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The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
- uncoder0 6y agoThose don't look too safe. I can't imagine you'd survive being hit by anything bigger than a mini in any of those boxes. Of course people are buying unsafe alternatives for a fraction of a price... disclaimer: not a tesla fanboy... I don't think they have the right hardware for FSD and that Musk is a bit too wrongheaded to admit that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zip1234 6y agoThey don't go that fast. If auto manufacturers designed cars that would go max ~25 mph, the safety concerns are completely different and much less. A Tesla is WAY overbuilt for going 25 mph.
- babesh 6y agoElon Musk said that Tesla would never build these because they aren’t safe but I do think it would be an interesting exercise to design one that is even cheaper yet also safer.
- redisman 6y agoAnyone who’s been in any poorer-than-median Asian countries knows the status quo of traffic is mostly very unsafe.
- blackoil 6y agoThink of these as replacement for Motorcycle and cycle. As safe with some added convenience.
- bagacrap 6y agoBut safety is legitimately why I don't own motorized two wheel vehicles. This is a real impediment to widespread adoption.
- xiphias2 6y agoThe alternative is usually a motorcycle, and they look a bit safer, though not as fun.
- babesh 6y agoI think these are just the electric versions of tuktuks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw The next innovation would be to bring down the cost of lithium ion batteries. Most of these are powered by lead acid batteries because they are cheaper.
- xiphias2 6y ago,,Most of these are powered by lead acid batteries'' That's sad, I was shocked to see how much more often people change batteries in their cars in latin America, but I guess this is normal in countries with high cost of credit :(
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoCheap light slow vehicles that aren't intended for even 100 mile trips are primed for LFP chemistry, and especially removable ones. Very long cycle endurance, very good temperature range, pretty good density (and getting better), no cobalt or nickel.
- scrose 6y agoInteresting how people are so quick to judge whether something is safe by whether someone else driving something less safe (for everyone but themselves of course) were to hit you.
- xwdv 6y agoPeople will soon learn product is only half the story. What about service and support? Good luck getting it from these cheap Chinese companies that don’t give a fuck about you and probably go out of business in a few years anyway. I mean look at this, one company is literally called Shitou Cars. Shit-on-you Cars!
- akerl_ 6y agoThis rings a bit hollow given how notably poor Tesla’s customer service is.
- TechnoTimeStop 6y agoOk this is just false.
- akerl_ 6y agoThat Tesla has bad customer service? Check out any forum for Tesla owners; there’s tons of love for the cars, the software, etc, but even the most die hard fan forum will admit that they haven’t prioritized their customer service. There are constant horror stories from people who were pressured into accepting delivery of cars with defects, only to spent months fighting with the service center to repair glaring issues. Or users who reached out to support for account issues and receiving no response.
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- rhodozelia 6y agoThese vehicles are more like golf carts than cars. Top speed of 56km/hr. No safety features. What is interesting is that the batteries, converters, and motors are so cheap that they offer a golf cart with a vehicle body for $2500.
- 3131s 6y agoWhat's interesting is that society continues to make the deadly mistake of being hauled around by over-powered, over-sized, gas-guzzling monstrosities while obviously better solutions exist.
- zip1234 6y agoCities probably should be filled with max 56kph tiny vehicles rather than max 249kph vehicles. Space is limited and standard cars take up a lot of it.
- Tagbert 6y agoIf we ever get to a world of on-demand, self driving vehicles, This might be one kind of vehicle that you could request. Maybe the default, unless you need a high speed or long distance ride.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoAnd shouldn't let in the massive SUVs/Light trucks that Americans love. When I was in Nice for a couple weeks, it became very apparent that small cars fit far more vehicles on the road, and it was definitely in greater proportion that the relative size to SUVs in america. Smaller cars can drive much closer together. Something about the size, but also if there's a lot of cars around, you can see through the windshields of the car ahead of you to gauge traffic. Raised trucks seem to have poor sight lines, which is weird because people buy them to "lift up" above traffic. Also traffic circles are about 2x more efficient with European cars than SUVs. I think that has to do with the fluidity of letting in cars vs trucks with their strangely larger "personal space" on roads.
