
If the big cars didn't pose such a danger, electric bicycles would already be our primary alternative for city driving. They're fast, quiet, cheap, and reliable, and every year they're getting better and better
Except of course it might rain. Or it might be too sunny/hot. Or you might need to carry kids. Or carry shopping/parcels. Or you might need to go faster than an ebike can legally go (12mph).
You're not made of sugar and neither is the bike. Rain gear exists just like it does for walking.
> Or it might be too sunny/hot.
On an eBike it's usually more comfortable than walking due to the breeze.
> Or you might need to carry kids.
Cargo bikes, trailers and kids seats. Carrying kids on bikes is easy. Certainly better for them to be outside in fresh air with a good view. The older kids ride themselves of course.
> Or carry shopping/parcels.
Cargo bikes, trailers, baskets, panniers, backpacks, etc. You honestly cannot argue that bikes can't carry things.
> Or you might need to go faster than an ebike can legally go (12mph).
At least in Europe they're limited to 25km/h, or 16mph. With traffic lights, stop signs and congestion you may very well be going slower than that on average in a car.
There are of course reasons people can't/don't use a bike for something: Poor infrastructure, lacking safety enforcement (from cars & thieves), anti-convenience laws like helmet mandates, super long distances, super heavy/large cargo, impassable terrain, good public transit, horrendous weather, etc. You might note that pretty much all of those apply to cars as well.
There is a huge misunderstanding in what bikes are trying to achieve. No sane one is suggesting you use a bike for a 50 mile work commute.
The criticism is against giant SUVs and pickup trucks for in-city travel. You dont need to burn 2 gallons of fuel to carry a gallon of milk and dozen eggs from 2 miles away. A cargo bike like in the video above is sufficient.
Most cars have 1 passenger in them currently. How do I know that? Because HoV lanes are always empty.
I live in Seattle, riding in the rain is not really a problem. A halfway decent outer shell protects you from the rain.
I carry my kid on my bike. My wife's bike has a whole box up front that could carry two kids. (Mine has a long tail with a captain's chair on it.)
I can carry shopping easily. I've carted something like 6-10 cubic feet of soil on it before. Cargo bikes are made to carry stuff.
Ebikes can go as fast as you can pedal them, and will stop assisting you at 28mph. I've regularly hit 30mph on downhills, and here in Seattle you can treat stop signs as yield signs. In practice, because I don't have to stop every block and because I can take paths and other shortcuts and I don't need to find parking, trips under a couple miles are generally faster on the bike than in a car.
Nah. It's easy enough to chain up to any ol' bike post. It's a midsize cargo bike. My wife's bike takes a bit more work, but she's got the whole bucket at the front going on.
You mention legal speed of ebikes but use mph- what country are you in? In the USA, it's 28mph.
Also, my ebike does fine for parcels/shopping, it has a rack. If it's hot I use more vehicle assist and less human power. I see cargo bikes for larger loads like children.
Ebikes may not be for everyone, but they're much better than you portray.
Agreed on that (not a fan of being wet, even in tropical climat)
> Or it might be too sunny/hot.
That's usually not a problem but YMMV
> Or you might need to carry kids.
Or you may live in a sane place where you don't have to carry kids everywhere as they can simply walk to school (or take a bus in worst case scenario)
> Or carry shopping/parcels.
You don't have to shop for whole month? Doing groceries in the corner shop? Parcels can be delivered to you or to close-by point? It's kinda hard to imagine you would buy and maintain a car just because once in a blue moon you order a wardrobe (though, in this case using proper delivery makes more sense still)?
> Or you might need to go faster than an ebike can legally go (12mph).
They go 25mph, which is the limit in many cities. Yes they can't carry children usually. They can carry shopping and parcels quite well. And agree, rain biking sucks.
That said, not dealing with traffic or parking are two plusses of cycling you completely ignored and are the worst part of driving.
> Weather situation is the same as walking; you need to dress properly.
