At a maximum speed of 28mpg it might classify as an electric bicycle, just like for instance the ELF: https://organictransit.com/ Some states however define a bicycle as having a maximum of 3 wheels, so that might be an issue.
> The Ami is not classified as a motor vehicle. As such, operators do not need a license and can be as young as 14 in France and 16 in other European countries.
Interesting. How did they get around that classification, and for something that operates on the street?
I would say all Europe has the same concept, or at least France, Spain and Italy for sure. For gasoline vehicles they just need to be less then 50cc and max speed less then 50km/h. They've been existing for years.
I doubt it's not classified as a motor vehicle - it's just not classified as a car, but a light quadricycle (L6e).
Similar ICE-powered vehicles are rather popular with younger folks and some of the elderly, at least in countries where a full license is only available at 18. These vehicles are not without drawbacks, though, as they have poor crashworthiness (even in the kind of accidents they may very well get to).
It is not driving license free in most countries, though. E.g. in Finland an AM/121 class license is required (above a moped AM/120 but below a motorbike A or regular car B), which you can get at 15 years old.
The fact that this doesn't require a driver's license to operate is a big deal given how difficult and expensive (around 1000 euros) it is to get a driver's license in France.
Why is it so expensive? Is there required courses? I can understand that in cities, a DL might not be a huge deal but I can't imagine that rural France would be happy with that.
Because they actually want their drivers to be reasonably good. What goes for a driving exam in some countries is not up to standards in others. 50-60 hours of instruction isn't rare at all where I live.
Terrifying, but I drove for only two hours before getting my driver's license in California. At the time (and possibly still) you didn't have to have driver's training courses to take the test if you were 18+.
In Germany you have to take theory lessons and test as well as practical lessons including some time highway (Autobahn) and at night. In the end there is a practical test, which (from anecdotal observation) a notable amount of people fail on first attempt.
But once you have the license you can drive on highways without speed limits, where safety and following rules is important (while the free ride is a bit of a myth - many segments have speed limits, there is lots of traffic limiting speed and in case of an accident insurance restrict payment when going fast)
I'm not sure it's universally true. I didn't but that was years ago at a private school and I still took a summer Drivers Ed class for insurance reasons.
Given that most students do get a drivers license, it wouldn't be surprising if Drivers Ed were a mandatory part of some high school curricula. Note that this is probably just the theory part in most cases and doesn't include actual on the road instruction. (Which is typically done by parents or by a company--the latter again in part for insurance price reasons.)
Drivers Ed was an optional summer course in my district, and did include an on-road component. Not required at all (although the insurance company gave a discount for completing it).
HS graduation requirements vary (in some cases, much more than you would think) between districts. Usually, each town/city has its own district -- in rural areas a district may span many towns, in more urban areas, you may have more than one district in a single city. There are state guidelines, but we also have 50 different states. Federal guidelines are pretty sparse, and often only enforced by accepting funding -- don't take their money and you don't have to play by their rules.
I suspect that there is no blanket statement about the US public school system that will hold true nationwide (except, perhaps "it could be better" or "it makes no sense").
The reaction to not having a license is probably simply due to 60+ years of "The American Dream" for a kid was having their own car and the freedom^tm that came with it, and the simple fact that in the majority of the country, public transportation is crap, and our cities are not designed around walking. So a car, and license, is pretty much a requirement.
It varies by state. In Illinois, Drivers Ed is required to graduate high school (exemptions for, e.g., visually impaired persons were not introduced until the 80s iirc). Illinois has some weird requirements for education. Except for the Chicago public school district, four years of P.E. is also required for graduation which really annoyed me because I would rather have had that time slot to take academic classes.
I failed the test three times in Germany. After the second time I switched school, and basically had to start from scratch. Probably ended up costing me 5000€ or close to 10000€. And since that was in 2009, with the perfect time to put everything in the stock market, the opportunity costs were like 100000€.
I was curious about the "most pass" as I know so many stories of people who failed (I passed on first attempt myself)
First article I found from 2018, citing numbers from 2017, says 37% fail theory, 28% during practical test, which is quite a lot, considering that you have extra training lessons and instructors should know what's being tested (conspiracy theory would be: failed test leads to more lessons and more fees)
https://m.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/knapp-37-pro...
This is still true. I moved from AZ to CA when I was 17 and my AZ permit expired. It was way easier and cheaper to wait until I turned 18 so that I didn't have to pay for the requisite driving training courses. Oddly enough, Drivers Ed is required to pass high school, but if you get your training or your license before you graduate you can supply them with the documentation and still get the credit.
