5 ms·

That's exactly what we need. It boggles my mind how most of the huge cars I see on the road are occupied just by one person.

by f6v 6y ago

Hamuko 6y ago
>That's exactly what we need. To solve what problem?
- Ma8ee 6y ago
  The extreme waste of energy, space and other resources when we use a vehicle weighting 1.5 metric tons with space for five people plus luggage and often with off road capacity to transport one person a few kilometres along a good road.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    And the solution is that people buy a second car that is capable of only hauling one, max two people in it? And how does it even solve the space issue? You're not going to be making narrower lanes to fit more of these side by side.
    - Ma8ee 6y ago
      The solution, except the more obvious ones bicycles and public transport, is that people that absolutely need a car for their daily commute don’t have more car than they need for that. Then when they need to haul something or go on a fishing trip twice a year they rent cars for that. You would make narrower lanes if most cars looked like this. Not to talk about all the parking space you would save now already.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        Why should I need to both own a car and rent a car? I'm not made out of money and I suspect I'm not at the bottom of the income pool. And I'm not going to get any kickback for the time that my car is sitting out there, not being driven. This isn't even a matter of "going on a fishing trip twice a year". A bubble car is not enough of a car to go to IKEA or even an electronics retailer.
        Xylakant 6y ago
        Because the car you’d own could be substantially cheaper than the car you currently own, making up for the entire difference for when you go to ikea or for an extended road trip. Delivery from ikea is entirely an option, too.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        I doubt the depreciation, insurance and fuel are going to be that cheaper for it to become economically viable to pay an external company for a car.
        Xylakant 6y ago
        It’s fairly common that people massively underestimate the actual costs of owning a car (let alone the externalized costs such as free parking and environmental effects), but several studies lately consistently put the costs at around 500EUR/month in europe. Here’s a little example: VW Golf, mid market model, 30k EUR new, monthly total costs ~600 EUR. https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/detail.aspx?KFZID=306840&activeTab=3&info=VW+Golf+1.5+eTSI+Life+DSG+(ab+01%2f20) https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det... I can rent a larger car for two weeks every month for that amount money. Compare that to a Citroen C1 (still a 4 seater car that can go > 160km/h on the autobahn) 370 EUR: https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/detail.aspx?KFZID=312769&activeTab=3&info=Citroen+C1+VTi+72+Stop%26Start+Feel+(ab+06%2f20) https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det... That’s a monthly difference of 230 EUR. That’s enough to rent the Golf for a full week every month. (I only did a cursory check at a single company, no discount etc: 233EUR/week) Prices in the US may differ, but I doubt that the total economics play out substantially different, because that would imply that the market for rental cars would have serious potential for lowering prices. Now think about the potential price difference if you could buy a vehicle that doesn’t need to go faster than 80km/h and was optimized for urban traffic.
        Ma8ee 6y ago
        Xylakant covered most of it. But just to add: when you want to haul furniture you rent a proper truck, and when you want to go on a fishing trip with your buddies you rent a nice 4 wheel SUV, and when you want to go on a cross country road trip you rent a nice sedan or even a cabriolet if that is what you want, instead of every day driving to work in a too big and expensive car that kind of works ok for all of the above.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      Motorcycle and scooters are a thing.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        Motorcycles and scooters are both a completely different class of vehicle.
  - corty 6y ago
    An isetta would never pass current safety tests. Crash tests have to be passed with a certain investment in weight, and nothing smaller than maybe a smart or twizy can anymore.
    - gpderetta 6y ago
      If all cars in a city were limited to say 30-40kph and to a certain maximum weight it might be possible to limit the maximum kinetic energy in an accident and thus require less safety margins. You are not going to be able to take it out of the "safe zone" though.
- mFixman 6y ago
  Congestion.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Making a slightly smaller car doesn't do shit for congestion. Dumping a 100 Minis in a location is going to congest it about as much as 100 Maybachs.
bborud 6y ago