I love my ebike but that's not really true. Weather feels much more extreme on a bike, IMO. In the rain I get much wetter on my bike than walking. In the cold the weather hurts my hands and eyes. In the sun I sweat more, because biking is exercise unless I go throttle-only.
And of course there's the danger aspect. Walking in the rain is not a safety risk for me at all. Biking in the rain is not as safe.
So I mostly use my ebike in mild weather conditions and choose other options at the extremes.
Built by the Dutch for Dutch cities - these sort of vehicles are all over Amsterdam, mostly by people who can't be bothered to cycle and 16 year olds :)
I was on Sicily last week and saw quite some of those. Doesn't even stand out that much as people there seem to prefer very small cars (just look at a city like Modica on Streetview and you get why).
Looks a lot like the L EU vehicle class which is more than common in the EU. Go by various names: voiturette, mopoauto, quardicycle, same thing. Big, big issues and very dangerous for a variety of reasons, those being easier or harder to fix.
Firstly, we give them to 15 year olds (AM/121 license). This is an obvious safety issue but we also give them mopeds (AM/120), tractors (T/F/TM/Tкт/K/L & AM) and buggies (AM/121) whatever else. Ordinary driving licenses (B) in the EU are always 18 and up so this is our transitional mobility option. They're only meant to go 45 km/h but you know if you give someone a pimped up lawnmower with a plastic body they're going to do their everything to make that little engine work way harder than it should. You can, surprisingly, cram eight teenagers into one if you try – it has two seats. The age thing is relatively easy to fix.
Secondly, inherently unsafe design. These look more safe than mopeds. In terms of stability, they're stable upright and mopeds aren't so that's a big plus. Other than that, they're effectively the same vehicle when you get into a crash, that is, you practically become an 80 km/h pedestrian. They give off an illusion of safety though, making their (often young) user base very likely to find themselves in roadside posts due to the high centre of mass and low contact area making these things very likely to tip over in curve at any speed above like 35 km/h. Mopeds can actually often corner faster because they're designed to tip, but they're less likely to be driven with as much impunity due to the complete absence of the illusion of safety given by being inside a vehicle.
Thirdly, they are slow. At 45 km/h top speed they are pretty much only useful on local roads which limits where you can go to the exact same range as a bicycle. Being on an arterial for a long time is going to be a massive road safety risk simply because of everyone passing you and attempting to drive on a highway is in fact, entirely illegal. In everything, be it cargo capacity, seats, range or whatever they are equivalent to bicycles in everything but cost and lifetime emissions, especially if they're 2-stroke. Not only that but they don't benefit from the quicker and more free bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure which can cross however it wants and are confined to roads, leading to often much higher travel times despite twice the top and thrice the comfortable riding speed of a bicycle. In literally every way these are useless unless you live in a rural village an hour's walk away from the local town and are 15. Even then, a speed limited car would probably do better.
This insight into European driver's license and road safety politics brought to you by a Finnish man who wishes to see not only less SUVs but also less of these things on the roads because they are equally dangerous, although in different ways.
Yes, and for that they would be useful. However, in such an environment, it will be exceedingly rare for you to need one of these, as you would have to contend with city-level traffic and have to go at least 1.5 km away to even choose one instead of a bicycle. They have effectively the same safety and cargo capacity as a proper cargo bike, as they are super tiny. For families carrying children, bakfiets would fill the same role within that small radius. Therefore this is for intra-city, entirely urban trips, specifically going to places where there are no tram or metro stations within a few hundred metres or when a very small amount of too-heavy-to-carry cargo has to be moved more than 1.5 km, which as we all know, is a definite daily occurrence. Weather is one thing it protects you from, but from what I see on the daily, that's not a big enough issue to wage war against city traffic for for most people.
I don't find a good niche for these to succeed other than in very small towns with integrated suburbs but then again people would bike for bike trips and buy a car anyway because they want to get out of the small town at some point. It's a great idea but it either comes with most downsides of L-class vehicles or it loses its niche entirely.
I saw some of these in “hill towns” in Italy. You have a 4sq mile town with cobblestones, steep inclines, and narrow “roads”. Perfect.