- 6y ago
- endisneigh 6y agoGiven that many of these only have three wheels and to my knowledge regulation on “cars” only applies if the vehicle has four wheels- I wonder why these aren’t available in the USA at the same time.
- zdragnar 6y agoI assume that 3 wheel cars have a bad stigma attached to them dating back to the Reliant Robin- at least the single-wheel-in-front variety. Since most of these cars have low top speeds, they also face a usefulness problem. Parking is too expensive in dense cities for super cheap cars to have a large market, and they are too slow to be useful in suburbs or the countryside.
- dwaltrip 6y agoI'm not following the cost of parking comment. What does that have to do with the cost of cars?
- zdragnar 6y agoIf you can afford parking in some cities, you probably aren't buying a cheap car. If you are, you probably are commuting or at some point driving enough to where you need to be able to get up to highway speeds, and are better off buying used. There is a market here for cheap city driving only cars, but it isn't terribly big, hence the trouble breaking into the US.
- dagw 6y agoFor me at least, parking for 8 hours near my office (back when that was a thing) would cost more than taking the bus to work and back, meaning that from a commute point of view a car would never make financial sense no matter how cheap. If parking was free then a really cheap car for commuting might make sense, financially.
- ansible 6y ago> ... Reliant Robin- at least the single-wheel-in-front variety. To be clear, this is because the single-wheel in front vehicles will roll over if turned sharply or at too high a speed. The single-wheel in back designs are much more dynamically stable.
- brainless 6y agoThis is something I realized recently. I am in India and the number of small manufacturers who are making electric people movers is very high. These are not high speed vehicles, they are below 40 KM/h speed as I see them, but the big shift is that hundreds of small companies around India are producing and maintaining small electric vehicles, mostly locally. The drivers charge them at home at night or during longer lunch breaks. Surely one can say India has had these many companies making the foot Richshaw or body parts or other commercial ICE vehicles. But there is a big difference that lighter people moving EVs bring to the roads or intra-city transport. They are silent, do not pollute on the roads and most importantly, I think these companies will continue to integrate better motors and parts to build many people/goods moving EVs in the next decade. What I conclude is that EV revolution is going to be way more democratized than we realize.
- brainless 6y agoThe critical part that is playing its role as I understand is that DC motors and batteries are plenty available from decent manufacturers. Very soon, as I see articles around the web, there will be much better quality motors and batteries available across the country from brands say Yamaha or LG. Making the shell of a vehicle is not hard. ICEs have a ridiculously higher parts count compared to EVs. And not all EVs have to go above 60 KM/h.
- zozin 6y agoThese might work in a regulatory black hole in China, but they won't anywhere in the West. Smart has had a small electric car for sale for nearly a decade and you never see them around. Maybe when the alternative is a scooter an electric golf cart is a step-up, but the electric scooter market isn't exactly throthy in the West. Electric cars aren't that popular because the range is still mediocre for entry level ($25-$30K) cars, the charging rate is simply too much of a stepdown vs. topping up on gas, and there's no good crossover/small SUV offering.
- robjan 6y agoThat's a very US centric view. These are also popular in other countries, such as the Netherlands: https://expatinfoholland.nl/help-guides/transport-mobility/dutch-mini-micro-moped-cars/ https://expatinfoholland.nl/help-guides/transport-mobility/d...