Over the past couple of decades there have been recreations of various small cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Like the Mini, the Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle. Sadly these recreations do little more than borrow an aesthetic. They're often relatively big, heavy and, sadly, expensive. In particular the Fiat 500 was a historically important car. It gave families of very modest means mobility. The modern Fiat 500 is nothing of the sort. It is a design icon built for the somewhat affluent. It isn't small. It isn't cheap. It isn't simple. A friend of mine has a mechanical workshop. His shop is where all the weird cars get fixed. Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, old Fiat 500s and 600s. There's even a DeLorean that is there from time to time. It is hard to overstate just how small the original Fiat 500 is. Or even old Bertone-designed Alfa Romeos from the early 1970s. Don't get me wrong, I like the modern Fiat 500 enough to own one. In fact, I own an electrical Fiat 500 that was imported from California (since, at the time, the electric Fiat 500 was sold only in California and Oregon). It is a really half assed car - built to allow FCA to sell cars at all in these states. Small battery, no supercharger, and the traction control is so useless that when I drive it (without my disapproving wife onboard) it spins the inner wheel madly through corners. The TC on/off switch only controls the light inside the switch itself. I can't imagine it is actually connected to anything but the battery. It is a lot of fun, but it isn't in the spirit of the original. What is needed is for car manufacturers and society to rediscover the purpose of small, light cars. Mobility without the resource drain. The joys of simplicity. You don't need power steering, electrical windows, electrical seats, a thousand dashboard controls. We also don't want all this closed crap in our cars. In the golden age of cheap mobility, cars were more open ended (because they were simple). There were more aftermarket additions and mods. You could get parts for all common cars everywhere. It was uncomplicated. You could get your car repaired. My ideal car for the future is little more than a carbon fiber tub with the minimum of bits attached to make it a car. A standardised, cheaply manufactured carbon monocoque around which you can have a cottage industry of bits for customization and extension. A car built to be worked on that is light, strong, cheap, and takes advantage of modern materials, tools and insights.
- jaakl 6y ago
  Like https://mynobe.com/ https://mynobe.com/ ?
stmw 6y ago
Much of the extra weight in the modern car is due to safety and environmental mitigation equipment. All of those crash cages, crumple zones, airbags and the like add weight and size. So do things like complex fuel management systems and catalytic converters. Of course, these are well worth it in added safety and cleaner emissions, but they do limit the minimum size and weight. And that's before one gets to all the "extra options", that are often not optional any more.
- geofft 6y ago
  Yeah, that was my first thought on seeing the picture - does it have a crumple zone? Since the door is in the front and you're expected to climb out through the sunroof in case of a crash, I imagine it's not the sort of thing you want to ride anywhere you wouldn't ride a bicycle. That said, city streets that only had dense electric vehicles that don't go past 20 mph (maybe a mix of things like this and buses/streetcars) would be delightful.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I wonder how much of vehicle usage is "I want to carry big things around that don't fit on an electric bicycle" and how much is "I want to get somewhere fast".
- nabilhat 6y ago
  Weight is optional. A new Miata weighs exactly as much as a 1998, only 200lb more than a 1989. An entire 2020 Honda Fit weighs 200lb more than a 2020 Miata. Those are death traps and outliers, some might say. Consider that a 2020 F150 starts at 4,000lb while a 2000 F150 started at 4,000lb. Cars don't weigh substantially more than they did 20 years ago. Specific models do tend to gain weight over time, but that's not relevant if comparing the cars themselves. A 2000 Honda Civic is an entirely different car than a 2020 Honda Civic. The 20 year old Civic is more similar to the Fit. The 2020 Fit weighs as much as the 2000 Civic, despite being larger, roomier, quieter, and safer. It's not that cars have gained weight in the last 20 years, simply that massive vehicles boasting extravagantly obvious externalized safety problems are grossly irresponsible and popular. What hasn't changed is a regulatory neglect of vehicle safety to non-participants. When a lifted Dodge Ram decapitates everyone in a Honda Fit, the statistical penalty is scored against the Fit. We don't measure safety like this in other regulatory domains. NHTSA used to provide crash injury and fatality data separated by occupants and non-occupants. I haven't seen that detail provided since 2008, but I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: https://cdan.dot.gov/query https://cdan.dot.gov/query

That's exactly what we need. It boggles my mind how most of the huge cars I see on the road are occupied just by one person.

by f6v 6y ago

That's exactly what we need. It boggles my mind how most of the huge cars I see on the road are occupied just by one person.