With my birthday being in July, I technically should have had to take a Drivers Ed course, but because I moved my senior year of high school, I basically got a lot of free credits because the state requirements were different and I would have had to essentially take an extra year of HS if they didn't just hand me credits. It's weird.
I don't understand what you mean. Is it terrifying to have to get so much practice before being allowed to drive on your own, or terrifying to drive with only two hours' experience?
Belgium - 7.3
United States - 7.3
Slovenia - 7.0
Japan - 6.4
France - 5.8
Finland - 5.1
Canada - 5.1 [similar requirements as US for license]
Germany - 4.2
I know France, Belgium, and the USA have no proper driver's education and that Germany and the Netherlands do (other countries I would have to look up). In Belgium, people learn from their parents and then take the exam and therefore keep repeating most of their parents' mistakes plus their own. Everyone in Germany and the Netherlands that I've talked to agrees that Belgians are terrible drivers, and France has a similar system and seem to be just as bad (though with fewer data points because they're further away).
From your link: Belgium=7.3, France=5.8, USA=7.3 versus Germany=4.2, Netherlands=4.7. I don't know what the P-value on that is (I never thought of looking at this until you mentioned it) but so far it looks like the data matches intuition.
Of course, there's a lot more factors, like that in the USA and Germany have towns much further apart than the Netherlands (I've said before that in NL you're never more than a few minutes away from being at least in hearing distance of the nearest human). This makes public transport much worse and those who don't like driving may be obliged to, but also the infrastructure costs more when there are fewer inhabitants per km² to make use of each road which should make the infrastructure worse. Indeed, driving from NL into Germany during rain, the highways instantly and universally turn from nearly dry (due to permeable concrete) to lots of spatting and aquaplaning risk.
I'm also not sure fatalities is the only thing we should be looking at. NL is higher than Germany but if you have more city traffic than highway traffic, you probably hit more bicycles and pedestrians despite better infrastructure.
Not sure why you would say the US doesn't have proper drivers education. I took a mandatory semester class in high school (in the 80s) with a proper curriculum, a driving simulator, a dedicated paved training area, cars with instructor brake pedals, and lots of scary movies on how we could kill ourselves and others with bad driving...
From what I read in this thread and on reddit, in the USA (somewhat state-dependent) you can drive with almost no experience in a vehicle that has zero safety standards (some states only check up on emissions, others don't even check that, or so people on reddit said).
Heh, I'm dating myself, but I got my first license at 14 in Idaho. The only thing I needed was a 10 minute practical exam and to pass the written exam. There was no minimum required hours of driving (Scary, I know!)
They've since changed it to 16 with 50 hours of supervised driving.
It’s 14 here in Arkansas for a learner’s permit, and 16 for a full license. The permit requires a written test (that’s trivial), and you have have a permit for six months if you’re under 18 I think.
You can get a limited ”hardship” license to go to school or work at 14.
Yet French drivers tailgate everywhere regardless of the speed. I could be driving in the Alps near Chamonix and some driver will be right on my bumper. People will park on sidewalks, drive on sidewalks, park the wrong way on streets, and smashing into a car to get into a parking space is common. Other than well known, automatic speed cameras, traffic enforcement is almost nil. That claim that they want drivers to be good is really a myth, it’s a racket with driving schools doing everything they can to complicate the licensing process because it’s a significant industry. A sport pilot’s license in the US requires the same number of hours of instruction as a drivers license in France. Road fatalities are less in France than the US, but that is unrelated to drivers education — it’s mostly because of drunk driving in the US as well as the longer distances traveled and higher average speeds. It isn’t because French drivers are better. Most cars in France and dented up because of minor accidents — if their skill was so much better, why are most cars dented up? French drivers might have, on paper, better training, but once they are released onto the roads, they seem to instantly forget everything.
Regarding 50-60 hours of instruction, that’s enough for a private pilots license and airplanes are vastly more complicated than driving.
Despite the nil enforcement, they strictly follow red lights. I'm surprised it's not more lawless. In N. America I ask people "What do the police do?" and locals answer "speeding tickets". In France, I never get a clear answer.
While "It isn’t because French drivers are better." may be true for safety, I do find their drivers far more predictable than N. American drivers on highways.
They'll stay in the right on the highway, unless passing. And when they finish passing, they'll go back to the right. With signals.
At least in S. Ontario, drivers pick a lane randomly, and stick to it for ??? reasons. Signalling after its clear what their intentions are (ie: not a "signal" at all). Not uncommon to see drivers on an merge onto an open highway, and immediately start multiple lane shifts with nothing to pass for miles ahead.
It took a while for my French handlers to get me to stop angling my wheel while parked because of the bumper cars you mentioned.