- tdeck 6y agoAnother example from France: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572
- ulfw 6y agoSo not true. The Ami from Citroen is going to be quite the thing in Europe: https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ami https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ami Review from UK perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEKtOGmpVI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEKtOGmpVI
- jgilias 6y agoThe only viable place for something like Ami is car sharing in my opinion. The thing is, car manufacturers have been doing this since long before Tesla. They make something that screams 'look, I'm a weird thing that resembles a car, because I'm electric'. And the general population just wouldn't buy them. And then Tesla came along and showed that you can actually make a car that is electric and that people would want to own. In my opinion the market really has spoken. And what it says is loud and clear: "We want electric cars that look like cars and can be used accordingly." I mean, if there was a huge market for small, slow, weird looking things on four wheels, there's no reason why ICE power-train driven devices couldn't have filled that niche a long time ago.
- gedy 6y agoThis is much better for the environment vs gasoline I'd assume?
- fennecfoxen 6y agoIt's probably much better for the urban environment, in terms of people not breathing gasoline exhaust (doubly so for breathing two-stroke gasoline exhaust from a motorcycle, which is more of an alternative than a big car). The lead-acid batteries on some of the cheapest ones are a little iffy, though, and the carbon consumption isn't a huge win.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoI think most places have banned two strokes Vespa certainly stopped making two stroke scooters years ago.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- readflaggedcomm 6y agoIf you care about people instead of inanimate objects, it's significantly better because of the lack of air pollution (especially if coal isn't involved).
- eloisant 6y agoIt's also much better for the environment than Tesla and other 2 tons electric cars, because it's using less materials and energy to make and less energy to run.
- dboreham 6y agoClive Sinclair was right.
- ggm 6y agoDid you see any of the tiny cars being low slung torpedoes with a safety flag stick up back? Otherwise, no.. Clive was wrong.
- onion2k 6y agoRight now we're trying to electrify cars, but replacing cars with something else would probably work better for a lot of journeys. I think Sir Clive was correct about the concept of personal electric vehicles. The form factor of the C5 was nothing more than an implementation detail - with a few iterations it would have been significantly better.
- ggm 6y agoClive was useless at the "few iterations". I had a stereo amp kit from his earlier days, it was unbelievably bad.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoIt's interesting how people think Clive was wrong rather than the decision to let two ton vehicles race down the road at excessive speed.
- buovjaga 6y agoHis nephew has created an e-trike and is taking pre-orders: https://www.grantsinclair.com/ https://www.grantsinclair.com/
- dazc 6y agoRight idea, wrong time though.
- oblio 6y agoTiming matters. Whoever designed the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism was smart, but some of the things inside it only provided practical benefits 1800+ years later, so none of their children, grandchildren, great-great-great-grandchildren benefited from them.
- mastre_ 6y agoTesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy[1]. They even have an "open source philosophy to patents[2]." I believe, based on what I've seen, all this makes Elon happy to see -- it's the world he envisions and, at least in [no small] part, helped spur on. --- [1] https://www.tesla.com/about https://www.tesla.com/about [2] https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you https://www.tesla.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you
- covidthrow 6y agoI won't assert to know Tesla's motivation for open patents—and there is no doubt some goodwill involved—but do consider that it is not absent strategic advantage. First and foremost, it's a form of deterrence. The presumption is that others will utilize Tesla's patents to compete, which in turn guarantees that said competitor can't sue Tesla for infringing on their patents. (Such activity is denied in the open patent promise.) It's kind of an informal, de facto patent sharing. Depending on your opinion of mutually assured destruction, this is either a good thing or a bad thing. Good, perhaps, because of accelerated progress. Bad, perhaps, because this advantage is imbalanced towards Tesla. (They get to use any other company's patents—those that also use Tesla's—but those other companies do not by default get to use other competitors' patents.) I mention all this free of ethical opinion. Just want to clarify that it is almost certainly not just a simple act of goodwill. Despite this, we can all—at least for now—benefit from such generosity.
- mastre_ 6y ago> I mention all this free of ethical opinion. Just want to clarify that it is almost certainly not just a simple act of goodwill. Despite this, we can all—at least for now—benefit from such generosity. I agree. It's still refreshing to witness as it's not something you see every day (ever?). Things are impossible to do a certain way until they're not. If everyone shared patents, we could focus on innovation. Yes easy to say, and easy(er) to do in a new field like Tesla's when they started, but again, it's a refreshing respite from the status quo, that is all.
