This is awesome. But nobody’s going to buy it if they have to drive it sharing the road with hulking SUVs. It’s nearly as dangerous as a motorcycle simply because it is so small and light. The only advantage is protection from the weather.
Plenty of people ride motorcycles. Protection from the weather means year round use. Throw in some specialized parking for small vehicles, and you have a winning product
From experience, the main issues, aside from weather, with using a motorcycle as your sole means of transport are:
- You can't take an arbitrary person as passenger (they need gear and pillion experience)
- You can't take more than a backpack's worth of cargo (slightly expandable with panniers)
This can't take a passenger at all, and looks like it has the same cargo restrictions. It looks fun but I can't see it replacing a small car which solves both of these problems, so it needs to be cheap enough to be a 'fun' second vehicle.
I thought this was the appeal of the 'full touring' bikes from Harley and Honda? Do you still need pinion experience when you're basically in a recliner?
100,000+ km in total under my belt. Pillions in my experience pick it up quite quickly and this is across super sports, super nakeds and adventure tourers.
I tell them either lean with me when I'm going around a bend or stay directly up right. I've not had any problems. And I've had a fair number of Tinder Dates with people without any experience of riding who've came accustomed quite quickly.
But I too have ridden heaps of miles in a previous life when I'd habitually tour the US on two wheels, and there can definitely be frustrations and risks with inexperienced passengers.
From having to convince them things like No, your Keds are not satisfactory for us to go riding. Yes, you must wear a helmet and some pants and gloves would be smart. No, you should not lean into the corners, just be a predictable appendage of the bike especially at low speeds. No, you should not put your foot anywhere near the chain/chain guard, regardless of how annoyingly high the rear pegs are on this superbike. Yes, you must hold on to me and not let go and bail in a panic, yes, even if the front end comes off the ground and you're looking at the sky briefly.
This walk down memory lane reminds me of the time I had to give my ex a ride to work when her car wouldn't start. I had an 04 R1 back then and she never rode on the back before because she was terrified of the thing, and I never had taken passengers on it because it was so poorly suited to it, I actually had to put passenger pegs on for that trip. Just breathing on the throttle in first with her on the back would pull the front end off the ground, it was comically bad with the combination of short wheelbase, high CoG of the passenger on that steep tail, and liter bike tq. When she got off at work she was shaking with fear and said she almost fell off the first time the front end came up a bit and that was having significant experience riding on the back of my previous sport-tourer.
On that previous sport-tourer years prior we had an annoying spill where she was leaned over to see around my helmet while we were riding in an unfamiliar part of Chicago when the front end locked up briefly over an oily patch on Ashland braking for a light. Due to her leaning to see around me we were down and tumbling down the road in the blink of an eye, it was rather shocking but things happen quickly when the front end locks up with a passenger leaned over. Fortunately we walked away with just skinned knees, bruised egos, and a ground through stator cover.
My Kawasaki Z900 (2017) is pretty comical for wheelies, more so with a pillion on your R1 as you noted.
Here's a pick of a stock version of the bike. Because of the position of the pillion seat, it being so far to the rear, the short swing arm and because the pillion seat sits so far up and away from the rider. The front wheel lifts with such a trivial amount of power to the front.
I've still had a few rides on it with pillions but god damn, like you said. It does not inspire confidence with an additional passenger.
The Adventure Tourers I've had I was a lot more comfortable with, to date that's a Tiger 800 (2015) and a current Kawasaki Versys 2020 (1000CC). Both were great for additional passengers. Especially the Versys with the electronic suspension to cater for additional pillions or luggage.
My experience with riding with pillions must be close to, maybe, 2-3000km at best. And that's being generous. I've not had any accidents with a pillion, only when solo. As you've shown, motorbikes are fickle beasts.
Not nearly as much as if you're perched on the back of a 600 supersport (and if the pillion does start thrashing around it's far less of an issue since they're a smaller fraction of the overall vehicle weight) but it's still a bit of an acquired skillset.
There is also the danger factor... you are 27 times more likely to die driving the same distance on a motorcycle as in a car. I don’t think I would want to take that risk.
Part of the difference could be explainable by different demographics. Maybe motorcyclists drive more dangerously than normal even when they're in a car.
Except the people who ride motorcycles do it for the open air freedom. The high ride and lack of an enclosure also give them superb visibility. This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments, plus all the detriments of a sub compact car.
It's like they distilled bad down into a concentrated form.
> This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments
Oh please; it doesn't fall over, keeps its occupant dry, protects its occupant more in general, it obviously doesn't have all the detriments of a motorcycle.
This should be drastically safer than a motorcycle. It presumably has a seatbelt and airbags, and no chance of being flung 50 feet in the air or sanded down by asphalt.
Parking would be a huge advantage in a dense city. Limited parking can create a psychology barrier that impacts your realized mobility even if you own a car. I regularly decide to not go somewhere because I know how much of a pain it will be to park. I've been tempted by motorcycles for this reason alone.
The article says that, as it's technically a motorcycle, it's not subject to the safety testing cars are, "but it has a seatbelt and a rollbar." So possibly no airbag.
Edit: I couldn't find anything on their website about safety at all. I'm guessing that means the safety story isn't something they can brag about. So probably no airbag.
It has seat belts/chest straps and a few safety features, but no air bags and hasn't been crash tested. That and the price are the main things stopping me from buying one. There are full size cars that cost less than a Solo, even though the cars have all the complexity of an internal combustion engine.
Theoretically, I don't see why this couldn't be like the cockpit of a racecar which is capable of protecting drivers from high speed accidents. Realistically, however, one of the reasons they are making it have 3 wheels is so they don't have to be as safe so it will probably not do well in crashes.
A single occupancy car will be more commercially lucrative once we have full self-driving technology. If you hail a self-driving cab for yourself, the fleet will send a single-occupancy car. If you’re with a few others, it’ll send a sedan. Etc...all under a tiered subscription model. Not sending a sedan every time saves on hardware, electricity, and maintenance costs. Some of the savings would in turn be passed onto the consumer. The single occupancy car will also be more safe at that point, because it’ll only drive on lanes dedicated to self-driving vehicles.
There’s a train outside my front door that will drop me off at the front of UCSF. But that’s about 10 stops away and requires a transfer. If one doesn’t mind the bus, there’s one that picks up in front of my door and drops off at the hospital (the bus stop is even closer to the main entrance than the parking garage!)
Swiss somehow manage to use trains in massive numbers even if grandmothers need car assistance occasionally. You don't need to poison the atmosphere every day with a car on your commute just because your grandmother might need a pick her up for her doctors checkup (having a medical facility come to pick someone up is not an uncommon service either).
Why do some of you think that finding a wierd edge case is enough to invalidate a whole infrastructure? This isn't derivation of a mathematical proof where counter-example invalidates the hypothesis.