Where I live it’s common for people for buy £4k electric cargo bikes to shuttle <10mi/day to shops and schools. I can see the appeal of one of these over such a bike especially when they were only £6k: more weatherproof, less likely to be stolen, arguably more versatile.
Just like things keep evolving into crabs, the final stage of vehicular evolution is the humble golf cart.
I don't drive daily, but if I did, I would get this. It's 48% width and 40% the length of a parking spot according to current building standards around here, meaning I could squeeze four of these in there. I'm assuming that at 350kg I could just push this thing into place, thus avoiding the need to exit to the side once it's parked.
And on top of that it even costs around 1/4 of what I would pay for a car.
The Squad is a great concept. But the problem in America is not great concepts. Its convincing the public, and therefore investors, that small, lightweight road machines are viable.
Aptera is facing the same challenge. The concept is fantastic. Its got amazing engineering and unlike the Squad its a highly designed, efficient machine. But finding funders is the hard part.
Its the hard part for every start up. Which is why EV startups fail at nearly 100% rate.
I really like these small electric cars, and I plan to buy one even if only just for fun in the next ten years. They fill a niche between electric scooters/bikes and regular cars. In most cities, an electric scooter is usually enough for me. But they don't work well in rain, snow, or ice as they have no protection from the elements. A small car with a roof does. Also, if the car can pull 10+ km of range out of thin air through solar power every day, that's just a cherry on top.
The only letdown I have with these cars is their appearance. Why do they often seem so rough around the edges? The Microlino 2.0 is the only EV micro car I've come across with a somewhat attractive design. In comparison, the TWIZY, AMI, and Squad models just seem plasticky, uncomfortable, and cheaply crafted. Even many electric golf carts boast a more polished look, not to mention a much better suspension.
Is it that the target demographic demands cheapness? What about people who have the means for a premium car but like the practicality (the T-shirt and shorts in-the-office guys as opposed to suit and tie, so to speak)? I'd gladly pay a design premium, even if it's just to make these cars on par (pun intended) with golf carts in elegance, which is not a tall ask.
E-scooters are reasonably stable when there's a small amount of ice so long as you don't use solid tyres. They are more stable than road bikes and city bikes because they have a wider area of contact with the ground. For more comfort, you can under-inflate the pneumatic tyres or buy studded tyres. Also, you feel steadier on them than on a bike because you always have one foot as a third point of contact if you need it, and you feel somewhat more in control than with a car as the inertia is lower. The battery life and dirt/sleet are more frustrating.
Don't knock it till you try it. Though be careful for the first time if you do try it, use common sense — drive slower and don't turn as sharply, dress appropriately as you'll be caked in mud. But otherwise it's doable and quite fun.
I've driven a bicycle in winter and yeah nah, I'd rather just take public transport. It's not just traction but the fact everyone else got shitty traction too, so there is a good chance than most of the agility of small bike/bicycle is negated by just slipping.
At least with bicycle like 95% of my route is not on actual road sharing it with cars, can't do that on bike.
I realy want the nobe cars 100 gt[1] to be a real thing, but I don't think it will ever really be produced. Seems like a great upgrade from the golf cart style small ev that would be perfect for a commute like mine, 20 miles one way partially on the highway.
Perhaps cities should start creating roads that are only accessible by certain car classes. In fact, incentivize people who drive lighter duty vehicles by offering free or heavily discounted parking and charging.
There are no reasons why cities must keep cars meant for safely traveling at 65mph clog up the densest roads.
"Easy and secure solar mobility for all (EU Only)"
We're in the market for a new car. A cheap, small, low-range, light electric car is exactly what we need. I'm putting off our purchase for as long as I can in the hopes that someone make one for the US market... but I'm starting to give up hope.
A Citicar might work well for you, although they're all a bit old now.
