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Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one
- gshdg 6y agoThis is awesome. But nobody’s going to buy it if they have to drive it sharing the road with hulking SUVs. It’s nearly as dangerous as a motorcycle simply because it is so small and light. The only advantage is protection from the weather.
- melling 6y agoPlenty of people ride motorcycles. Protection from the weather means year round use. Throw in some specialized parking for small vehicles, and you have a winning product
- taneq 6y agoFrom experience, the main issues, aside from weather, with using a motorcycle as your sole means of transport are: - You can't take an arbitrary person as passenger (they need gear and pillion experience) - You can't take more than a backpack's worth of cargo (slightly expandable with panniers) This can't take a passenger at all, and looks like it has the same cargo restrictions. It looks fun but I can't see it replacing a small car which solves both of these problems, so it needs to be cheap enough to be a 'fun' second vehicle.
- theshadowknows 6y agoDon’t forget the spiders!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- stonogo 6y agoI thought this was the appeal of the 'full touring' bikes from Harley and Honda? Do you still need pinion experience when you're basically in a recliner?
- pengaru 6y agoPillion experience has more to do with not panicking and not upsetting the balance especially when cornering.
- LilBytes 6y ago100,000+ km in total under my belt. Pillions in my experience pick it up quite quickly and this is across super sports, super nakeds and adventure tourers. I tell them either lean with me when I'm going around a bend or stay directly up right. I've not had any problems. And I've had a fair number of Tinder Dates with people without any experience of riding who've came accustomed quite quickly.
- pengaru 6y agoSure, it's not hard to acclimate at all. But I too have ridden heaps of miles in a previous life when I'd habitually tour the US on two wheels, and there can definitely be frustrations and risks with inexperienced passengers. From having to convince them things like No, your Keds are not satisfactory for us to go riding. Yes, you must wear a helmet and some pants and gloves would be smart. No, you should not lean into the corners, just be a predictable appendage of the bike especially at low speeds. No, you should not put your foot anywhere near the chain/chain guard, regardless of how annoyingly high the rear pegs are on this superbike. Yes, you must hold on to me and not let go and bail in a panic, yes, even if the front end comes off the ground and you're looking at the sky briefly. This walk down memory lane reminds me of the time I had to give my ex a ride to work when her car wouldn't start. I had an 04 R1 back then and she never rode on the back before because she was terrified of the thing, and I never had taken passengers on it because it was so poorly suited to it, I actually had to put passenger pegs on for that trip. Just breathing on the throttle in first with her on the back would pull the front end off the ground, it was comically bad with the combination of short wheelbase, high CoG of the passenger on that steep tail, and liter bike tq. When she got off at work she was shaking with fear and said she almost fell off the first time the front end came up a bit and that was having significant experience riding on the back of my previous sport-tourer. On that previous sport-tourer years prior we had an annoying spill where she was leaned over to see around my helmet while we were riding in an unfamiliar part of Chicago when the front end locked up briefly over an oily patch on Ashland braking for a light. Due to her leaning to see around me we were down and tumbling down the road in the blink of an eye, it was rather shocking but things happen quickly when the front end locks up with a passenger leaned over. Fortunately we walked away with just skinned knees, bruised egos, and a ground through stator cover.
- cortesoft 6y agoThere is also the danger factor... you are 27 times more likely to die driving the same distance on a motorcycle as in a car. I don’t think I would want to take that risk.
- throwlaplace 6y agoWhat is the absolute number? Eg 27*0 is still 0 (note I'm not suggesting it's actually 0)
- TylerE 6y agoIt’s also a more nuanced issue than that. A larger proportion of bike fatalities involve alcohol.
- HarryHirsch 6y agoThere is much more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_findings_in_the_Hurt_Report https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_findings_in_the_Hurt_R...
- adrianN 6y agoPart of the difference could be explainable by different demographics. Maybe motorcyclists drive more dangerously than normal even when they're in a car.
- taneq 6y ago"Nobody rides a big-bore sports bike this far out into the countryside in order to do the speed limit." Even if people drive their cars safely, the huge difference in performance means they're more likely to get in trouble on a bike.
- cortesoft 6y agoInteresting that they are choosing Los Angeles as the first market, then, since weather isn’t really a factor.
- cptskippy 6y agoExcept the people who ride motorcycles do it for the open air freedom. The high ride and lack of an enclosure also give them superb visibility. This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments, plus all the detriments of a sub compact car. It's like they distilled bad down into a concentrated form.