It's interesting seeing the differences in following traffic laws between countries.
One thing I've noticed about the US is pulling over for emergency vehicles. Cars will pull over quickly and stay over. In Canada people will barely pull over, take their time, coast a bit.
Let me add for clarification to the parent commenter: In Germany you'll not only need to have at least a fixed amount of theoretical training and an exam about that, but also driving training in various conditions. Few hours on the Autobahn, few hours at night and obviously driving though the countryside and cities.
I do not know about Germany but in Luxembourg you have to take a special course within 2 years of getting your licence.
This course is on a race track and you will learn how to deal with aquaplaning and controlled avoidance of obstacles amongst other things. They also force the car to lose control so that you can experience that (I believe you drive over a metal sheet that moves, causing the back to spin out).
Not quite snow/ice training but it gives you some experience in how to deal with situations where you lose control of your car.
Courses like this are not mandatory in Germany, but car clubs like the "ADAC" offer those for their members. They're still expensive (like 200 Euro for a day) and I'm not sure if insurance agencies give you benefits for taking part in those courses.
Sadly not. Either you live in a region where snow falls regularly and you learn driving on snow/ice right from the start or you will behave like most of us: Make a fool of yourself after the first five snowflakes have fallen.
Well, you will get about 30 hours of theoretical training and something like 12 or 15 hours of practical driving training for that. Also there are fees included like costs for the theoretical exams, your driving examiner and the driving license itself.
Costs obviously vary with your driving skills and whether you live in a rural area or in town. I think the later is more expensive...
Most people in France spend more around 1500€ to 2000€ in practice, especially if you've not trained with your family before (on a parking for example), and since it's very common to fail the practical exam once.
You don't need a full license, just an "AM" one and a 7-hour training, and you can start when you're 14.
That's nothing compared to a car license, that need to be 18, takes 1000~2000€, several months of training, a theoretical exam and a practical test (that's common to fail).
Pretty good for a daily commuter in Europe. Especially considering how narrow the streets are in Spain. Sounds like it's ripe for that market.
Can't really take this sucker outside the city though, but at that price, I'd certainly consider it for a daily driver.
>It’s electric, cheap and doesn’t require a license. In short, it’s less of a car and more of an electric scooter with two seats, doors and a heater...The Ami is not classified as a motor vehicle.
This just screams safety issues to me. I'm not sure I would want to drive down some city streets in one of these.
It's not designed for the US market where SUVs and Truck are the most popular vehicle. It's classified as a quadrocycle which is a lightweight vehicle distinction in France and other EU countries.
I wonder if it will be regulated like a golf cart.
Unlike bicycles/scooters, it's still going to take up parking spaces.
Without licensing, I wonder if it will introduce a new class of drivers who won't know the rules of the road and introduce more unpredictability into driving.
They already exist, microcars like Aixam are pretty popular with people who don't have a license (in general teenagers over 14/16, or drivers with suspended licenses).
They are not a subject for pedestrians, they are just cars.
As far as other drivers are concerned, the only problem is that over the years they started looking more and more like 'regular' cars, so 'regular' drivers coming behind are surprised because they wrongly estimate their speed (well in fact they don't estimate anything, they have the mental model that cars always drive around 80 km/h, and bicycle around 15 km/h, so they are surprised both ways when a car or bicycle goes around 40 km/h).
But drivers must be reminded that normal roads are not a space reserved for cars, motorbikes and lorries cruising all the time near the speed limit, but can be rightfully used by any kind of vehicles (tractors with or without trailers, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and so on), and that they can be encountered moving at any speed in ]0, speed limit] for a good reason.
Thanks for that. To what extent do these drivers know to follow the the more complex rules of the road, say left turns, four way stops, roundabout etiquette etc. without having gone through any licensing?
I want to say the same issue applies to cyclists, but then the compliance rate of cyclists is not high. The only consolation is that cyclists loo sufficiently different from cars that drivers give them a wide berth.
We don't have 4-way stops, it's roundabouts everywhere. (Need to u-turn? Just drive a few hundred meters more to the next roundabout).
In my experience they drive as well/bad as other drivers, just slower. Even in 50 km/h areas you'll see them drive at 20/30. Generally not a problem in cities. On bigger roads I've seen some move a bit to the side so you can overtake them more easily.
Voitures sans permis (VSPs) can be driven by anyone aged 14 and up and are limited to 45 kph—just 28 mph. VSPs can’t be driven on expressways or highways, since a 28-mph top speed and, well, you get it. Drivers must only acquire what’s known as an AM category license, which requires a seven-hour training course, of which only four hours are spent driving on roads. Those born before 1988 require no license at all.