Hamuko 6y ago

>That's exactly what we need. To solve what problem?

Ma8ee 6y ago
The extreme waste of energy, space and other resources when we use a vehicle weighting 1.5 metric tons with space for five people plus luggage and often with off road capacity to transport one person a few kilometres along a good road.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  And the solution is that people buy a second car that is capable of only hauling one, max two people in it? And how does it even solve the space issue? You're not going to be making narrower lanes to fit more of these side by side.
  - Ma8ee 6y ago
    The solution, except the more obvious ones bicycles and public transport, is that people that absolutely need a car for their daily commute don’t have more car than they need for that. Then when they need to haul something or go on a fishing trip twice a year they rent cars for that. You would make narrower lanes if most cars looked like this. Not to talk about all the parking space you would save now already.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      Why should I need to both own a car and rent a car? I'm not made out of money and I suspect I'm not at the bottom of the income pool. And I'm not going to get any kickback for the time that my car is sitting out there, not being driven. This isn't even a matter of "going on a fishing trip twice a year". A bubble car is not enough of a car to go to IKEA or even an electronics retailer.
      - Xylakant 6y ago
        Because the car you’d own could be substantially cheaper than the car you currently own, making up for the entire difference for when you go to ikea or for an extended road trip. Delivery from ikea is entirely an option, too.
        Hamuko 6y ago
        I doubt the depreciation, insurance and fuel are going to be that cheaper for it to become economically viable to pay an external company for a car.
        Xylakant 6y ago
        It’s fairly common that people massively underestimate the actual costs of owning a car (let alone the externalized costs such as free parking and environmental effects), but several studies lately consistently put the costs at around 500EUR/month in europe. Here’s a little example: VW Golf, mid market model, 30k EUR new, monthly total costs ~600 EUR. https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/detail.aspx?KFZID=306840&activeTab=3&info=VW+Golf+1.5+eTSI+Life+DSG+(ab+01%2f20) https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det... I can rent a larger car for two weeks every month for that amount money. Compare that to a Citroen C1 (still a 4 seater car that can go > 160km/h on the autobahn) 370 EUR: https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/detail.aspx?KFZID=312769&activeTab=3&info=Citroen+C1+VTi+72+Stop%26Start+Feel+(ab+06%2f20) https://www.adac.de/infotestrat/autodatenbank/autokosten/det... That’s a monthly difference of 230 EUR. That’s enough to rent the Golf for a full week every month. (I only did a cursory check at a single company, no discount etc: 233EUR/week) Prices in the US may differ, but I doubt that the total economics play out substantially different, because that would imply that the market for rental cars would have serious potential for lowering prices. Now think about the potential price difference if you could buy a vehicle that doesn’t need to go faster than 80km/h and was optimized for urban traffic.
      - Ma8ee 6y ago
        Xylakant covered most of it. But just to add: when you want to haul furniture you rent a proper truck, and when you want to go on a fishing trip with your buddies you rent a nice 4 wheel SUV, and when you want to go on a cross country road trip you rent a nice sedan or even a cabriolet if that is what you want, instead of every day driving to work in a too big and expensive car that kind of works ok for all of the above.
  - mcguire 6y ago
    Motorcycle and scooters are a thing.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      Motorcycles and scooters are both a completely different class of vehicle.
- corty 6y ago
  An isetta would never pass current safety tests. Crash tests have to be passed with a certain investment in weight, and nothing smaller than maybe a smart or twizy can anymore.
  - gpderetta 6y ago
    If all cars in a city were limited to say 30-40kph and to a certain maximum weight it might be possible to limit the maximum kinetic energy in an accident and thus require less safety margins. You are not going to be able to take it out of the "safe zone" though.
mFixman 6y ago
Congestion.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Making a slightly smaller car doesn't do shit for congestion. Dumping a 100 Minis in a location is going to congest it about as much as 100 Maybachs.