They don't fix the problem. Nowhere on earth is there a sustainable electrical grid that doesn't pollute the atmosphere, let alone one that supports electric cars for every household. Not only that but electric cars create local pollution in the form of particular matter from brakes and tyres and they are worse than internal combustion engine cars in that regard.
Regenerative braking does not replace traditional brakes. In particular it is only really efficient at high speeds and doesn't do much in cities. EVs have no tailpipe emissions, but particulate emissions from the tailpipe of modern ICEs is very low anyway. But EVs do produce significantly more emissions from the tyres and brakes compared with ICE vehicles because they are heavier.
It doesn't have to be 100% regenerative and an electric motor in generator mode it's very efficient at braking even at high speeds. One just needs to redirect the excess energy that cannot be absorbed by the battery to a controlled resistive load and trigger both mechanisms if the brake pedal is pushed more than 30% in which case you definitely need regular brakes. Trains already use these mechanisms.
The figures in the linked article are overblown: 5,8 g/km means one throws away a pair of used tires every 1000 km, which is not the case since the average tire lifecycle is 20k to 30k km.
Incorrect. I drive a lot in the city and I use the friction brakes so little that they start malfunctioning after a week or so if I don't do some hard stops once a week or so to clean up the pad surface. I only use the 'regular' brakes if I am stopping from high speed, quickly, or at the bottom of a steep hill. Probably use regenerative breaking for >90% of all normal stops.
Not really a good example, Swiss rails are supremely expensive to state and travellers too. Most countries wouldn't be able to afford such density to have good coverage. They definitely don't run very precisely in many places due to many factors, as a local I can attest to that with many late arrivals to work in the past.
These days they run almost empty at huge losses. You still need to haul 300 tonne of steel through whole country, even if there are 5 passengers.
Maybe its the best implementation of the train network for civil travel, but still needs to be heavily complemented by network of buses to all small places.
And that grandma drive to the door would still have to use a taxi every single time.
> Why do some of you think that finding a wierd edge case is enough to invalidate a whole infrastructure?
Why do you feel you need to talk about a different infrastructure when people talk about the one you yourself acknowledge is needed to transport people to/from trains?
"Why do some of you think that finding a wierd edge case is enough to invalidate a whole infrastructure?"
Last year I was nearly going broke spending money on Ubers when my then girlfriend's kidney's failed. She wasn't considered immobile enough to qualify for the transport to and from Dialysis, but would be drained enough that walking to and navigating public transit home after would be impossible for her. So this is not just weird edge case for me, this scenario was a constant part of my life.
To the end customer, the only difference would be cost, and if you are rich enough, or the service is subsidized enough by investor cash, or the cost of living in your area is low enough, then it all ends up roughly the same.
Investors have no reason to subsidize costlier transportation modalities that customers may not even prefer half the time. As for the verbiage, I don’t think self-driving car subscription services will brand themselves as taxi fleets. They will replace the vehicle that you own and that sits on your driveway 97% of the time (that’s a general “you”). However, Americans like the feeling of ownership over their vehicle. The name of the service should take that into account.
Yep, that's what I post every single time. Taxis are already self driving cars, so any argument for a self driving car should apply to them as well, yet people still prefer owning their own car than being "automatically" driven everywhere. It would already be cheaper for me to take a taxi to work every day than pay for my own car, yet.....I would rather pay a bit more and have a car that is mine and that I can do whatever I want with. The self driving aspect is just not appealing in the slightest.
I think most Americans will choose the subscription service over ownership. Subscribers will have instant access to any type of vehicle at any time. The subscription cost will be lower than the cost of ownership. The whole fleet will always be new and incorporate the latest technology. Robotocized cleaning centers and user ratings will mitigate “tragedy of the commons.” I think even at the high end people will use luxury subscription services more often than whatever car they may own as a backup.
It’s not cheaper vs. better. Subscriptions will be both cheaper and better.
I don't believe that for a second. Free market will always do what it does best, which means that whoever can get away with running their robo taxis cheapest will win. So the most common ones will rarely if ever be cleaned inside(cleaning costs money after all, even if it's automatic). Once the technology is common, they will run the cheapest version of it, just like regular taxis today don't all drive Mercedes S class cars, they drive 15 year old priuses because those are the cheapest cars that do the job. Yes, there will be market for higher end, clean and high tech cars. But the most common service will be nothing like this. A good example is something like Ryanair - yes, the planes are shit, they are dirty, the service is poor, but they are immune to ratings because.....what else are you going to pick? On several European routes that I travel on, they are the only choice.
The cars will certainly be designed for robo-cleaning by the time we have self-driving fleets. In a free market with free choice, people will obviously pick the more hygienic fleet (which I don’t believe will cost much more, controlling for other factors).
The airline industry doesn’t work very well as an analogy. It’s not a completely free market, and costs are so high that it’s genuinely hard for airlines to provide a better experience without charging a lot.
What's always been amusing to me is that trains should be self-driving, but they always have a human in charge. I mean it's not like they have a steering wheel.
They don't always. There are self-driving trains operating full time in London and Paris as well as many other cities around the world. But they are low-speed trains operating at only around 30mph. High-speed trains run in excess of 180mph and heavy goods trains are often a mile long and weigh more than 10,000 tons. While much of the signalling is automatic these days, I think it will be a long time before we could think about running something so dangerous without a skilled human in the front ready to override the controls if necessary.
I believe the main reason is the long tail of unexpected events. For instance: I regularly use the tram. Every few months or so, the driver has to get out to manually operate a railroad switch that does not react to the wireless control signal. If you had a driverless tram, the tram would have to wait for personnel to arrive at the switch for the manual override. Extrapolating from my experience manual overrides are probably necessary a few times a day across the entire city's tram network, so we'd be looking at massive interruptions multiple times a day that cause cascading delays throughout the whole system.
So unless you put in a lot of engineering effort to get rid of these unlikely-but-still-common problems, running a driverless operation is going to be more disruptive and less cost-efficient than paying the driver salaries.
It's also a cautionary tale for self-driving car advocates. Running a driverless train on segregated track with signalling is far easier than running a driverless car on a mixed street with lidar.
Yet it still has enough edge cases to mean it's not worthwhile
If there's between 100 and 1000 people in a train, getting rid of the driver saves between 1% and 0.1% of an hourly salary by ticket. The economic pressure to do so is very low, compared to the difficulty and legal liabilities.
Automating out a taxi/Über driver saves 50× to 1000× more money per traveler. And the infrastructure for a car ride cost way less than train + track + catenary lines + stations + antiquated ticketing system etc., so salaries represent a higher percentage of total costs.
the trains and other forms of public transportation may have to go the way of the other things impacted by covid. The new reality calls for individual, ideally autonomous, vehicles. Especially in the dense cities. Small, electric, may be even 3-wheelers.