Great, but no way in this timeline you will be able to get on a road with this without a license. Even if that’s the case it will change in an instant.
They are actually very popular in many countries among drivers who have their license suspended but depend on having a vehicle. There are even rental companies that basically work exclusively with this type of scenario.
You can drive this in most EU countries with the simplest permit available (the same as motorcycles of 49cc) in Spain you can get that permit at 15 years of age, but years ago you could get it at 14.
“It can be rented long term at a cost of €19.99 (including VAT) per month with an initial payment of €2,644 (including VAT). The Ami can be rented through a car-sharing service for up to a day at a rate of €0.26 per min...”
Looks like it costs €2,644 initial payment + €19.99 a month.
I like the concept. I don’t really like that a lot of EVs are moving in the direction of bigger , heavier and more power. For cities these super small cars are the future hopefully and not 2 ton tanks.
Everyone seems to love comfort of SUV's, especially in new world where cities were designed for cars. European cities just can't fit large cars, but move to the country side and you can certainly enjoy utility of larger car (although I'd argue actual 4x4 almost certainly overkill for 95% of roads).
I'd certainly love more heavy machinery to move to electric. Buses and trucks are just so loud, benefit most from the torque and are heavily utilised meaning much faster payback than sedan that sits 99% idle.
This more like a two person Sinclair C5 with a roof than an actual car. It won't be allowed to go on the highway and you may have to ride it on bike paths in some countries next to national roads between towns, which is a real nuisance for the people on actual bicycles.
In multiple countries, a lot of these vehicles cannot go on 40 MpH speed limited roads. That makes it hugely problematic for getting from A to B, even if you are willing to accept the low maximum speed or will just be on those roads momentarily. I'm not even talking about freeway/motorway driving, but even a lot of towns and cities have modestly fast roads running through them.
That is such an annoying maximum speed. It's just shy of the speed limits of many residential areas. In Germany on towns it's generally 50kmh. On the US many roads have 30 or 35mph. This is just slow enough to be annoying to be behind and fast enough to make it not trivial to overtake.
I say this as someone who wants a commuter vehicle similar to this. It's fine for me if it cannot go on the freeway, but it must be able to not hold up traffic everywhere else.
Edit: I also prefer the shape of the Toyota iRoad. While that thing can go 37mph I think 50mph or at least 45 is the minimum to not be a nuisance.
If it were ever sold in the US, the top speed would likely be different, since it's determined by local laws rather than the tech.
I'm always surprised rich parents don't buy these for teenagers since you can drive them at any age - no need to wait till you have a driving license, and significantly more practical than a bicycle and more independance/cheaper than an uber.
Peachtree City, Georgia has an expansive golf cart road network, and is useable by teenagers. Tom Scott did a good video on the city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVGqtmd2wM
I don't think parents in the US actually want their <16yo children to be that independent. drive themselves to/from school and sports? sure. be able to travel an arbitrarily long distance in a day? probably not.
Totally agree. While living in Berlin I used to rent Coup (now defunct) e-scooters quite a bit. They would go up to 48-50km/h. Considering that most cars drive just a hair over 50 it was right in the annoying spot you described.
Yeah, it is and I remember being annoyed by that when I lived in Germany. Who thought it was a good idea to put vehicles on the road that are forced to go just 5kmh below the speed limit?!
Are there not 35mph roads in SF? Every artery in LA is 35mph and between 8pm-4am and 11am-2pm you are expected to be going 45mph lest you be aggressively tailgated and immediately cut off by some asshole in a Bellinger jersey.
I've had the misfortune of interacting with "vehicles" of this class here in Sweden a few times. (I'm guessing the one's I've seen are crappy PRC imports, legally pretending to be powered bicycles or similar.)
Every single time: They do something insanely stupid and dangerous, on actual roads. (I guess they bought this because they were too stupid to get a driver's license.)
They also tend to drive around 30 km/h at most, on roads meant for 50-80 km/h.
I guess on the road they're mostly a danger to themselves. I can't imagine a real car getting more than a smallish-dent from even a head-on collision with this thing. Lots of bloody carnage though.
No, this class of vehicle should be banished altogether. There is enough choice already and this does not fit in well in the existing infrastructure to the point where it won't endanger the occupants and the other road users multiple times per trip. Inside a city, maybe.
Motorized vehicles, except electric bicycles (250W max, motor shuts off above 25km/h), are forbidden to use bike paths in France and I guess most of Europe.
The problem I think will be how it will fit in the streets. Bicycles that are slower than regular traffic are easy to overtake. But this probably not as easy. At the same time, I would not want to share bicycle lanes with this vehicle if I am cycling.