- pengaru 6y ago> This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments Oh please; it doesn't fall over, keeps its occupant dry, protects its occupant more in general, it obviously doesn't have all the detriments of a motorcycle.
- cptskippy 6y agoYou're right, I wonder if they're holding those back for a later revision.
- sudosysgen 6y agoIt doesn't fall over, unless you get into a turn that exceeds your capabilities. Capabilities that you cannot sense easily at all. Which is incidentally exactly the same situation as falls on a motorcycle.
- m463 6y agoWhat I've learned from riding motorcycles is that everyone does it for different reasons.
- dahfizz 6y agoThat's quite a silly argument, since millions of people buy motorcycles. The key difference is that motorcycles are cool and fun to drive. Unless this thing accelerates like a Tesla, nobody will want it.
- gxon 6y agoThis should be drastically safer than a motorcycle. It presumably has a seatbelt and airbags, and no chance of being flung 50 feet in the air or sanded down by asphalt. Parking would be a huge advantage in a dense city. Limited parking can create a psychology barrier that impacts your realized mobility even if you own a car. I regularly decide to not go somewhere because I know how much of a pain it will be to park. I've been tempted by motorcycles for this reason alone.
- jdlshore 6y agoThe article says that, as it's technically a motorcycle, it's not subject to the safety testing cars are, "but it has a seatbelt and a rollbar." So possibly no airbag. Edit: I couldn't find anything on their website about safety at all. I'm guessing that means the safety story isn't something they can brag about. So probably no airbag.
- rapjr9 6y agoIt has seat belts/chest straps and a few safety features, but no air bags and hasn't been crash tested. That and the price are the main things stopping me from buying one. There are full size cars that cost less than a Solo, even though the cars have all the complexity of an internal combustion engine.
- jccalhoun 6y agoTheoretically, I don't see why this couldn't be like the cockpit of a racecar which is capable of protecting drivers from high speed accidents. Realistically, however, one of the reasons they are making it have 3 wheels is so they don't have to be as safe so it will probably not do well in crashes.
- sudosysgen 6y agoThe cockpit of a racecar can only really protect you if you crash into the tires/dirt/sand, and are wearing a helmet.
- RickJWagner 6y agoBeware of the 'El Camino' trap. I had a beautiful '72 El Camino, but it had downsides. As a good friend once said, "It's not much of a car, but it's not much of a truck, either!"
- keenmaster 6y agoA single occupancy car will be more commercially lucrative once we have full self-driving technology. If you hail a self-driving cab for yourself, the fleet will send a single-occupancy car. If you’re with a few others, it’ll send a sedan. Etc...all under a tiered subscription model. Not sending a sedan every time saves on hardware, electricity, and maintenance costs. Some of the savings would in turn be passed onto the consumer. The single occupancy car will also be more safe at that point, because it’ll only drive on lanes dedicated to self-driving vehicles.
- J0_k3r 6y agowe have self-driving cars already, they're called trains
- Talanes 6y agoShow me a train that can show up at my grandmother's door and drop her at the doctor's.
- jdavis703 6y agoThere’s a train outside my front door that will drop me off at the front of UCSF. But that’s about 10 stops away and requires a transfer. If one doesn’t mind the bus, there’s one that picks up in front of my door and drops off at the hospital (the bus stop is even closer to the main entrance than the parking garage!)
- ncallaway 6y agoThat's great! How soon can that train get to Talanes' grandmother's house?
- nsl73 6y agoI’ve seen plenty of elderly people use trains.
- izacus 6y ago
- falcolas 6y agoIt looks like a more boring version of a Polaris slingshot. Which isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly novel either. Nor does it exist in a legislative wasteland, like the article implies. It’s considered to be a motorcycle in most US states, with all attendant licensing requirements.
- spiritplumber 6y agoMy first "car" was a Piaggio Ape. In theory it was for one person. In practice you could put 2 people in the cabin and 2 more in the back unless you were going up hill.
- alberto_ol 6y agothere is also "ape calessino", yoi can carry two passengers http://www.piaggiocommercialvehicles.com/it_IT/modelli/ape/ape-calessino/ http://www.piaggiocommercialvehicles.com/it_IT/modelli/ape/a...
- danans 6y agoReminds me of the car that the character Peter Gregory drove in the show Silicon Valley. https://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3171/5-times-silicon-valley-perfectly-parodied-techie-car-culture https://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3171/5-times-silicon-valley-...