Sidenote: i wonder whether the lockdown may work as a selection pressure on the covid to produce the more viral, like long living on surfaces, etc., mutation of the virus.
It's a bit early to say, but in my opinion (as a non-specialist, based on reading them), there will be no "new reality". Covid is a big thing while it spreads, but it won't be a large concern in 2-3 years even if it becomes endemic, especially with better hygiene practices and treatments.
Not even bicycles can even approach the density of a train/metro/bus, which is required to have cities with the density we currently have, and I don't think covid-19 is nearly enough of a threat to make us give up on that.
Single-occupancy trains are a terrible idea though..
Jokes aside, the dependence on self-driving OP was alluding to is wildly exaggerated in my eyes, because the other kind of self-driving (user drives a short-term rental) works just as well. And with short term rentals, physical footprint is making an actual difference because their availability is bounded by storage.
There used to be a wave of microcar concepts that were trying to solve parking by folding up a little. Back then those never made sense because they were still intended as personal vehicles and those end up taking up a one-size-fits-all spot anyways. But combined with the innovation of micro-rentals (modeled after docked bike-share) those fold-up tricks could turn from a gimmick into a key enabling technology. All you need is self-parking to store them in a compact FIFO and self-parking is beyond solved. Once you have that, all minor extension of the unparking range (from unparking just enough to unfolding at the storage dock to dedicated pickup locations nearby to pickup anywhere) would be incremental improvements to service quality that would require much less than full autonomy.
> because the other kind of self-driving (user drives a short-term rental) works just as well
User drives short term rental gave me all kinds worries which I don't have driving my own car. Being responsible for checking damage when picking it up, worrying about minor (as in accidentally kerbing a wheel) damage while I'm driving, having someone hit it while it is parked somewhere, getting caught in traffic while returning it and being fined for going over the allotted time.
Writing this down has just made me realise how nice it would be if there was a car rental company which worked on a first come first served basis with rental charged per minute. If they also had some kind of automatic photo booth to take detailed before and after photos that would be almost perfect.
There is a long tail of routes where single occupancy is not just more desirable, but also more efficient. Think of all the time and energy wasted idling and searching for the second or third car pooler. Self-driving cars also drive more efficiently, negating some of the benefits of carpooling. Another factor in cities is that tiny cars are more pedestrian friendly. Cities can and should tax vehicle size as a negative externality.
A single ride hailer should be sent a sedan when they are on a more conventional route with easy pickup and drop off points. That would make more sense from both a unit cost and quality perspective than pooling every time. Augmented reality could also highlight and fill open seats quickly, including when that second carpooler can’t be found.
You're banking on full autonomy from a vehicle you can just plonk into any old city with no alteration to infrastructure, that would be served entirely by commercialized hail services for people who can afford it.
We should be hoping for ubiquitous public transport infrastructure that everyone can utilize and afford.
> We should be hoping for ubiquitous public transport infrastructure that everyone can utilize and afford.
This is a form of ubiquitous public transport infrastructure. Automobiles and roads are already the most inclusive form of public transportation ever invented (measured as percent of public served), and have the cheapest per-rider cost to maintain for any government out of any infrastructure ever invented to date, while still supporting full distances and high service rates.
And while cost of vehicles and driver requirements are currently barriers -- reducing the cost of vehicles and improving their ability to self drive, would let everyone utilize and afford it.
Mass transportation gets incredibly wasteful once you cross under some population density. And on many places most of the people live on areas under that density.
That means that any attempt of pushing everybody at mass transportation at those places will fail, even if executed perfectly. But small cars are perfect for feeder routes.
It looks like a more boring version of a Polaris slingshot. Which isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly novel either.
Nor does it exist in a legislative wasteland, like the article implies. It’s considered to be a motorcycle in most US states, with all attendant licensing requirements.
My first "car" was a Piaggio Ape. In theory it was for one person. In practice you could put 2 people in the cabin and 2 more in the back unless you were going up hill.
It's trivial to put a high-power electric motor into a car. It's very difficult to supply that motor with enough juice to actually sustain that kind of power output for a reasonable period of time.
> Priced at $18,500, it also costs about half as much as the current average sales price for a new passenger vehicle
Well, it is significantly more limited than most new passenger vehicles, both in terms of how many people/things it can haul and its safety when sharing the road with vehicles that are on the road today.
There's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
It looks ... interesting :) It has a max speed of 45 km/h which makes it primarily usable in cities. One edition of the two editions of the Twizy can go 80 km/h.
Came here to mention the Twizy because I see a it in the steets occasionally, so it seems to be somewhat successfully. The only other "single person, but not quite motorcyle" I see even more often is the BMW C1, which is kind of a scooter with a cabin and can be driven without wearing a helmet here. I'm biased though because I live in a BMW city.
There is a Swiss curiosity made by Peraves. It is a motorcycle that's not quite a car; a monocoque shell around a two-wheeler. When at low speeds, two stabilisers descend. Here's an article from 2006:
I wonder why no one mentioned the Smart. Here in Europe they're quite popular in dense cities. One advantage is they can be parked sideways on most streets, which not only helps with finding a spot but is also easier.
According to Wikipedia[0], a Smart is actually shorter and it can also be electric.
This actually has quite a few shortcomings compared to a Smart:
* Cannot carry a passenger
* Requires a motorcycle license, which many people might not have
* Technically a motorcycle, so safety standards may not be up to par
Only anecdotal, but I live in one of those countries. While word-for-word you're correct, it isn't usually practiced because parking that way doesn't conflict with the spirit of the law (I'm not sure if there's a better term for it in English, I hope you understand what I mean). The core idea behind the parking arrangement is you shouldn't be in the way of others and your car is small enough to not be — no one at the time of the writing could foresee a square car. Much in the same way, bikes are allowed to park which ever way they like as long as they don't take up unnecessary space, usually the measure is to fit two in one slot. Needless to say, don't call me when you do happen to get a ticket.
Can't speak for the UK, but I often see Smarts parked sideways around Paris. The car is indeed longer than the spaces are large, but a factor that helps a lot is that regular cars are rarely parked nicely inside the lines. Which means that, in practice, the sideways Smart doesn't stick out from the other cars.
They have elongated. The first ones were shorter. The park sideways gimmick was part of the original marketing, now they are longer that aspect is not advertised as a feature.
Sideways parking would be a killer feature if it actually worked, but they're just a bit too long for that, and according to my memory, have always been.
I've actually never been in one nor read a review, but this confirms what I thought: it doesn't protect you from the elements.
So the question I asked myself is why would anyone buy this instead of a motorcycle? I guess some may argue that it's safer, what with it having four wheels instead of two, but that's about it.