Apparently the Tazzari Zero [1] is available in the US, otherwise I'm unsure what else is available, and how electric vehicles interact with the US import rules
I'm trying not to sound sarcastic, but doesn't an electric golf cart fill this need? These look like a fancy golf cart with a solar panel on the top. Is there a street legality issue with golf carts being on public urban streets?
Edited: spelling
Golf carts do not have adequate suspension for roads. They're designed for wide-open, mostly flat golf courses, covered in grass. They don't do well in a roll-over, either. The size is similar, but the construction is quite different.
Now that is one smoooth looking ride. I'm referring to the paint since this clearly has the same suspension as a ride on lawn mower. One of our local potholes would swallow that buggy whole. Cute though.
I further love how they demand an "industry standard for compliance" when complying with "please don't track me" is literally as simple as "okay then I won't track you".
Such nonsense is why I don't trust anyone with "marketing" in one's title.
I remember seeing an NEV (Neighborhood Electric Vehicle) concept at the MIT media lab like 15 years ago. And I might even recall something from the 90s like glorified golf carts.
The tech has been around forever. The regulatory and built environment is the issue, reinforced by the status quo inertia of car dependency.
Looks like it doesn't have any real climate control. Once you have a light, efficient vehicle like this the climate control loads start to become significant vs the actual transport.
Might work great where it's super mild all the time like Europe or parts of California. Probably not awesome in the US South.
A lack of physical exertion is a large cause of obesity and depression. Human innovation tends towards us making our lives easier (so: less physical exercise). Quite the dilemma!
And some people are physically impaired and cannot walk or bike. The able world would love to forget about them or force them into 3 hour long bus routes, but besides that being incredibly unfair, it's just not necessary if there is alternative transportation.
I’ve actually seen some really impressive scooters that take care of this actually.
The issue I’ve seen (can only speak for a large city in the US) is still accessibility. Like entrances, finding elevators, ramps, etc. especially in older buildings.
For the record I got to experience this first hand when I hung out with an old colleague who was injured in a car crash. And this was at the DC convention center, a relatively new building. Finding elevators and navigating around took way longer, especially when you were lost. But I will say that it was amazing how everyone around him was willing to help in any way they could.
Yeah in Finland you see people in effectively single-seat L-class vehicles all the time. It's the vehicle they use to get around, but that's an exception that should probably be left to them. There's far too many bent road signs around here because of the myriad of road safety issues these things pose. In the US, they don't drive golf carts on roads, and in the EU you sometimes start to get why.
My folks run into similar issues with small children in strollers, and I myself run into similar issues with moving lots of stuff (or really big stuff) with a hand truck. The curb-cut effect is real, people!
For short excursions I don't see a huge problem. We often dress for the climate (coats, hats in winter, t-shirts in summer).
Regardless, removing cars anywhere is a win. Get something going like this and innovations to allow for different climates will follow.
For little electrics like this, the low price may be the sleeper feature. Cars keep going up, up, up in cost. People might look at these as a 2nd car, then find they are increasingly using their 2nd car....
If someone is in a sunny location (ergo have access to their own solar energy), they already have access to "solar" electric golf carts (e.g., Club, E-Z-Go, Madjax, Star, Bintelli, Elit, ICON, Tomberlin) at or around €9300 ($10362, £8209).
If someone is not in a sunny location, why would they want such a vehicle?
Is there something remotely similar for the US market? I would love a small, cheap electric city car and it doesn't have to be solar or anything - though that would be a plus! It would be perfect for my Silicon Valley commute (<10 miles on urban streets) although I appreciate that it probably won't be quite as useful for the vast majority of my countrymen.
I have considered a used electric smart fortwo and a fiat 500e, but the combination of upfront cost and upkeep expenses owing to the need to register it as a car dulls their value proposition as a secondary commuter vehicle. I have looked into an Electrameccanica Solo, but as far as I can tell that company has folded after a series of recalls.
My Fiat 500e has been the lowest maintenance cost vehicle Ive ever owned. And Ive had approx 50 so far (Im a collector). In 5 years of ownership its cost me one 12v battery ($80) and two headlights ($60) because one burned out. That's it.