Most people who have this kind of vehicles drives in cities. It's rare to see those on roads outside and overtaking thise is still easier than a tractor. On highways this category of car is, for obvious reasons, not allowed.
The car doesn't use its left turn signal in the demo video. Good thing the child wasn't been any slower exiting the crosswalk, or the car could have hit them.
If it is not a car I suppose you will have to wear a helmet inside ;)
Not sure if I would want to drive this in Australia though. Coming from Europe the size of your roads here is crazy. Lots of 2-3 lane inner city roads with a speedlimit of 60. You'd be a sitting duck in an Ami..
These speed limited vehicles which can't go with the flow in a city are a danger because people will be overtaking, cutting in and generally be annoyed by them. This is already a problem with scooters and some motorbikes.
Cheap vehicles which are limited to 45 km/h have always existed, they were never popular in Europe. Make it 60 and it will be usable for city driving.
This product is for the European market, in pretty much every European city traffic flows at these speeds. Maybe not at rush hour but the day has more hours.
In Europe cities are small on average and traffic flows ok. Big cities like London, Paris and Berlin are the exception and even there you'll have problems if your vehicles speed is capped at 45km/h.
There are cities in Europe with 40 km/h speed limits.
A bigger problem with these small cars is they lack practicality for bringing more people or luggage, and they're never cheap enough to make up for it when you can just buy a used car.
Would work fine in Manhattan too as long as you stay off the FDR. That being said I don't get why they don't make it go up to 40mph. I can't imagine there's much market for this vehicle but I'd be thrilled to be wrong.
Vehicles like this one are usually targeted at young people that can't yet get a license for a standard car (usually you need to be 18 in EU), but can get a license for vehicles with max speed of 45km/h from ±15 (depending on country).
Electric motorbikes are much cheaper in SEA and can go as fast as this 2 seater car. I'm not sure if this car has air-con and how big is its storage, but it'd not be competitive enough in SEA market.
Perhaps, but the current "flow" has undesirable side-effect (i.e., pollution and climate change). We're going to have to accept some changes somewhere along the line. We can't keep saying, "No not that" and wonder why nothing is changing.
In the USA there is a special legal category for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles which are limited to 25 mph / 40 kph. They are popular mainly in retirement communities.
It’s actually cheaper and nicer than a golf cart...maybe it would be a big hit in the US just as a replacement for gated neighborhoods / golf communities.
>Cheap vehicles which are limited to 45 km/h have always existed, they were never popular in Europe.
Aixam microcars are ubiquitous in rural France, providing independence for teenagers and the elderly. The Piaggio Ape is ubiquitous in Italy, providing quick and convenient deliveries in narrow medieval streets. Small, low-powered vehicles have an important role to play in the transport mix.
In India, the average speed of traffic in major cities is anywhere between 5kmph to 15kmph during peak hours (from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., depending on the location, with some lean periods in between). There are electric vehicles (not many) that manage even on stretches with low traffic at comparatively lower speeds. Since being on the road itself is annoying, these extra annoyances add up only a little bit, and won’t be significant in such areas.
This vehicle seems to be made specially to be under 45km/h limit to not be a car and be a four wheel "scooter" class. In my country (in Europe) they don't have technical inspection, insurance is way cheaper and if born before '91, you don't need any license or don't need full license.
I assume the there are also less requirements from manufacture side, that makes it easier and cheaper to produce.
If it would be 60km/h you can not make it at this price point, because you are making a full car. And then there is no reason to limit it at all.
They are already popular here, where I live and are much similarly priced or even higher because of the lesser requirements for getting around.
I can see it as perfect second car for city in my hometown and would buy it.
IMO, this is much closer to the direction we should be heading.
The typical 4-seat, 1600+ kg, to move around one or two people, at a total of ~200kg, is just stupid. Most of the energy is spent just moving the car... very inefficient.
Also, the environmental footprint of manufacturing modern cars is horrible: metals mining and refining, fabrication, waste from manufacturing, the energy to do it all. Making Li-ion batteries is extremely energy intensive; which is one reason they are so expensive.
CA is trying. Most of the new apartments being built are mixed use developments. In LA you can live above your bodega above your subway station in some of these apartments.
Maybe in some small pockets of LA. But the vast majority is hills and hills of single family homes. And many suburban cities and towns are actively resisting state measures to make housing affordable and transit available.
California is huge. France has a long tradition of flimsy lightweight vehicles (Deux Chevaux etc) for local use, this is a logical extension of this cultural norm.