You still need some sort of gear if you don't want to end up wet, you still need some sort of gear in the winter if you don't want to freeze.
I also wonder what the summer situation looks like. As it's not closed, it most likely has no air conditioning, but it's enclosed enough to get much less wind than on a motorcycle (which is still unpleasant in a congested city).
It's big enough that you can't filter in places where it's allowed, you have to park it like a regular car, which in France means paid and limited street parking, or far away and expensive underground parking. Motorcycles can park on the sidewalks for free (at least for the moment).
I have a twizy (bought it second hand at 4000 euro) and I love it.
We live in a house and it's our only vehicle (granted, we commute to work by e-bike). I actually fitted it with a trailed attachment so I can run some "big" errands (to the waste-center, buying some wood, etc..).
Maintenance wise it's great: only thing to change is the windshield fluid.
Negative points: the range. You can do 80km with it only. I plan to buy a tesla battery module one day and double the capacity, thus doubling the range. But for now the rare time we've had to go "far" we just rented or borrowed a car.
I've honestly only seen the Twizy be used as a marketing car, something with ads for a local business plastered on the side, probably used to lend out or for small errands.
I think it hasn't done very well, probably mainly because it's an open vehicle. If it had proper doors I think it would've done better. The formula can work, it just has to look a bit more normal.
At the moment, in my country people are much more likely to go for an e-bike.
I live close by the first purchaser of one of these. It's a wild little car, and it looks like an absolute pleasure to drive as a personal commuting device.
I’d rather have a motorcycle. Motorcycles are faster, cheaper, can carry about the same amount of cargo, and 100 miles on a charge is enough to give me range anxiety.
I’d rather have a car. I often need to carry passengers, carry large or heavy things, and a new economy car is in the same ballpark price.
Who is this really for? I don’t see many people buying this as their only personal transportation if it only travels 100 miles on a charge and can’t take a passenger. It’s price too high and isn’t fun enough to be considered a recreational purchase.
Well, motorcycles don't 'tip' but low siding and high siding on roads or on a track. Either from debris or inexperience is not to be trifled with.
But in +100,000km of total riding time I've had very few injuries, just scrapes and bruises because I'm always wearing boots, helmet and gloves as a minimum.
I've high sided on a track twice (too fast into a corner, lost traction, immediately got traction back and flew me several metres in the air). And I've low sided from road debris twice on public roads (once on a round-a-bout at low speed) and private roads (oil slick in a private car park).
I imagine this vehicle for the average person who doesn't ride a lot with the view of safety first would be safer in this than a motorcycle. But I agree with your and the OP's point above yours. An economy budget car would be a safer and equally viable purchase.
My anecdata in ~ 50,000km riding time on a motorcycle: a frontal crash I could do nothing about (oncoming car made a left turn, didn't see me).
Luckily it happened in a city and I was in full leather tracksuit. I got through with a few bruises and ruptured spleen (which thankfully healed on it's own and I now have two of them).
I'm lucky I've not had any vehicular crashes on my motorbike. Though I've been cleaned up by a car on my (analogue) bicycle. Came away relatively unscathed.
Am I reading your comment right? Your spleen ruptured, healed it's self, now you have two of them?
Yes, at least that's what I've been told by ultrasound techs on two separate occasions (one tech even told she has seen cases where repeated damage has been done to one of the spleens, the damaged one was taken out and the other one has taken over the primary function).
Apparently this is the current medical consensus in my country- if the spleen is ruptured but not causing massive internal bleeding, the course of action is to monitor patient to see if it heals on it's own.
In my case the ruptured part formed scar tissues around it, separating itself from the original spleen.
I'd rather not have a motorcycle. I'd rather not have to suit up in special clothing to try and reduce the chances of injury from accidents which, from talking to motorcycle riding friends, seem to be strangely more common than accidents in cars.
I'd rather not have a car for my daily commute. Driving my large family vehicle for my job is wasteful and inefficient. I almost never need to carry anything large or heavy on my daily commute. I work less than 20 miles from home. I don't need a daily commuter vehicle with more than 2.5x this range.
I would love to buy a small electric vehicle, but the cost is prohibitive. A small vehicle, safer than a motorcycle and more idiot proof, would be perfect to augment my existing transportation options.
> I'd rather not have a motorcycle. I'd rather not have to suit up in special clothing to try and reduce the chances of injury from accidents which, from talking to motorcycle riding friends, seem to be strangely more common than accidents in cars.
It shouldn't be a mystery why motorcycle accidents are more common. A superbike like a Yamaha R1 is capable of 0-100mph in less than 6 seconds, all in first gear. Ownership of an R1 is within the reach of many under 25s and most enthusiastic under 30s. Contrast that with a supercar which, for most people, will be out of reach until much later in life, if ever, and even then is such a big investment that most just sit around in air-conditioned garages rather than hitting the B-roads of England every Sunday morning.
None of that means that commuting on a more sensible motorcycle is particularly dangerous in the grand scheme of things.
I ride, and know a lot of people who do, and the amount of injuries from road debris or cars turning left without looking dwarf the crashes from just going too fast. This might be regional though, most places don’t have Bay Area traffic.
That’s how I got my first and last accident. Double parked car made a U-turn in a commercial street without signaling. My front tire got caught under his car, bringing me to a complete stop and flipping me over. I was only doing 15mph.
That ended it for me, bike was totaled, wife decided I stopped and I had no intention in getting involved in a more serious accident. I miss riding, I miss the sensation of freedom.
In the United States most motorcycle accidents involving more than one vehicle the motorcycle is not at fault. It’s really common for a car driver to not use a blinker, or not see a motorcycle and cause an accident with a motorcyclist.
Same thing everywhere else. Cars not signalling, suddenly opening doors into traffic, idiots jumping out of bushes etc etc.
The distant second place is road condition - surprise potholes, open manholes, spits of concrete, pools of lubricant and cooling fluid after previous crashes is also nice.
And only then comes something that can be remotely called reckless riding.
I don't know why you're downvoted - I might disagree with part of what you wrote, but it's a reasonable point.
I will suggest that motorcycles are inherently more dangerous. A car has four points of contact, so like a table, there's some inherent stability to it. A motorcycle's two points of contact means that stability has to be in some sense active, which seems problematic.
motorcycles are very hard to tip over under normal circumstances. it's only when you start sliding that the vehicle becomes unstable. if you do this during a turn, it's much more difficult to recover than in a car.
still, unless you're driving at the limit, the main risk is probably hitting or getting hit by other vehicles. most of the "inherently more dangerous" comes from having essentially zero protection in a crash compared to a modern car.
Not really, no. Motorcycles are inherently stable due to a combination of gyroscopic stability, wheel geometry and rake geometry.