Yup I have to register and insure it but its ridiculously low cost compared to everything else.
Unfortunate name of "Solar City Car". I initially though this had something to do with solar city and Tesla. I guess they could rename it to Squad Solar Urban Car or something.
This is similar to some other such vehicles[1] which can be driven by 16+ year olds with just a Mopet license. They however only go up to 45km/h which is fine in many cities which have a speed limit of 30 but just outside it becomes and issue if you can't go 50-60km/h.
Cars that are a little bigger like the microlino[2] which can do 80km/h but require a regular license seem more usable. Although personally I think it is butt ugly and I don't get why these vehicles have to look different than regular vehicles.
One of the reasons for the looks of this car is that its wheels extend beyond the car, effectively acting as bumpers. In the Fully Charged preview[0] Jack demonstrates parking by running into the curb.
Me too, I just avoid roads for vast majority of my route. That is at least benefit for bicycles vs motorcycles, vast majority of danger can be avoided by just using bike/pedestrian routes
Dang, I hope these make it to Canada. I had been considering picking up an older Leaf to supplement our SUV for short trips, but having something that would charge itself via solar would be nice step up from that.
Interesting concept. I’m interested to see how many people will find a use for microcars like this:
> Max speed 45 km/h (L6) 70 km/h (L7)
To put it in perspective, the L6 homologated version tops out at 28mph. That’s marginally faster than a golf cart. The whole concept feels a lot like a very, very well designed golf cart.
The bigger L7 version can go a little over 40mph. Thinking of my normal shopping and daily routine, I could make that work. Would be interesting to have an option like this available. I don’t think I’d actually feel safe driving it mixed in with normal size cars at 40mph, though.
I suspect 45kmph is enough for driving in dense part of many cities in the world. Very likely not true in the US, but my main concern would be the risk of being very easily crushed by heavier vehicles.
It's a glorified golf cart, but there's no reason to need more than a glorified golf cart for local trips where I live, given the two-lane streets and city speed limits of 20-25 mph.
As with a lot of vehicles I've seen like this it seems wildly overpriced, though. It's listed as €9300 ($10,260 USD). I could get a used Miata for less than that, and it would be about as practical, only a little harder to park, and be usable on the highway.
Not just modified vehicles or hummers, but a road filled with SUVs, minivans, delivery trucks, crossovers. Even a "standard" Ford F150 is goliath, and an indestructable frame won't save you. To the contrary, a super-rigid frame translates into occupant injury. Crumple zones, energy absorbing materials, deformation of structures = survivability. A 20 mph head-on collision in a 1950s auto with a full frame design is often far more serious than a 40 mph collision in a modern auto. Head-to-head comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPF4fBGNK0U (likely death vs possible foot injury)
Now contemplate a 6' long vehicle with 1' or less of "crumple zone".
Where I live people are on bikes, ebikes, escooters and cargo bikes all over the roads anyway so this fits right in.
I drove through Texas in a small Kia once, indeed, I was always afraid someone would fail to notice me and drive over the car thinking "what was that?"
I love the look of this thing and I'd love to own one. Unfortunately I live in America and there are very few places that I'd actually feel safe driving one of these. I live in Austin, TX and I wouldn't risk my life on the road in something like this. I wish it wasn't that way but unfortunately it is.
Re: roll cage: Possibly in some jurisdictions it may be regulated as a motorcycle? Many times motorcycles require the use of a helmet even if said "motorcycle" isn't a 2-wheeled vehicle with an exposed rider.
Am I reading this right in that I do not see airbags listed under the Safety header on this page? I see brakes, seat belts, lighting, roll cage, and "safety structure".
I wonder what the crash test results are. I can't imagine that this car can adequately protect its passengers.
Just imagine a crash with a full sized SUV.
Since they are only usable on low speed roads I wonder how that would affect a crash test, even with a much bigger vehicle. Even SUV's have to contend with crashes with an 18 wheeler or other big truck.
Not sure why this is superior to a Ferla for most people. This golf cart weighs 5x more than, and has less range than, and costs more than a cargo e-trike.