- sien 6y agoThat's a Tango. Apparently Sergey Brin had one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_Cars_Tango https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_Cars_Tango
- timcederman 6y agoNot sure if Sergey had one, but I saw Eric Schmidt's Tango parked near building 41 sometime in 2007.
- m463 6y ago> 805 hp claimed. !
- mywittyname 6y agoIt's trivial to put a high-power electric motor into a car. It's very difficult to supply that motor with enough juice to actually sustain that kind of power output for a reasonable period of time. For reference, 800HP is 600kW.
- m463 6y agoNot that trivial. The Tesla P100D can break 600kw now, but has only been able to do it in the last month or so.
- gnicholas 6y ago> Priced at $18,500, it also costs about half as much as the current average sales price for a new passenger vehicle Well, it is significantly more limited than most new passenger vehicles, both in terms of how many people/things it can haul and its safety when sharing the road with vehicles that are on the road today.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- syntaxing 6y agoThe OEMs website has much better detail and pictures [1]. [1] https://electrameccanica.com/ https://electrameccanica.com/
- beamatronic 6y agoLooks like a Corbin Sparrow
- yodon 6y agoReserved one :)
- w00kie 6y agoIt still takes one standard car's worth of space on the road and one standard car's worth of parking space. This is not a solution to anything.
- james_s_tayler 6y agoSo it's actually probably less efficient.
- dleslie 6y agoI've seen it in person many times; it's definitely smaller than the hatchbacks parked on the street near to it. More like a goldwing motorcycle in size.
- adrianN 6y agoIf it weighs a lot less it could help with energy consumption.
- ofrzeta 6y agoThere's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
- speedgoose 6y agoYou also have the Citroën AMI that is available since yesterday.
- ofrzeta 6y agoIt looks ... interesting :) It has a max speed of 45 km/h which makes it primarily usable in cities. One edition of the two editions of the Twizy can go 80 km/h.
- pjc50 6y agoThat somehow manages to be uglier than the Fiat Multipla. It also has a >=< "face".
- lazyjones 6y agoAlso the Aixam and other "license-free" cars typically used by people who lost their license for some reason.
- weinzierl 6y agoCame here to mention the Twizy because I see a it in the steets occasionally, so it seems to be somewhat successfully. The only other "single person, but not quite motorcyle" I see even more often is the BMW C1, which is kind of a scooter with a cabin and can be driven without wearing a helmet here. I'm biased though because I live in a BMW city.
- ofrzeta 6y agoFor the BMW C1 you need a motorcycle driver's license, though. (unless you have regular car driver's license that was issued before 1980)
- dleslie 6y agoI live close by the first purchaser of one of these. It's a wild little car, and it looks like an absolute pleasure to drive as a personal commuting device.
- nsl73 6y agoI’d rather have a motorcycle. Motorcycles are faster, cheaper, can carry about the same amount of cargo, and 100 miles on a charge is enough to give me range anxiety. I’d rather have a car. I often need to carry passengers, carry large or heavy things, and a new economy car is in the same ballpark price. Who is this really for? I don’t see many people buying this as their only personal transportation if it only travels 100 miles on a charge and can’t take a passenger. It’s price too high and isn’t fun enough to be considered a recreational purchase.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoMotorcycles and cars also don't tip over dangerously on curves. That alone relegates trikes to peculiarities that only some will tolerate.
- LilBytes 6y agoWell, motorcycles don't 'tip' but low siding and high siding on roads or on a track. Either from debris or inexperience is not to be trifled with. But in +100,000km of total riding time I've had very few injuries, just scrapes and bruises because I'm always wearing boots, helmet and gloves as a minimum. I've high sided on a track twice (too fast into a corner, lost traction, immediately got traction back and flew me several metres in the air). And I've low sided from road debris twice on public roads (once on a round-a-bout at low speed) and private roads (oil slick in a private car park). I imagine this vehicle for the average person who doesn't ride a lot with the view of safety first would be safer in this than a motorcycle. But I agree with your and the OP's point above yours. An economy budget car would be a safer and equally viable purchase.
- fest 6y agoMy anecdata in ~ 50,000km riding time on a motorcycle: a frontal crash I could do nothing about (oncoming car made a left turn, didn't see me). Luckily it happened in a city and I was in full leather tracksuit. I got through with a few bruises and ruptured spleen (which thankfully healed on it's own and I now have two of them).