Have you seen the price of rent recently? That's a nice dream but half the people I know can't afford to live within 25 miles of where they work. <$100 a month in gas will save >$750 a month in rent. The economics aren't there, and most people won't act against their own economic self interest.
No, we shouldn't. I don't want my tax money being wasted on people getting a better place to live. What's next, loners and the elderly should be outcast to the outskirts?
If tax dollars were spent exactly how each individual tax payers wanted them to be, there would be little point in taxation. And I highly doubt that someone living in public housing who is able to live close to work would see those tax dollars being "wasted".
The right to own private property is more or less bought through taxes. If the deal becomes too unfair, you get Trump or Bernie. If the deal becomes untenable, you get guillotines.
What? Right now people are being forced to the outskirts. Especially the elderly, the poor, etc. A healthy supply of non commodity housing keeps them in the neighborhood.
I'm not sure thats what's going in here. If you're working 8 h a day at, say, 15€ / h, then even assuming you can choose between commuting 1 h more or working 10 h days, the commute may make more economic sense, depending on the rent situation.Also, mostly you're not going to get the chance to work those 10 hours every day all year.
That simply can't work. Do I move every time I switch jobs? What if me and my partner don't work in the same area? Do we really need a hardware store every [insert average reasonable walking distance]?
The solution is good public transport. If every car owner dumped as much money into public transport as they do for only the registration of their cars, we could have a (methane or better) bus every 5 minutes on every street. This would still be better for the environment, cheaper and safer than cars.
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 228 ms ] threadI wonder if it would be feasible/worth it to incorporate a pedal assist system to lengthen the range.
Also I would love a convertible version.
What about safety? Especially rolling? Would this work in the US from a regulatory standpoint?
Interesting. How did they get around that classification, and for something that operates on the street?
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/automotive/vehicle-categ... (for a start)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle
Similar ICE-powered vehicles are rather popular with younger folks and some of the elderly, at least in countries where a full license is only available at 18. These vehicles are not without drawbacks, though, as they have poor crashworthiness (even in the kind of accidents they may very well get to).
https://www.aixam.nl/
It is not driving license free in most countries, though. E.g. in Finland an AM/121 class license is required (above a moped AM/120 but below a motorbike A or regular car B), which you can get at 15 years old.
Seems like a bit of a stretch to call that €19.99/mo when you also need to pay the equivalent of 11 years of rent up front.
But once you have the license you can drive on highways without speed limits, where safety and following rules is important (while the free ride is a bit of a myth - many segments have speed limits, there is lots of traffic limiting speed and in case of an accident insurance restrict payment when going fast)
Really? Now I realise why some Americans looked so confused and dismayed when I was living there without having ever learned to drive.
So there's nobody from USA who chooses to have an education, and not to drive a car?
Given that most students do get a drivers license, it wouldn't be surprising if Drivers Ed were a mandatory part of some high school curricula. Note that this is probably just the theory part in most cases and doesn't include actual on the road instruction. (Which is typically done by parents or by a company--the latter again in part for insurance price reasons.)
HS graduation requirements vary (in some cases, much more than you would think) between districts. Usually, each town/city has its own district -- in rural areas a district may span many towns, in more urban areas, you may have more than one district in a single city. There are state guidelines, but we also have 50 different states. Federal guidelines are pretty sparse, and often only enforced by accepting funding -- don't take their money and you don't have to play by their rules.
I suspect that there is no blanket statement about the US public school system that will hold true nationwide (except, perhaps "it could be better" or "it makes no sense").
The reaction to not having a license is probably simply due to 60+ years of "The American Dream" for a kid was having their own car and the freedom^tm that came with it, and the simple fact that in the majority of the country, public transportation is crap, and our cities are not designed around walking. So a car, and license, is pretty much a requirement.
A lot of people would argue this is very good policy.
First article I found from 2018, citing numbers from 2017, says 37% fail theory, 28% during practical test, which is quite a lot, considering that you have extra training lessons and instructors should know what's being tested (conspiracy theory would be: failed test leads to more lessons and more fees) https://m.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/knapp-37-pro...
With my birthday being in July, I technically should have had to take a Drivers Ed course, but because I moved my senior year of high school, I basically got a lot of free credits because the state requirements were different and I would have had to essentially take an extra year of HS if they didn't just hand me credits. It's weird.
Traffic fatalities per billion miles driven:
Belgium - 7.3 United States - 7.3 Slovenia - 7.0 Japan - 6.4 France - 5.8 Finland - 5.1 Canada - 5.1 [similar requirements as US for license] Germany - 4.2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
From your link: Belgium=7.3, France=5.8, USA=7.3 versus Germany=4.2, Netherlands=4.7. I don't know what the P-value on that is (I never thought of looking at this until you mentioned it) but so far it looks like the data matches intuition.