- xrd 6y agoWhat's the hack to get something like this in the US? I don't want to drive my kids around in it, but I have a short drive on 35 mph roads to my co-working space and I would love to go electric.
- brij0102 6y agoElectric assist bikes could serve you well if the distance works out
- xrd 6y agoI've got a cargo electric bike. My route has a few 35 mph roads that wind through rolling hills and no bike lanes. I've tried biking it, but the cars are aggressive. I really want a car for this commute.
- renewiltord 6y agoCSC's city slicker might do the trick. Or it might not. Needs you to have a motorcycle licence, though.
- dazc 6y agoI have a similar issue although only a two-mile each way journey, perfect for an e-bike or scooter but other drivers are the problem.
- KozmoNau7 6y agoThere are definite cultural problems to blame for this. A significant number of drivers get angry or offended at any non-car vehicle on "their" roads, because they see them as a threat or an impediment them. There are probably many reasons for this that are not directly related to cars or traffic, but rather to general worldviews, politics, prejudices, aspiration and many others, including seeing bicycles in particular as toys and for recreation by Tour de France-inspired cyclists. However, I think one of the biggest factors is the insistence on "vehicular cycling"[1], which is the foundation for forcing bicycles to follow traffic laws in place for motorized traffic, instead of having bicycle-specific laws that take into account the properties and limitations of human-powered transport.[2][3] Forcing cyclists to "take the lane" and perform left turns as if they were cars (and having to cross multiple lanes of traffic) is ridiculous, because of the speed and weight disparity. It's extremely dangerous to the cyclists and aggravating to motorists, because of the huge speed differentials and because a collision will almost always result in severe injuries for the cyclist. Even the most basic changes, such as making hook turns[4] the mandated method for left-turning cyclists, would make a gigantic improvement in safety and traffic flow. After that comes the bike lanes and paths, plus tweaks to intersections to avoid right turn accidents and reduce the number of times different types of traffic have to cross paths. The cultural issues of entitlement and refusal to share common infrastructure are a separate issue, but I believe at least some of that tension could be reduced with a few sensible tweaks to traffic laws and road planning. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_cycling [2] http://shifter.info/vehicular-cycling-is-dead-just-dont-bury-the-body-yet/ http://shifter.info/vehicular-cycling-is-dead-just-dont-bury... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H75jnRW23X8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H75jnRW23X8 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_turn
- Faaak 6y agoI have a Renault Twizy. It's a tiny 2-seater car (one behind the other). It's so tiny that the battery is only 6kWh and thus you can only go for about 80km before needing a charge (which lasts 2h30). But I love it in fact. In my european city it's the best car to go around because you can park anywhere, it costs nothing to operate, and it's so much fun and quiet. Sadly it didn't take on, but other cars are starting to emerge, like the Citroen AMI, which I would've bought if I didn't already had the Twizy.
- Neil44 6y agoI drove a Twizzy around Manchester once it was so cool! Like a little go kart. And got loads of positive attention from passers by. Cold though, mine had no doors!
- haspok 6y agoWhat's the point of "cars" that can't do at least 50mph/80kmh? You can't really use them in the city, because you get stuck in traffic just like everybody else. Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go - or public transport. You can't really use them on city speedways or circular roads, because you are too slow and hold everyone else up. And you can't use the cycle paths either. And motorways - just forget it. The Twizy has the minimal speed, so you can at least use it around town. But the Citroen is completely useless. Maybe, if you could use the bus/taxi lanes, then maybe... but if everyone had one, then stuck in traffic again.
- adrianN 6y agoYou don't get wet in a car.