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoReminds me of the Reliant Robin episode of Top Gear. https://youtu.be/QQh56geU0X8 https://youtu.be/QQh56geU0X8
- hardlianotion 6y agoThat's amazing - thanks for the link
- gumby 6y agoUntil a few months ago I owned a Corbin sparrow, which looks almost identical. It was great; I could park it anywhere, drive it with a regular license, and go safely on 101 in the commuter lane (the vehicle has a monocoque design -- basically you're inside a huge motorcycle helmet). It was quite convenient until I had a kid and a very large dog. At one point I was on a board which had (including me) three separate sparrow owners!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- aerodog 6y agohttp://archive.is/VtKbR http://archive.is/VtKbR I got a 503 error!
- gambiting 6y agoI remember that ages ago in Poland these were extremely popular, I used to see them everywhere: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duo_(Krankenfahrzeug) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duo_(Krankenfahrzeug) Essentially a motorcycle with a cabin built around it. And yes, technically they were meant for disabled people - but during communist times getting an actual proper car(even a Fiat 126p) was extremely difficult - this perhaps less so.
- _448 6y agoClive Sinclair was ahead of his time then! Here is the C5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 Latest incarnation is at: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/sinclair-c5-revamped-by-sir-clives-nephew https://www.theengineer.co.uk/sinclair-c5-revamped-by-sir-cl...
- donjoe 6y agoThe car reminds me a lot of the Twike 5 [0] which - besides being all electric - can be pedaled, too. [0]: https://twike.com/twike-5/twike-5/ https://twike.com/twike-5/twike-5/
- m33k44 6y agoIn India there was one built by a company Reva[0]. Looks like it was not able to gain mindshare. [0] The founder explaining the car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sDwGazHefM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sDwGazHefM
- d--b 6y agoI wish you could plug several of these together to make a bigger vehicule.
- aww_dang 6y agoWondering how the performance, fuel costs and maintenance would compare to an equivalent vehicle with a small diesel, motorcycle engine or even a modern two-stroke. My guess is that the vehicle would be much lighter and have a longer range with a petroleum based fuel. Most of the 3 wheeled vehicles offered in the US are more performance minded. Leno shows a Vanderhall 'Venice' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X71spAvmw4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X71spAvmw4 Doug DeMuro critiques a Polaris Slingshot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_O9mZcSs4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_O9mZcSs4
- baybal2 6y ago404?
- haspok 6y agoCan it whizz through traffic jams like a moped or motorcycle? The Twizzy, Smart et al have the exact same problem. I don't see any benefits of owning this versus a cheap Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe, for example. Also, the top speed is extremely high compared to the alleged security features. Can you survive a crash in it?
- gardaani 6y agoEstonian Nobe 100 is similar, but can carry two persons. It also has a cool retro design: https://jalopnik.com/this-planned-electric-three-wheeler-looks-fantastic-and-1818561069 https://jalopnik.com/this-planned-electric-three-wheeler-loo... https://mynobe.com https://mynobe.com
- pmorici 6y agoReminds me of the Arcimoto FUV except made in China instead of the USA. https://www.arcimoto.com/ https://www.arcimoto.com/
- ScottFree 6y agoThis reminds me of the Lit Motors c-1. At least they had a unique twist on the idea.
- baybal2 6y agoThough, the founder was... They wouldn't have started even if the guy got money.
- baybal2 6y agoThe problem with tricycles is that they are less stable than both motorcycles and cars. Unlike motorcycles, tricycles can't bank on turns, or are very limited in that.
- hourislate 6y agoHave you ever seen a Honda Canopy? I have seen them on the streets of Tokyo as if they were racing in the Isle of Man TT. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hz35y4Bywg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hz35y4Bywg I also think Polaris Slingshot can pull over 1G in a turn.
- mcv 6y agoThat's basically the idea behind the Carver. It's a tricycle that does bank on turns.
- i_am_proteus 6y agoThe Yamaha Niken[0], which arrived last year, would disagree. [0] https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-touring/models/niken https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-touring/models/niken
- peatmoss 6y agoMy initial reaction to seeing one of those was, “hmm, that looks freaky and weird.” I also suspect that it’ll be doomed to commercial failure. That said, these things seem brilliant the more I reason through it. I’d guess that nearly all the same sensations of riding a motorcycle are there with the Nikken... all of the things that make riding a motorcycle fun like punchy acceleration, open air, and leaning in corners. At the same time, doubling up the front end in this way has to be a huge boon to traction. I suspect the suspension travel on these things allows for more lean angle than I’d be comfortable with outside of a track.