Are you suggesting that's impractical? I never wore a dress on any occasion but I've certainly seen people combine a dress and a family bike. Then again I've lived abroad so I don't have typical American beliefs about the impossibility of riding bicycles.
Sure! Both of those are very suitable above-the-knee summer dresses and absolutely fine on a bike.
Below the knee, or full-length, and you start to have problems. Nice to have the option of an enclosed space if you’re going somewhere where the clothes matter.
I park my car inside a garage, no way to charge it. If everyone would have to park their cars outside this would take a lot of additional parking space.
> Alternatively the batteries can be charged directly on a regular power plug or a charge point. The swappable batteries can also be charged externally of the car.
The batteries are removable and can be carried inside and charged separately. They likely weigh around 30 lbs each (up to 4 can be installed), based on comparable batteries, but I see the weight is listed
Depends on the city. For most cities I've found a bicycle or ebike has the best door to door time (most navigation apps neglect to calculate time to find parking in their navigation estimates). If possible walking + public transit is usually pretty good.
Not sure what grey import rules are like, but Japan has some sweet Kei Cars/Tiny Cars that are all electric. A bit bigger than this but much smaller than regular cars.
It's quite a bit more advanced than a golf cart. Unibody aluminum tub and roll cage, wheels for bumpers, built in solar charger, 4 lithium hotswap batteries, compact design.
As much as I wanted to like it, I am still just seeing an $8000 upfitted golf cart. (spaceframe golf cart) I didn't dig too deeply, but there seems to be a lot of information missing that would be necessary for a purchase decision.
My initial criticisms:
Air Conditioning is an upcharge -- how much? (It is essential in many regions). And how much does its use affect range? Similarly, how much does the heat affect range? (probably resistance heat- the least efficient type?) What is range in winter, or summer?
What about safety - crash tests and occupant injury - what is the result of a 20mph head-on collision? Side collision? Roll-over? Does the "savings" of a cheap car translate into life spent in a wheelchair as a result of a minor fender-bender?
The 25/40mph top speed is severely limiting in terms of usefulness. Perhaps city-only use is the only domain?
Each battery pack gives 25km range. 2 standard, 4 max. What is the cost of additional packs? What is charge time? How many cycles per pack?
Seat belts? Passive restraints? Is there even a spare tire in case of a flat?
Taxes and Insurance - what is the vehicle category and how does it compare?
Again, I hate to be a dark cloud over this project, but to me a $5000 used gasoline auto seems to be much more practical everyday transportation.
I think city-only use (in cities with slower speeds than American ones, too) is the intended domain indeed, especially given the “city car” name. In theory, in urban environments where pedestrians and bikers who have no protection at all are common, cars should certainly not be traveling fast enough to injure someone inside any kind of metal protective shell.
A sport bike is an upfitted moped. Basically the same thing! Only a few things different like chassis, powertrain, size, range.
The vehicle in question here has been built to purpose, and that purpose is very different from the purpose of a golf cart. A golf cart cannot do all the things this new vehicle can. They look similar, but that's where the similarities end.
And the purpose isn't to replace a gas car. Cars in cities are a crap solution to transportation. They're too big, they go too fast, they pollute too much. The purpose of this new vehicle is to provide a completely different solution: space-efficient safe mobility in urban cities without burning fuel.
The whole point is to find a solution that isn't a gas car. This gets us closer to that. Gas cars and golf carts don't.
Stop putting solar panels on cars. It’s just not worth the cost or complexity.
That square meter of PV is going to get you at most 250W in perfect conditions. Conditions that aren’t found in cities or even at ground level in residential areas.
Their page addresses that point, it says the panel will charge for 20km of driving in a day, and the average micro car does 12 (not exactly sure what a micro car is though...). Not having to plug anything in is actually a pretty big deal in many European cites where people do not have garages, and on-street chargers are still sparse.
I don't know if this will work, but things like this deserve some consideration.
there are these things called garages. People in many places have them. In big cities, you usually wind up parking in one. They tend not to be made of transparent materials.