bborud 6y ago

Over the past couple of decades there have been recreations of various small cars from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Like the Mini, the Fiat 500, Volkswagen Beetle. Sadly these recreations do little more than borrow an aesthetic. They're often relatively big, heavy and, sadly, expensive. In particular the Fiat 500 was a historically important car. It gave families of very modest means mobility. The modern Fiat 500 is nothing of the sort. It is a design icon built for the somewhat affluent. It isn't small. It isn't cheap. It isn't simple. A friend of mine has a mechanical workshop. His shop is where all the weird cars get fixed. Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, old Fiat 500s and 600s. There's even a DeLorean that is there from time to time. It is hard to overstate just how small the original Fiat 500 is. Or even old Bertone-designed Alfa Romeos from the early 1970s. Don't get me wrong, I like the modern Fiat 500 enough to own one. In fact, I own an electrical Fiat 500 that was imported from California (since, at the time, the electric Fiat 500 was sold only in California and Oregon). It is a really half assed car - built to allow FCA to sell cars at all in these states. Small battery, no supercharger, and the traction control is so useless that when I drive it (without my disapproving wife onboard) it spins the inner wheel madly through corners. The TC on/off switch only controls the light inside the switch itself. I can't imagine it is actually connected to anything but the battery. It is a lot of fun, but it isn't in the spirit of the original. What is needed is for car manufacturers and society to rediscover the purpose of small, light cars. Mobility without the resource drain. The joys of simplicity. You don't need power steering, electrical windows, electrical seats, a thousand dashboard controls. We also don't want all this closed crap in our cars. In the golden age of cheap mobility, cars were more open ended (because they were simple). There were more aftermarket additions and mods. You could get parts for all common cars everywhere. It was uncomplicated. You could get your car repaired. My ideal car for the future is little more than a carbon fiber tub with the minimum of bits attached to make it a car. A standardised, cheaply manufactured carbon monocoque around which you can have a cottage industry of bits for customization and extension. A car built to be worked on that is light, strong, cheap, and takes advantage of modern materials, tools and insights.

jaakl 6y ago
Like https://mynobe.com/ https://mynobe.com/ ?

stmw 6y ago

Much of the extra weight in the modern car is due to safety and environmental mitigation equipment. All of those crash cages, crumple zones, airbags and the like add weight and size. So do things like complex fuel management systems and catalytic converters. Of course, these are well worth it in added safety and cleaner emissions, but they do limit the minimum size and weight. And that's before one gets to all the "extra options", that are often not optional any more.

geofft 6y ago
Yeah, that was my first thought on seeing the picture - does it have a crumple zone? Since the door is in the front and you're expected to climb out through the sunroof in case of a crash, I imagine it's not the sort of thing you want to ride anywhere you wouldn't ride a bicycle. That said, city streets that only had dense electric vehicles that don't go past 20 mph (maybe a mix of things like this and buses/streetcars) would be delightful.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I wonder how much of vehicle usage is "I want to carry big things around that don't fit on an electric bicycle" and how much is "I want to get somewhere fast".
nabilhat 6y ago
Weight is optional. A new Miata weighs exactly as much as a 1998, only 200lb more than a 1989. An entire 2020 Honda Fit weighs 200lb more than a 2020 Miata. Those are death traps and outliers, some might say. Consider that a 2020 F150 starts at 4,000lb while a 2000 F150 started at 4,000lb. Cars don't weigh substantially more than they did 20 years ago. Specific models do tend to gain weight over time, but that's not relevant if comparing the cars themselves. A 2000 Honda Civic is an entirely different car than a 2020 Honda Civic. The 20 year old Civic is more similar to the Fit. The 2020 Fit weighs as much as the 2000 Civic, despite being larger, roomier, quieter, and safer. It's not that cars have gained weight in the last 20 years, simply that massive vehicles boasting extravagantly obvious externalized safety problems are grossly irresponsible and popular. What hasn't changed is a regulatory neglect of vehicle safety to non-participants. When a lifted Dodge Ram decapitates everyone in a Honda Fit, the statistical penalty is scored against the Fit. We don't measure safety like this in other regulatory domains. NHTSA used to provide crash injury and fatality data separated by occupants and non-occupants. I haven't seen that detail provided since 2008, but I'd be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong: https://cdan.dot.gov/query https://cdan.dot.gov/query