They are so stable in fact, that at high speeds one needs to use a technique called counter-steering in order to induce a gyroscopic and geometric reaction that sends the motorcycle into the required position. This technique is also used by some bicycle riders, to a smaller extent and also partly subconsciously.
Motorcycles are very stable. In comparison, the steering and suspension dynamics of four wheeled vehicles have to be very finely tuned in order to avoid feedback effects, instabilities, and this tuning has to be balanced with phenomenons such as oversteer and understeer. Overconstraining is also the cost for many issues, as is the consumer demand for bad form factors that lead to loss of control, rolls, and sometimes even death-wobbles.
Tricycles, such as this one, at least aren't overconstrained, but they are a lot less stable as they have neither the inherent reactive stability of bicycles nor the balanced resistance to torque while maintaining stability. This is further compounded by demand for non-optimal geometries, such as the one in the article, that lead to even less stability. This obviously doesn't apply to vehicles such as the Yamaha Nikken.
Stereotyping motorcycles is common; I never had a sport bike and none of my friends had one, so a Yamaha R1, the most useless bike on a street, is a bad argument in a discussion but fairly common.
That 3 wheeled vehicle is fine for commuting or small shopping, you never consider going there on a R1, but on a mid-range city bike or adv bike you can do it pretty well.
A motorcycle on its own is a perfectly balanced machine. It takes a fairly large assemblage of human errors to wrestle one to the ground. It only happens more often with bikes than cars because bikes give you the freedom to write as big a check as you think you can cash.
There's an expansive gap in knowledge between one's M1 certificate and real-road proficiency. Few ever take it seriously, and would rather "send it" over the gap the hard way, but with the internet, the steep and often-painful learning curve is entirely optional. A couple cones, a parking lot, and a few drills from the right tutors on youTube can help unlock your machine's braking, accelerating and cornering capabilities, all while riding relatively slowly in a protected environment. Once you know what 100% of your ability is, being ready for the street simply takes having the common sense to leave half of it in reserve for bad weather and the dumbest thing someone else can do at any given moment--And knowing how to intuit all the potential stupidity around you.
The problem with these sorts of motorcycle-like cars is that you still need a regular car. You may not need cargo space or passenger seats all the time, but you do need them some of the time. Plus a motorcycle can fit in a parking space with another car. This thing can't. It's just a second car, but small. You also can't lane-split with this, or park it wherever you want. You'll look like a genius that one time you find parallel parking too small for a normal car, big enough for you, but you could've had your pick of any space between any vehicles with a motorbike. And you're just as relegated to traffic jams as you would be in a much bigger, more comfortable vehicle.
Okay, sure, on a motorcycle you can get yourself into trouble, but only because you're free to do whatever you want. You can split lanes at a hundred miles an hour, or pull wheelies through intersections. Or fly around that corner and gas it hard on greasy painted crosswalk lines. There's rarely ever traffic physically blocking your bike, or lights blinking on your dashboard electronically rescinding your input to "absolutely send it" like you would find while driving your car, but if you didn't have those limitations while driving, don't you think you would figure out how not to crash?
Just putting this out there: you can find an older Honda CB750 or whatever for a few grand--much cheaper than a smart car or something similar. Not enough power to get you into trouble, just enough power to get you out of it. Good looks for days, doesn't take up too much space in the garage and you'll never walk by it and regret owning it. Or if you'd rather not deal with the accompanying protective outfit, there's lots of mopeds and ebikes that may fit the bill too.
I am on the third motorcycle in 15 years; I don't wear any special clothing when I commute and commuting with the motorcycle takes 1/3 of the time at rush hours versus car or public transportation. Most of the summer I just ride with a helmet and gloves, if it is colder I wear a jacket. For commuting, accidents in the city are less serious than on the highway or twisties.
Yes, for rainy days I have a pair of waterproof overpants in the top case and a pair of waterproof gloves. The jackets are all waterproof (Goretex or similar). I got soaked wet while commuting on the bicycle, never on the motorcycle.
> Who is this really for? I don’t see many people buying this as their only personal transportation if it only travels 100 miles on a charge and can’t take a passenger. It’s price too high and isn’t fun enough to be considered a recreational purchase.
I had a sparrow which was almost identical to this -- $13K, in Y2000 dollars, plus a bicycle and it was great. I could park it anywhere, get around town, commute to work, and pick up a few groceries on the way home.
True, my wife had a Mercedes wagon (T-Klasse) so we also had the ability to transport large objects when needed.
The only way I could see things like this work is if there were some incentive, like 50 paid parking places turned into 250 free/cheap parking spaces for tiny vehicles. Or roads that permit only small vehicles.
I mean what if you took a 2-lane road designed for cars and split it into 4 lanes, two bike lanes and two tiny-car/golf-cart lanes?
> It’s price too high and isn’t fun enough to be considered a recreational purchase.
Basically my thoughts. Not nearly enough for the price. I think the same thing when I see those Crossbows ripping around. The (2) passengers both wearing helmets, probably unable to have a simple conversation due to the wind-blast (unless you put a Sena in there or something), and it just doesn't seem all that fun.
I also ride motorcycles and dirt bikes so I'm definitely pretty biased, but smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles make me happy either way, and I'd prefer for them to succeed. The (lack of) fun factor isn't a beef I have with them, but one that others might have who a) want a new vehicle, b) don't want a motorcycle, and c) want to save money on fuel and take up less space.
Until a few months ago I owned a Corbin sparrow, which looks almost identical. It was great; I could park it anywhere, drive it with a regular license, and go safely on 101 in the commuter lane (the vehicle has a monocoque design -- basically you're inside a huge motorcycle helmet). It was quite convenient until I had a kid and a very large dog.
At one point I was on a board which had (including me) three separate sparrow owners!
Essentially a motorcycle with a cabin built around it. And yes, technically they were meant for disabled people - but during communist times getting an actual proper car(even a Fiat 126p) was extremely difficult - this perhaps less so.
Wondering how the performance, fuel costs and maintenance would compare to an equivalent vehicle with a small diesel, motorcycle engine or even a modern two-stroke. My guess is that the vehicle would be much lighter and have a longer range with a petroleum based fuel.
Most of the 3 wheeled vehicles offered in the US are more performance minded.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 185 ms ] thread- You can't take an arbitrary person as passenger (they need gear and pillion experience)
- You can't take more than a backpack's worth of cargo (slightly expandable with panniers)
This can't take a passenger at all, and looks like it has the same cargo restrictions. It looks fun but I can't see it replacing a small car which solves both of these problems, so it needs to be cheap enough to be a 'fun' second vehicle.
I tell them either lean with me when I'm going around a bend or stay directly up right. I've not had any problems. And I've had a fair number of Tinder Dates with people without any experience of riding who've came accustomed quite quickly.