- oblio 6y agoYou also don't risk falling off. If you get hit there is some protection between you and whatever hits you. There's frequently AC even in smaller vehicles, so you don't get super hot during summers or freeze during winters. They also have more cargo capacity. Etc, etc.
- 6y ago
- fergie 6y agoLove my e-up. Small cars can do so more than you think. My girlfriend and I just used it to drop our kid off in kindergarten and then go skiing. Am currently sitting in a tight supermarket parking space half way up a mountain- very easy in a cheap, small car.
- Daho0n 6y agoThe e-up is only cheap as long as you don't compare to other cars equal in size. VW is far behind in EVs for now sadly.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoVW is far behind in EVs for now sadly I don't know, the ID.3 looks competitive to me, it starts at £30K in the UK which is similar to most of the competition.
- imafish 6y agoAlso, the cheaper VAG alternative, Skoda has a decent looking EV SUV starting at £31k [0]. [0]: https://www.skoda.co.uk/electric-hybrid-cars/enyaq-iv https://www.skoda.co.uk/electric-hybrid-cars/enyaq-iv
- baybal2 6y agoI remember. A 7 seat Japanese Kei car, Suzuki Every. How to fit all 7 people into it?
- crustysock 6y agoprobably not meant for the western high score bmi population
- medstrom 6y agoMany of these are so ugly. They should be closer to the ground to look more natural, like a modern velomobile[1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile#/media/File:Waw020.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velomobile#/media/File:Waw020....
- lancefisher 6y agoNot just tiny cars, but scooters. I visited a friend in Beijing before the pandemic, and riding her scooter around town was the best way to travel. Cheap, faster than any alternative, and you can park it anywhere.
- eloisant 6y agoA tiny car is in fact in-between a scooter and a regular car. Slightly bigger than the scooter but you can have one passenger, more luggage, and you're protected from the weather. Also there are handicapped people who can't ride a scooter but can ride a small car.
- ricardobayes 6y agoHow about we start regulating ship engines? There are currently no regulations involving large ships' emissions. But they are extremely dirty, emitting tons of unfiltered sulfur in per voyage. They use different fuel, with much 3.5% sulfur content while road cars' fuel is 0.001%. This all goes in the air. I find it unacceptable that we consumers bend over backwards changing our habits, but the largest emissors don't change one bit and emit literally tons of sulfur in the air per voyage.
- Daho0n 6y agoShipping only count for something like 2% of human caused release of CO2 and the pollution isn't local (cars inside a city is worse for humans). I agree something should be done ASAP but it isn't a low hanging fruit (hard to regulate worldwide shipping) so I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
- Arainach 6y agoSince when is 2% of global human CO2 emissions "only"? What single concentrated source has anywhere near such an impact?
- gambiting 6y agoConcrete alone is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-... Also the problem with the cargo ships isn't the CO2 - considering the amount of work they are doing they are the most efficient transport method we have. It's all about the sulfur emissions which are horrendous.
- bagacrap 6y agoin comparison to getting rid of concrete, changing out a few big engines seems like a fruit that's practically fallen off the tree.
- 6y ago
- kleiba 6y agoA problem with such tiny cars is that they cannot absorb enough kinetic energy in a crash. Although they cannot go very fast compared to traditional cars, a frontal collision between two tiny cars going at full speed will likely have severe outcomes for the drivers and passengers. Of course, it might get worse when they get hit by a faster driving traditional car.
- Judgmentality 6y ago> a frontal collision between two tiny cars going at full speed will likely have severe outcomes for the drivers and passengers Wouldn't the lower mass of the vehicles mean less forceful impact of the crash? Momentum, kinetic energy, impact - everything scales linearly with mass. If that cars weigh half as much they only need to handle half as much impact. > Of course, it might get worse when they get hit by a faster driving traditional car. The real problem, as you mentioned, is when they get hit by a bigger car. The same problem we have where regular cars get hit by trucks, or trucks get hit by semis. It's pretty obvious size matters.