Start putting solar everywhere possible. It depends on lot of factors, not every city is built the same, and even in non-perfect conditions power collected is just a monotically increasing function over time.. cost and complexity always go down with more mass adoption.
Besides the fact that it probably charges enough to keep operating most of the day, the swappable batteries makes it better than existing micromobility solutions that need to be picked up and recharged. With these a service vehicle can just drop by and replace the battery in 60 seconds. If they partner with gas stations in their cities, people could do it themselves. This design is very exciting
If you're going to attack the idea, at least address the bits of the page that talk about the thing you think doesn't work:
> Even in northern countries like The Netherlands the sun gives enough energy for average urban use. The solar panel can charge up to 20 km per day in Europe. The average micro car usage is around 12 km per day.
It's just really frustrating to think a path we might go down, after trying cars for 100 years, is using (sure, small) cars for daily trips of 12km. We're going to maintain travel and parking infrastructure, for 12km trips? Really? That's so much space that could be reclaimed.
I'm not a big fan of scooters but most taipei trips cap out around 10km. A scooter takes a 1x.5 meter spot at home and in the city, and in lanes of traffic we stack three to five wide while moving. They still don't beat busses, trains, bikes, or walking, but they're a damn sight better than a private car no matter the size. If you're concerned about rain, you can wear a rain jacket like hundreds of thousands here do without issue.
So to clarify, it sounds like you think maintaining the good parts of modern society requires cars? Can I challenge you on that?
First, I'm curious generally where you live. As a Houstonian, I once certainly couldn't imagine life without cars. After all, how else could I visit my friends in Pearland, accessible only by freeway and 30km away? Then I visited Paris and saw that there were different ways to build cities, and that how you build a city dramatically affects how you can get around it.
If you've been to a city like Houston and a city like Paris, do you think we should build more cities like Houston, or more like Paris? To clarify, my perception of Houston is hot concrete and freeways as far as the eye can see. The downsides of this was no freedom of travel as a child, inability to do more than one or two activities in a day, being angry for 40 minutes twice a day when I was commuting to work, and everything being really far apart because most space in the city is dedicated to parking. Whereas my perception in Paris is that children can get around without depending on their parents, a commute could be as simple as walking and sitting on a train (allowing for reading a book or something), and a much denser selection of activities to choose from.
That's without even mentioning the incredible harm to the climate cars and freeway building cause.
If you believe Paris style cities are better than Houston ones, would you also be open to the idea that building even better than Paris could allow us to get rid of private cars entirely?
I can maybe guess at some initial objections so let me add some caveats:
There's plenty of places far away that it doesn't make sense to run bus routes to all of them, probably renting a car is a good solution for these rural areas. I thought it'd be interesting to build car depots at major metropolitan edges, so as density decreases to some amount people can grab a car for their rural destination, and rural visitors can easily drop off their cars when they visit the city.
Obviously, for those with mobility issues, a transit system must be inclusive.
And of course, a city should still be designed in a way for emergency vehicles to get around quickly. Though, the less private cars on the roads, surely the better response times emergency vehicles would have? Not to mention the less busy they would be...
I remember seeing a lot of dedicated motorcycle parking when I lived in California, none here in the Midwest. Having dedicated parking for 2-wheels would help for people scratching their heads about picking up an electric scooter.
I would love to see small cars like these come into more widespread use in the the U.S., with carsharing programs providing cars as needed for highway driving. This change could come much more quickly than the large-scale urban design improvements we will eventually need to totally reduce reliance on cars in cities.
As it is, many city streets are too fast for these cars to be comfortable. I would love to see a general slowing-down of vehicles in US cities and towns that makes city vehicles like these practical, and, on top of the obvious safety benefits for all the cities that claim to have “vision zero”, I don’t think it would come with many downsides. Even outside of a city center for in-town trips of a few miles, 28mph is really quite fast—a matter of a few extra minutes compared to current dangerous city speeds.