But I too have ridden heaps of miles in a previous life when I'd habitually tour the US on two wheels, and there can definitely be frustrations and risks with inexperienced passengers.
From having to convince them things like No, your Keds are not satisfactory for us to go riding. Yes, you must wear a helmet and some pants and gloves would be smart. No, you should not lean into the corners, just be a predictable appendage of the bike especially at low speeds. No, you should not put your foot anywhere near the chain/chain guard, regardless of how annoyingly high the rear pegs are on this superbike. Yes, you must hold on to me and not let go and bail in a panic, yes, even if the front end comes off the ground and you're looking at the sky briefly.
This walk down memory lane reminds me of the time I had to give my ex a ride to work when her car wouldn't start. I had an 04 R1 back then and she never rode on the back before because she was terrified of the thing, and I never had taken passengers on it because it was so poorly suited to it, I actually had to put passenger pegs on for that trip. Just breathing on the throttle in first with her on the back would pull the front end off the ground, it was comically bad with the combination of short wheelbase, high CoG of the passenger on that steep tail, and liter bike tq. When she got off at work she was shaking with fear and said she almost fell off the first time the front end came up a bit and that was having significant experience riding on the back of my previous sport-tourer.
On that previous sport-tourer years prior we had an annoying spill where she was leaned over to see around my helmet while we were riding in an unfamiliar part of Chicago when the front end locked up briefly over an oily patch on Ashland braking for a light. Due to her leaning to see around me we were down and tumbling down the road in the blink of an eye, it was rather shocking but things happen quickly when the front end locks up with a passenger leaned over. Fortunately we walked away with just skinned knees, bruised egos, and a ground through stator cover.
My Kawasaki Z900 (2017) is pretty comical for wheelies, more so with a pillion on your R1 as you noted.
Here's a pick of a stock version of the bike. Because of the position of the pillion seat, it being so far to the rear, the short swing arm and because the pillion seat sits so far up and away from the rider. The front wheel lifts with such a trivial amount of power to the front.
I've still had a few rides on it with pillions but god damn, like you said. It does not inspire confidence with an additional passenger.
The Adventure Tourers I've had I was a lot more comfortable with, to date that's a Tiger 800 (2015) and a current Kawasaki Versys 2020 (1000CC). Both were great for additional passengers. Especially the Versys with the electronic suspension to cater for additional pillions or luggage.
My experience with riding with pillions must be close to, maybe, 2-3000km at best. And that's being generous. I've not had any accidents with a pillion, only when solo. As you've shown, motorbikes are fickle beasts.
Even if people drive their cars safely, the huge difference in performance means they're more likely to get in trouble on a bike.
It's like they distilled bad down into a concentrated form.
Oh please; it doesn't fall over, keeps its occupant dry, protects its occupant more in general, it obviously doesn't have all the detriments of a motorcycle.
Which is incidentally exactly the same situation as falls on a motorcycle.
The key difference is that motorcycles are cool and fun to drive. Unless this thing accelerates like a Tesla, nobody will want it.
Parking would be a huge advantage in a dense city. Limited parking can create a psychology barrier that impacts your realized mobility even if you own a car. I regularly decide to not go somewhere because I know how much of a pain it will be to park. I've been tempted by motorcycles for this reason alone.
Edit: I couldn't find anything on their website about safety at all. I'm guessing that means the safety story isn't something they can brag about. So probably no airbag.
I had a beautiful '72 El Camino, but it had downsides. As a good friend once said, "It's not much of a car, but it's not much of a truck, either!"
Why do some of you think that finding a wierd edge case is enough to invalidate a whole infrastructure? This isn't derivation of a mathematical proof where counter-example invalidates the hypothesis.
So you won't mind electric cars then, which fix that problem ?
Regenerative braking means less wear on the brakes, and there's no particulate matter from the exhaust pipe. In what way are electric cars worse?
https://www.emissionsanalytics.com/news/2020/1/28/tyres-not-...
The figures in the linked article are overblown: 5,8 g/km means one throws away a pair of used tires every 1000 km, which is not the case since the average tire lifecycle is 20k to 30k km.
Incorrect. I drive a lot in the city and I use the friction brakes so little that they start malfunctioning after a week or so if I don't do some hard stops once a week or so to clean up the pad surface. I only use the 'regular' brakes if I am stopping from high speed, quickly, or at the bottom of a steep hill. Probably use regenerative breaking for >90% of all normal stops.
These days they run almost empty at huge losses. You still need to haul 300 tonne of steel through whole country, even if there are 5 passengers.
Maybe its the best implementation of the train network for civil travel, but still needs to be heavily complemented by network of buses to all small places.
And that grandma drive to the door would still have to use a taxi every single time.
Why do you feel you need to talk about a different infrastructure when people talk about the one you yourself acknowledge is needed to transport people to/from trains?
Last year I was nearly going broke spending money on Ubers when my then girlfriend's kidney's failed. She wasn't considered immobile enough to qualify for the transport to and from Dialysis, but would be drained enough that walking to and navigating public transit home after would be impossible for her. So this is not just weird edge case for me, this scenario was a constant part of my life.
To the end customer, the only difference would be cost, and if you are rich enough, or the service is subsidized enough by investor cash, or the cost of living in your area is low enough, then it all ends up roughly the same.
Investors have no reason to subsidize costlier transportation modalities that customers may not even prefer half the time. As for the verbiage, I don’t think self-driving car subscription services will brand themselves as taxi fleets. They will replace the vehicle that you own and that sits on your driveway 97% of the time (that’s a general “you”). However, Americans like the feeling of ownership over their vehicle. The name of the service should take that into account.
It’s not cheaper vs. better. Subscriptions will be both cheaper and better.
The airline industry doesn’t work very well as an analogy. It’s not a completely free market, and costs are so high that it’s genuinely hard for airlines to provide a better experience without charging a lot.
So unless you put in a lot of engineering effort to get rid of these unlikely-but-still-common problems, running a driverless operation is going to be more disruptive and less cost-efficient than paying the driver salaries.
Yet it still has enough edge cases to mean it's not worthwhile
Automating out a taxi/Über driver saves 50× to 1000× more money per traveler. And the infrastructure for a car ride cost way less than train + track + catenary lines + stations + antiquated ticketing system etc., so salaries represent a higher percentage of total costs.
Sidenote: i wonder whether the lockdown may work as a selection pressure on the covid to produce the more viral, like long living on surfaces, etc., mutation of the virus.
Not even bicycles can even approach the density of a train/metro/bus, which is required to have cities with the density we currently have, and I don't think covid-19 is nearly enough of a threat to make us give up on that.
Jokes aside, the dependence on self-driving OP was alluding to is wildly exaggerated in my eyes, because the other kind of self-driving (user drives a short-term rental) works just as well. And with short term rentals, physical footprint is making an actual difference because their availability is bounded by storage.