- bluGill 6y agoThe fraction of the total mass that you are is larger though which makes the whole analysis complex.
- timerol 6y agoIn a potentially deadly collision, what matters is the humans inside, not the car. Initial and final velocity are generally fixed, and the process of decelerating the human is what needs to be done safely. This is why cars have "crumple zones", decelerate the car overall more smoothly, and why airbags are used, to decelerate the human more smoothly. (We're talking "my neck didn't break" smooth.) You can easily imagine a large truck formed as a rigid body that actually crashes worse than a tiny EV with a few feet of crumple in front of the driver. But all else equal, it's generally easier to design a survivable crash when there's more car to work with. Though EVs make it easier, by being able to use the "frunk" as almost purely crash mitigation, instead of also needing rigidity for the engine. Though the biggest factor by far is relative speed. It's 10x safer for everyone to be going 25 mph instead of 40 mph.
- imtringued 6y agoVW has trouble selling electric cars in China. There are too many low end competitors and VW simply doesn't offer the right kind of car for price sensitive customers in China. Tesla is doing well in China, precisely because their cars are primarily luxury cars.
- tonyedgecombe 6y agoI don't know where you got this idea. VW sells twice as many cars in China than it does in Europe. https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2019-full-year-globale-volkswagen-sales-worldwide/ https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2019-full-year-glob...
- marshmallow_12 6y agoi think the way forward is electric scooters. Some like the xiaomi are cheap, have really decent figures and are actually very useful for getting you places in town. But they are not road legal. For some inane reason the answer to pollution in cities has been banned and those who dare ignore the ban endanger their licence. So we are left with bloated, overpriced, electric cars which benefit the fewest possible number of people.
- baybal2 6y agoIt's very hard to make an electric scooter competitive with 150cc which is a mode of transport for probably a billion people. 150cc will be better, and cheaper no matter what you try. I researched the problem extensively when I worked in a number of companies working in the electric scooter space. Cheapest 150cc scooters sell for $500 — that's the price of a battery pack to make a scooter with comparable range to 150cc on one tank of fuel. Prices ease in 250cc-300cc segment significantly. $1500-$3000 for low end scooter in this segment, but the majority of scooters in this segment are not that low end. You can sell 300cc for $3000-$5000 easily even in places like Vietnam, and Indonesia.
- marshmallow_12 6y agoif you can get 150cc for 500 then i'm living in the wrong country. In london they are ideal.
- baybal2 6y agoAn Asian 150cc is definitely not what you get in London. It would be the most barebones scooter you can imagine, with motor making less than 10hp, body made from very thin metal, and it will rust to nothing in 5 years.
- oblio 6y agoWorse than that, it would probably have 0 particle filters of any kind, so the fumes will probably be horrendous.
- jgilias 6y agoNorway was the first country where more than half of all new registered vehicles were electric in 2020. And if you look at the data, Norwegians pick EVs that look and drive like normal cars. https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electric-car-models-in-norway-by-number-of-registrations/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electr... It's not like you can't buy the weird ones too. It's just that people don't seem to want to buy them. Maybe culture plays some role there, but I believe that there are actual valid reasons why cars are in the form factor that they're in. And being electric doesn't change much in that equation. I mean, if there really is a hidden niche of small, slow, weird-looking four-wheelers, there's no reason why ICE-driven vehicles couldn't have filled that niche before.
- Yaggo 6y agoThere are probably multiple factors: - Norway is a rich country with high standard of living, people are used to drive "big" cars – Northern climate and terrain with lot of mountains probably plays a role, capable AWDs are popular - Low population density, plenty of space for cars, excluding small city centers - Electric is cheap in Norway due to hydro – Electric cars are "cheap" in Norway due to low tax & high GDP
- gspr 6y ago> plenty of space for cars, excluding small city centers EVs are, in fact, more popular in the cities. And Norwegian cities are not very welcoming to cars.