Of course, there's a lot more factors, like that in the USA and Germany have towns much further apart than the Netherlands (I've said before that in NL you're never more than a few minutes away from being at least in hearing distance of the nearest human). This makes public transport much worse and those who don't like driving may be obliged to, but also the infrastructure costs more when there are fewer inhabitants per km² to make use of each road which should make the infrastructure worse. Indeed, driving from NL into Germany during rain, the highways instantly and universally turn from nearly dry (due to permeable concrete) to lots of spatting and aquaplaning risk.
I'm also not sure fatalities is the only thing we should be looking at. NL is higher than Germany but if you have more city traffic than highway traffic, you probably hit more bicycles and pedestrians despite better infrastructure.
Nevertheless, interesting statistic.
They've since changed it to 16 with 50 hours of supervised driving.
You can get a limited ”hardship” license to go to school or work at 14.
Regarding 50-60 hours of instruction, that’s enough for a private pilots license and airplanes are vastly more complicated than driving.
Despite the nil enforcement, they strictly follow red lights. I'm surprised it's not more lawless. In N. America I ask people "What do the police do?" and locals answer "speeding tickets". In France, I never get a clear answer.
While "It isn’t because French drivers are better." may be true for safety, I do find their drivers far more predictable than N. American drivers on highways.
They'll stay in the right on the highway, unless passing. And when they finish passing, they'll go back to the right. With signals.
At least in S. Ontario, drivers pick a lane randomly, and stick to it for ??? reasons. Signalling after its clear what their intentions are (ie: not a "signal" at all). Not uncommon to see drivers on an merge onto an open highway, and immediately start multiple lane shifts with nothing to pass for miles ahead.
It took a while for my French handlers to get me to stop angling my wheel while parked because of the bumper cars you mentioned.
One thing I've noticed about the US is pulling over for emergency vehicles. Cars will pull over quickly and stay over. In Canada people will barely pull over, take their time, coast a bit.
This course is on a race track and you will learn how to deal with aquaplaning and controlled avoidance of obstacles amongst other things. They also force the car to lose control so that you can experience that (I believe you drive over a metal sheet that moves, causing the back to spin out).
Not quite snow/ice training but it gives you some experience in how to deal with situations where you lose control of your car.
Costs obviously vary with your driving skills and whether you live in a rural area or in town. I think the later is more expensive...
It’s a pretty good deal, I’ve been debating getting a moped, but the equivalent with a roof and a bit safer is certainly appealing
That's nothing compared to a car license, that need to be 18, takes 1000~2000€, several months of training, a theoretical exam and a practical test (that's common to fail).
Pretty good for a daily commuter in Europe. Especially considering how narrow the streets are in Spain. Sounds like it's ripe for that market. Can't really take this sucker outside the city though, but at that price, I'd certainly consider it for a daily driver.
That's way cheaper than the €14.995 Estrima Biro [1] that it will be competing with here in the Netherlands.
[1] https://biro.nl/en/model/biro-urban/
I love my twizy, it's the perfect city vehicle
This just screams safety issues to me. I'm not sure I would want to drive down some city streets in one of these.
In fact, even the F-150 is virtually impossible to drive on tiny streets.
Vehicles all have different uses. This is very cheap, and while it's not ideal for every possible use-case it certainly will be very good at others.
Unlike bicycles/scooters, it's still going to take up parking spaces.
Without licensing, I wonder if it will introduce a new class of drivers who won't know the rules of the road and introduce more unpredictability into driving.
As far as other drivers are concerned, the only problem is that over the years they started looking more and more like 'regular' cars, so 'regular' drivers coming behind are surprised because they wrongly estimate their speed (well in fact they don't estimate anything, they have the mental model that cars always drive around 80 km/h, and bicycle around 15 km/h, so they are surprised both ways when a car or bicycle goes around 40 km/h).
But drivers must be reminded that normal roads are not a space reserved for cars, motorbikes and lorries cruising all the time near the speed limit, but can be rightfully used by any kind of vehicles (tractors with or without trailers, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and so on), and that they can be encountered moving at any speed in ]0, speed limit] for a good reason.
I want to say the same issue applies to cyclists, but then the compliance rate of cyclists is not high. The only consolation is that cyclists loo sufficiently different from cars that drivers give them a wide berth.
In my experience they drive as well/bad as other drivers, just slower. Even in 50 km/h areas you'll see them drive at 20/30. Generally not a problem in cities. On bigger roads I've seen some move a bit to the side so you can overtake them more easily.