- baybal2 6y agoIt looks the rider has to work rather hard to make the bike lean. This is an unsolved problem with "leaning" tricycles. They are all top heavy, and physically exerting on hands during turns. One way some manufacturers approached this was putting powerful hydraulics for steering, but that made the mass of a bike even higher, thus negating the benefit by far. A good bike must have low centre of mass, and easy to turn.
- geddy 6y agoThese three-wheeled vehicles always make me think the same thing, "all the risk of a motorcycle, with none of the fun." They don't exactly have good cargo space, so storage isn't the focus - is the whole point space savings and fuel efficiency? A novel idea, I guess it comes down to price in this case. EDIT: I say "fuel efficiency" referring to the fact that there are gasoline-fueled versions of this same type of vehicle. I realize the Solo is battery powered.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- michaelt 6y agoIf you can't lean into corners, can't split lanes, can't exceed 80mph, can't do wheelies, can't make it fall over, and can't go over the handlebars in a crash, I strongly suspect this will have better safety statistics than a motorcycle.
- sudosysgen 6y agoLeaning into corners is a good safety feature of motorcycles compared to tricycles. It makes motorcycles much more stable.
- tomtheelder 6y agoI think their point was that leaning allows you to corner at high speeds, and that not being able to do so would discourage dangerous driving behavior. I'm not sure I agree with that, but there is some logic that to thinking that a larger, slower, clunkier vehicle might lead to fewer fatal accidents.
- sudosysgen 6y agoBut... it doesn't make sense. Sure, maybe a faster vehicle can indeed be more dangerous, but I see no reason why a vehicle that can turn better would be more dangerous. A vehicle that can take the same corner at higher speeds can also take more difficult corners at lower speeds and is a lot more forgiving.
- grumple 6y ago> Having three wheels, it is not subject to the sorts of crash-testing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires for street-legal, four-wheeled vehicles, but it does have a seatbelt and an integrated roll bar. If they want anybody to buy these, they better test them anyway.
- loulou24 6y agoThis one looked better... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car
- dangus 6y agoEvery product like this has to compete against a 5-year old Toyota Camry, Corolla, Prius, you name it. It compares poorly. Heck, it looks like it’s so expensive that it also has to compete against brand new vehicles in the “cheapest new car possible” category. Cars like the Nissan Versa eat this thing for lunch from a value standpoint. You could probably even buy a brand new Mitsubishi mid-size SUV for the price and stuff the whole family in (a bit crude compared to the competition, but it’s reliable and repairable!) > Priced at $18,500, it also costs about half as much as the current average sales price for a new passenger vehicle ($35,667 as of March 2020). Looking at the average new sales price is almost misleading in itself. Only a certain kind of buyer buys a new vehicle in the first place, and they’re often led in that direction by financing - not purchase price. Funny, a few years ago I bought a brand new Scion iA (a Mazda 2 rebadged as a Scion, now sold as a Toyota Yaris sedan). The sticker price was $16,499, purchased for $15,999 with dealer incentives (Scion was a no-haggle brand). It had all the features you’d want: A/C, power windows, decent infotainment system with Bluetooth and USB, four seats, four doors, 40MPG fuel economy, and on top of that it was an IIHS top safety pick at the time. It gets service at any Toyota dealership across the country. Since it had four doors and seats I could even drive Uber/Lyft with it. Just look at how unpopular coupes are in the 2020s (The new Mustang is a crossover SUV! Smart left the United States! The Fiat 500 and New Beetle were discontinued!), people just don’t sacrifice two doors to save five hundred bucks off the sticker price anymore like they did in 1995.
- ilaksh 6y agoI feel like they should be able to sell something like that for $7000-$8000 if they can get proper mass production. I mean to me the price needs to go down by half or more from $17k or whatever. At which point I might be interested.
- hinkley 6y agoWhat the Merlin would have been, if Corbin hadn’t flamed out trying to learn to scale up, and doing warranty repairs on the electrical systems for its Sparrow electric three wheeler. Looks like he tried again about 8 years ago and then failed again :/
- lstodd 6y agoA Piaggio MP3 with some panels on top? Hmm.
- s_gourichon 6y agoThis reminds me of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_C5 > The Sinclair C5 is a small one-person battery electric velomobile, technically an "electrically assisted pedal cycle".[1] It was the culmination of Sir Clive Sinclair's long-running interest in electric vehicles. Although widely described as an "electric car", Sinclair characterised it as a "vehicle, not a car".[2]