- bluGill 6y agoI would say the difference is mostly rich. I suspect the poor people in China would prefer the large car too, but that isn't a practice option. The article makes it clear that the customers include a lot of people who can't get a drivers license, and given that China isn't exactly a rich country (they are improving and have a lot of rich, but overall they have a lot of poor people)
- fomine3 6y agoI've heard that Norway/Finland already had block heater pole for car that's basically similar to charging station, is it true? http://www.ieahev.org/by-country/finland-charging-infrastructure/ http://www.ieahev.org/by-country/finland-charging-infrastruc...
- africanboy 6y agoThis is kinda expected, in many parts of the World mobility is going towards smaller vehicles, with limited range and load capacity, to be used in crowded cities (or small rural villages, for example here in Italy). In Rome for example the Smart EV is already quite popular and thanks to the favourable weather in recent times a lot of electric scooter rental companies have emerged (see https://www.ecooltra.com/ https://www.ecooltra.com/) Also electric kick scooters are gaining popularity. One of the main drive to adoption is the fact that restricted traffic zones for ICE vehicles are increasingly larger, especially in city centres, but EVs can circulate freely and are often exempted from on-street parking fees. Tesla are not the solution to the mobility issues these vehicles already solve.
- 8bitsrule 6y agoNice to see there are places that get it.
- leecarraher 6y agoSmaller is probably better for evs. In this class of vehicles evs stand to get the full benefit of a considerably lighter and less complex drivetrain, that ice cannot come close to. Furthermore marketing them as short range, low speed people movers means the overall battery weight, which is likely the biggest impediment to ev replacing ices, can be better compensated for.
- agumonkey 6y agoI wonder if the real progress will be in traffic management. A huge amount of waste comes from the legacy lights and stops. Whenever your alone on a long strip in sync with green lights, you can just coast and reach your destination in a few minutes at 35mph. With small ~smart or even SDV you may be able to rethink the principles. Higher density, higher liquidity..
- bambax 6y agoTiny cars... or electric bikes? Two years ago I electrified a normal MTB with a Bafang motor and the total cost was under €1000; many changes of brakes and tires later, it now has 7200 km and is almost as good as new (the battery is not in great shape though and may need to be replaced soon). This has completely changed my life. I used to ride around in a big motorbike but now use it very rarely if ever. An electric bike is simpler, infinitely quieter, and almost as fast in congested cities such as Paris.
- exabrial 6y agoI mean sure, we've seen the capabilities of the Reliant Robin as a tiny 3-wheeled car, so electrifying such a vehicle only makes sense. First, the incredible handling on cobblestone and narrow streets in the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8 Then later, scientists were actually able to launch one into outer space as a viable alternative to the space shuttle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdrlWR-yFM
- codecamper 6y agoBut but but... making EVs is VERY VERY complicated. You need to understand the S-curve. Exponential change! lmao.
- elric 6y agoWhat the world needs is fewer, smaller and slower cars. In that order. This is even more important than the fuel they run on. Better public transport would go a long way towards making that more viable, of course ...
- pharmakom 6y agoalmost sounds like... wait a minute... an electric bicycle!
- desktopninja 6y agoGiven: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-08/klm-makes-first-regular-flight-with-sustainable-synthetic-fuel https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-08/klm-makes... https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/porsche-says-synthetic-fuel-could-181000252.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/porsche-says-synthetic-fuel-... And advancements in hydrogen fuel cells, wondering now if EV's are just a fad.
- Hypx 6y agoInternal combustion could be with us for a long time.
- rapjr9 6y agoWhere can you buy these in the USA? ATV stores seem to be all ICE. Golf carts are way overpriced and often not enclosed and have little cargo space. The only way I can see to get a small electric utility vehicle that costs under $3000 for packages and yard work is to order one shipped from China on Alibaba and similar web sites. There are $15,000 UTV's in the USA, but that is a ridiculous price.