You actually need an AM license, which is a 1 day training.
Voitures sans permis (VSPs) can be driven by anyone aged 14 and up and are limited to 45 kph—just 28 mph. VSPs can’t be driven on expressways or highways, since a 28-mph top speed and, well, you get it. Drivers must only acquire what’s known as an AM category license, which requires a seven-hour training course, of which only four hours are spent driving on roads. Those born before 1988 require no license at all.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15345640/an-aixam-to-grin...
Looks like it costs €2,644 initial payment + €19.99 a month.
Everyone seems to love comfort of SUV's, especially in new world where cities were designed for cars. European cities just can't fit large cars, but move to the country side and you can certainly enjoy utility of larger car (although I'd argue actual 4x4 almost certainly overkill for 95% of roads).
I'd certainly love more heavy machinery to move to electric. Buses and trucks are just so loud, benefit most from the torque and are heavily utilised meaning much faster payback than sedan that sits 99% idle.
Not a problem re: 40mph roads.
I’d love to have one for SF.
I say this as someone who wants a commuter vehicle similar to this. It's fine for me if it cannot go on the freeway, but it must be able to not hold up traffic everywhere else.
Edit: I also prefer the shape of the Toyota iRoad. While that thing can go 37mph I think 50mph or at least 45 is the minimum to not be a nuisance.
I'm always surprised rich parents don't buy these for teenagers since you can drive them at any age - no need to wait till you have a driving license, and significantly more practical than a bicycle and more independance/cheaper than an uber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle
Every single time: They do something insanely stupid and dangerous, on actual roads. (I guess they bought this because they were too stupid to get a driver's license.)
They also tend to drive around 30 km/h at most, on roads meant for 50-80 km/h.
I can't wait until we banish them from the roads.
Liability though...
You bring up a good point: small cars like this with a roof should have a rack from the factory. Since they don't go fast, aero isn't an issue.
Maybe it will fail but kudos for putting it out there.
Not sure if I would want to drive this in Australia though. Coming from Europe the size of your roads here is crazy. Lots of 2-3 lane inner city roads with a speedlimit of 60. You'd be a sitting duck in an Ami..
Cheap vehicles which are limited to 45 km/h have always existed, they were never popular in Europe. Make it 60 and it will be usable for city driving.
Also, the scooters and motorbikes might be part of the solution, and larger vehicles part of the problem.
This is something for San Francisco, not for jetting between its suburbs.
In Europe cities are small on average and traffic flows ok. Big cities like London, Paris and Berlin are the exception and even there you'll have problems if your vehicles speed is capped at 45km/h.
A bigger problem with these small cars is they lack practicality for bringing more people or luggage, and they're never cheap enough to make up for it when you can just buy a used car.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/19658/neighborhood-electric-ve...
Aixam microcars are ubiquitous in rural France, providing independence for teenagers and the elderly. The Piaggio Ape is ubiquitous in Italy, providing quick and convenient deliveries in narrow medieval streets. Small, low-powered vehicles have an important role to play in the transport mix.
https://www.aixam.com/en/
http://www.piaggiocommercialvehicles.com/en_EN/models/ape/
I assume the there are also less requirements from manufacture side, that makes it easier and cheaper to produce.
If it would be 60km/h you can not make it at this price point, because you are making a full car. And then there is no reason to limit it at all. They are already popular here, where I live and are much similarly priced or even higher because of the lesser requirements for getting around.
I can see it as perfect second car for city in my hometown and would buy it.
The typical 4-seat, 1600+ kg, to move around one or two people, at a total of ~200kg, is just stupid. Most of the energy is spent just moving the car... very inefficient.
Also, the environmental footprint of manufacturing modern cars is horrible: metals mining and refining, fabrication, waste from manufacturing, the energy to do it all. Making Li-ion batteries is extremely energy intensive; which is one reason they are so expensive.
This is the only solution with our existing technology.
The right to own private property is more or less bought through taxes. If the deal becomes too unfair, you get Trump or Bernie. If the deal becomes untenable, you get guillotines.
But you don't put a monetary value in zhe time stuck in traffic.
The solution is good public transport. If every car owner dumped as much money into public transport as they do for only the registration of their cars, we could have a (methane or better) bus every 5 minutes on every street. This would still be better for the environment, cheaper and safer than cars.
It used to, widespread car ownership is a relatively recent innovation.
2. moving is a simple matter as after we stop financialisation of land it is no longer a huge financial gamble
3. money for good schools everywhere because we are taxing land and spivs cannot avoid it
LOL. Apparently, proper English is not a priority for the French now that Brexit has happened.