There used to be a wave of microcar concepts that were trying to solve parking by folding up a little. Back then those never made sense because they were still intended as personal vehicles and those end up taking up a one-size-fits-all spot anyways. But combined with the innovation of micro-rentals (modeled after docked bike-share) those fold-up tricks could turn from a gimmick into a key enabling technology. All you need is self-parking to store them in a compact FIFO and self-parking is beyond solved. Once you have that, all minor extension of the unparking range (from unparking just enough to unfolding at the storage dock to dedicated pickup locations nearby to pickup anywhere) would be incremental improvements to service quality that would require much less than full autonomy.
User drives short term rental gave me all kinds worries which I don't have driving my own car. Being responsible for checking damage when picking it up, worrying about minor (as in accidentally kerbing a wheel) damage while I'm driving, having someone hit it while it is parked somewhere, getting caught in traffic while returning it and being fined for going over the allotted time.
Writing this down has just made me realise how nice it would be if there was a car rental company which worked on a first come first served basis with rental charged per minute. If they also had some kind of automatic photo booth to take detailed before and after photos that would be almost perfect.
Our new post-pandemic reality might make shared rides less desirable. Or more desirable as a marginally safer alternative to public transit.
A single ride hailer should be sent a sedan when they are on a more conventional route with easy pickup and drop off points. That would make more sense from both a unit cost and quality perspective than pooling every time. Augmented reality could also highlight and fill open seats quickly, including when that second carpooler can’t be found.
We should be hoping for ubiquitous public transport infrastructure that everyone can utilize and afford.
This is a form of ubiquitous public transport infrastructure. Automobiles and roads are already the most inclusive form of public transportation ever invented (measured as percent of public served), and have the cheapest per-rider cost to maintain for any government out of any infrastructure ever invented to date, while still supporting full distances and high service rates.
And while cost of vehicles and driver requirements are currently barriers -- reducing the cost of vehicles and improving their ability to self drive, would let everyone utilize and afford it.
That means that any attempt of pushing everybody at mass transportation at those places will fail, even if executed perfectly. But small cars are perfect for feeder routes.
Nor does it exist in a legislative wasteland, like the article implies. It’s considered to be a motorcycle in most US states, with all attendant licensing requirements.
https://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3171/5-times-silicon-valley-...
Apparently Sergey Brin had one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_Cars_Tango
!
For reference, 800HP is 600kW.
Well, it is significantly more limited than most new passenger vehicles, both in terms of how many people/things it can haul and its safety when sharing the road with vehicles that are on the road today.
[1] https://electrameccanica.com/
More like a goldwing motorcycle in size.
https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2065371/cabin-cruiser-flying-...
According to Wikipedia[0], a Smart is actually shorter and it can also be electric.
This actually has quite a few shortcomings compared to a Smart:
* Cannot carry a passenger
* Requires a motorcycle license, which many people might not have
* Technically a motorcycle, so safety standards may not be up to par
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Fortwo#Third_generation_...
Caveat lector. I know this to be technically illegal in some European countries, even when the entire vehicle is parked within the lines.
Tabletop gamers have a more precise words however: "rules as written" and "rules as intended". RAW and RAI for short.
Then there's the whole Kei car phenomenon..
They advertised this but in reality it's rarely possible. They are 2.5m long and most cars in Europe are <2m wide.
E.g. in the UK standard parking is 2.4m wide so a smart sticks out
Assuming your native language is French, I think you mean “wide”, not “large”.
I think they are all electric now, at least in the UK.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27310639/smart-fortwo-dis...
The main use of these cars was the Car2Go service, which was owned by Mercedes themselves, and that service has also shut down in North America.
They were cute cars, decent for a short trip certainly, but we never saw an all-electric model
So the question I asked myself is why would anyone buy this instead of a motorcycle? I guess some may argue that it's safer, what with it having four wheels instead of two, but that's about it.
You still need some sort of gear if you don't want to end up wet, you still need some sort of gear in the winter if you don't want to freeze.
I also wonder what the summer situation looks like. As it's not closed, it most likely has no air conditioning, but it's enclosed enough to get much less wind than on a motorcycle (which is still unpleasant in a congested city).
It's big enough that you can't filter in places where it's allowed, you have to park it like a regular car, which in France means paid and limited street parking, or far away and expensive underground parking. Motorcycles can park on the sidewalks for free (at least for the moment).
We live in a house and it's our only vehicle (granted, we commute to work by e-bike). I actually fitted it with a trailed attachment so I can run some "big" errands (to the waste-center, buying some wood, etc..).
Maintenance wise it's great: only thing to change is the windshield fluid.
Negative points: the range. You can do 80km with it only. I plan to buy a tesla battery module one day and double the capacity, thus doubling the range. But for now the rare time we've had to go "far" we just rented or borrowed a car.
I think it hasn't done very well, probably mainly because it's an open vehicle. If it had proper doors I think it would've done better. The formula can work, it just has to look a bit more normal.
At the moment, in my country people are much more likely to go for an e-bike.
The few that are here are limited to 25 mph, 40 kmh and are car share novelties.
This is the land of the pickup truck and massive SUV. Heck, even motorcycles are bigger than the Twizzy here.
I’d rather have a car. I often need to carry passengers, carry large or heavy things, and a new economy car is in the same ballpark price.
Who is this really for? I don’t see many people buying this as their only personal transportation if it only travels 100 miles on a charge and can’t take a passenger. It’s price too high and isn’t fun enough to be considered a recreational purchase.
But in +100,000km of total riding time I've had very few injuries, just scrapes and bruises because I'm always wearing boots, helmet and gloves as a minimum.
I've high sided on a track twice (too fast into a corner, lost traction, immediately got traction back and flew me several metres in the air). And I've low sided from road debris twice on public roads (once on a round-a-bout at low speed) and private roads (oil slick in a private car park).
I imagine this vehicle for the average person who doesn't ride a lot with the view of safety first would be safer in this than a motorcycle. But I agree with your and the OP's point above yours. An economy budget car would be a safer and equally viable purchase.
Luckily it happened in a city and I was in full leather tracksuit. I got through with a few bruises and ruptured spleen (which thankfully healed on it's own and I now have two of them).
Am I reading your comment right? Your spleen ruptured, healed it's self, now you have two of them?
Apparently this is the current medical consensus in my country- if the spleen is ruptured but not causing massive internal bleeding, the course of action is to monitor patient to see if it heals on it's own. In my case the ruptured part formed scar tissues around it, separating itself from the original spleen.
I'd rather not have a car for my daily commute. Driving my large family vehicle for my job is wasteful and inefficient. I almost never need to carry anything large or heavy on my daily commute. I work less than 20 miles from home. I don't need a daily commuter vehicle with more than 2.5x this range.
I would love to buy a small electric vehicle, but the cost is prohibitive. A small vehicle, safer than a motorcycle and more idiot proof, would be perfect to augment my existing transportation options.
Why don't you own a Twizy already?
It shouldn't be a mystery why motorcycle accidents are more common. A superbike like a Yamaha R1 is capable of 0-100mph in less than 6 seconds, all in first gear. Ownership of an R1 is within the reach of many under 25s and most enthusiastic under 30s. Contrast that with a supercar which, for most people, will be out of reach until much later in life, if ever, and even then is such a big investment that most just sit around in air-conditioned garages rather than hitting the B-roads of England every Sunday morning.
None of that means that commuting on a more sensible motorcycle is particularly dangerous in the grand scheme of things.
That ended it for me, bike was totaled, wife decided I stopped and I had no intention in getting involved in a more serious accident. I miss riding, I miss the sensation of freedom.
> I miss the sensation of freedom
I'm not surprised.
The distant second place is road condition - surprise potholes, open manholes, spits of concrete, pools of lubricant and cooling fluid after previous crashes is also nice.
And only then comes something that can be remotely called reckless riding.
I will suggest that motorcycles are inherently more dangerous. A car has four points of contact, so like a table, there's some inherent stability to it. A motorcycle's two points of contact means that stability has to be in some sense active, which seems problematic.
still, unless you're driving at the limit, the main risk is probably hitting or getting hit by other vehicles. most of the "inherently more dangerous" comes from having essentially zero protection in a crash compared to a modern car.
They are so stable in fact, that at high speeds one needs to use a technique called counter-steering in order to induce a gyroscopic and geometric reaction that sends the motorcycle into the required position. This technique is also used by some bicycle riders, to a smaller extent and also partly subconsciously.
Motorcycles are very stable. In comparison, the steering and suspension dynamics of four wheeled vehicles have to be very finely tuned in order to avoid feedback effects, instabilities, and this tuning has to be balanced with phenomenons such as oversteer and understeer. Overconstraining is also the cost for many issues, as is the consumer demand for bad form factors that lead to loss of control, rolls, and sometimes even death-wobbles.
Tricycles, such as this one, at least aren't overconstrained, but they are a lot less stable as they have neither the inherent reactive stability of bicycles nor the balanced resistance to torque while maintaining stability. This is further compounded by demand for non-optimal geometries, such as the one in the article, that lead to even less stability. This obviously doesn't apply to vehicles such as the Yamaha Nikken.
That 3 wheeled vehicle is fine for commuting or small shopping, you never consider going there on a R1, but on a mid-range city bike or adv bike you can do it pretty well.
There's an expansive gap in knowledge between one's M1 certificate and real-road proficiency. Few ever take it seriously, and would rather "send it" over the gap the hard way, but with the internet, the steep and often-painful learning curve is entirely optional. A couple cones, a parking lot, and a few drills from the right tutors on youTube can help unlock your machine's braking, accelerating and cornering capabilities, all while riding relatively slowly in a protected environment. Once you know what 100% of your ability is, being ready for the street simply takes having the common sense to leave half of it in reserve for bad weather and the dumbest thing someone else can do at any given moment--And knowing how to intuit all the potential stupidity around you.
The problem with these sorts of motorcycle-like cars is that you still need a regular car. You may not need cargo space or passenger seats all the time, but you do need them some of the time. Plus a motorcycle can fit in a parking space with another car. This thing can't. It's just a second car, but small. You also can't lane-split with this, or park it wherever you want. You'll look like a genius that one time you find parallel parking too small for a normal car, big enough for you, but you could've had your pick of any space between any vehicles with a motorbike. And you're just as relegated to traffic jams as you would be in a much bigger, more comfortable vehicle.
Okay, sure, on a motorcycle you can get yourself into trouble, but only because you're free to do whatever you want. You can split lanes at a hundred miles an hour, or pull wheelies through intersections. Or fly around that corner and gas it hard on greasy painted crosswalk lines. There's rarely ever traffic physically blocking your bike, or lights blinking on your dashboard electronically rescinding your input to "absolutely send it" like you would find while driving your car, but if you didn't have those limitations while driving, don't you think you would figure out how not to crash?
Just putting this out there: you can find an older Honda CB750 or whatever for a few grand--much cheaper than a smart car or something similar. Not enough power to get you into trouble, just enough power to get you out of it. Good looks for days, doesn't take up too much space in the garage and you'll never walk by it and regret owning it. Or if you'd rather not deal with the accompanying protective outfit, there's lots of mopeds and ebikes that may fit the bill too.
Yes, for rainy days I have a pair of waterproof overpants in the top case and a pair of waterproof gloves. The jackets are all waterproof (Goretex or similar). I got soaked wet while commuting on the bicycle, never on the motorcycle.
I had a sparrow which was almost identical to this -- $13K, in Y2000 dollars, plus a bicycle and it was great. I could park it anywhere, get around town, commute to work, and pick up a few groceries on the way home.
True, my wife had a Mercedes wagon (T-Klasse) so we also had the ability to transport large objects when needed.
I agree.
The only way I could see things like this work is if there were some incentive, like 50 paid parking places turned into 250 free/cheap parking spaces for tiny vehicles. Or roads that permit only small vehicles.
I mean what if you took a 2-lane road designed for cars and split it into 4 lanes, two bike lanes and two tiny-car/golf-cart lanes?
Basically my thoughts. Not nearly enough for the price. I think the same thing when I see those Crossbows ripping around. The (2) passengers both wearing helmets, probably unable to have a simple conversation due to the wind-blast (unless you put a Sena in there or something), and it just doesn't seem all that fun.
I also ride motorcycles and dirt bikes so I'm definitely pretty biased, but smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles make me happy either way, and I'd prefer for them to succeed. The (lack of) fun factor isn't a beef I have with them, but one that others might have who a) want a new vehicle, b) don't want a motorcycle, and c) want to save money on fuel and take up less space.
At one point I was on a board which had (including me) three separate sparrow owners!
I got a 503 error!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duo_(Krankenfahrzeug)
Essentially a motorcycle with a cabin built around it. And yes, technically they were meant for disabled people - but during communist times getting an actual proper car(even a Fiat 126p) was extremely difficult - this perhaps less so.
Latest incarnation is at: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/sinclair-c5-revamped-by-sir-cl...
[0]: https://twike.com/twike-5/twike-5/
[0] The founder explaining the car: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sDwGazHefM
Most of the 3 wheeled vehicles offered in the US are more performance minded.
Leno shows a Vanderhall 'Venice' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X71spAvmw4
Doug DeMuro critiques a Polaris Slingshot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_O9mZcSs4