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.
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.
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.
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.
Also, the scooters and motorbikes might be part of the solution, and larger vehicles part of the problem.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/19658/neighborhood-electric-ve...
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.
Not a problem re: 40mph roads.
I’d love to have one for SF.
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.
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.
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).
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
The speed limits in much of Europe are really low. In the USA we're used to driving pretty fast on 2 way roads with wide lanes at over 80kph. That's not much of Europe.
I've driven over 5,000km here in Scotland just this month. The speed limits in most cities are about 60kph, and usually the max is 45kph. It is completely normal here for people to share a single lane road to drive a car, ride a bike, go for a run, and walk their dogs. It's just different than. America where every street is a temple to the car gods and walking on many streets is both weird and dangerous.
When I drove in Denmark in 2017, I would travel around the area outside and of Copenhagen where the speed limits are often 50kph max. For example, from Copenhagen, Denmark to Lyngby while avoiding highways...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8e5DtpUDmSQSp31h7
...takes about 19 minutes (at 6 a.m. Friday, 28 Feb, 2020) to go 13km. You just can't drive that fast in the built-up urban setting.
The difference I’d say is that 45kph get you much “farther” in EU cities than the average US city.
Regular roads in cities often allow up to 45mph (70kph).
Great for the environment, but it means that I actually go in to cities less than I normally would now that I live outside the city and have a car. I already pay for the car, and the extra cost of the public transport is expensive in addition to this. So I go less.
As an aside - I can’t understand how businesses survive as a result of this seemingly conscious decision by councils to cripple incoming consumers coupled with Amazons shady marketplace that doesn’t play by the same rules in terms of fake goods.
This is exactly my experience since I bought a car.
For example, in California the speed of traffic on the highway is quite often 80-85mph in a 65mph zone, and not enforced. That wouldn't fly in Germany on any road with a speed limit.
Interesting. How did they get around that classification, and for something that operates on the street?
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 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 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.
I can't believe on HN this has only 160 upvotes in 10 hrs. HN audience seems climate-conscious. But if it's not a Tesla solution, you don't care. Sigh.
That's way cheaper than the €14.995 Estrima Biro [1] that it will be competing with here in the Netherlands.
I love my twizy, it's the perfect city vehicle
And yes, existing "voiture sans permis" are not known to be anywhere near as safe as a full size car (or high-end quadricycles like the Aixam). Yet like them, this is dirt in terms of cost, and far better than most of the existing options that have been around for over 70 years.
I don't think there will be the change you are thinking they're will be. Especially because I don't think there will be a ton of these sold, and the ones that do sell probably sell to people with licenses anyhow.
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.
I 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?
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.
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.
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 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..
I own a twizy (that can go up to 80km/h, and 100km/hour with a software modification, thus needing a licence), and it's the perfect urban vehicle. I live a bit outside the city (15km from the city centre) and it's perfect: you can park anywhere, you go the same speed than others and I even got a (silghtly legal) tow bar for a small trailer.
If I recall correctly, the twizy is no longer produced because it's true that it had some flaws: two seats one behind the other and no real windows (you need gloves and a scarf in winter). So seeing this citroen car is a delight to me. I hope they make a 80km/hour version too.
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.
This fixes all of those, for cheap. 45mph limit isn't an issue when your limits are 20-40mph.
I don't live in a city. I live in a relatively rural county in the UK but I work from home and most of my journeys are <5 miles. Shops and school runs. This makes sense for me, and will for a lot of people doing similar journeys.
Nah, will never happen. People here are buying bigger and bigger cars. Is much so that even mini vans are being discontinued.
Maybe it will fail but kudos for putting it out there.
that link is gonna remain blue.
I can't understand why anyone still shares TechCrunch links. It's inaccessible without accepting their cookies.
There are enough bad drivers here despite our quite tough licenses - a metal box at 28mph with a battery on board will still ruin my entire day.
Looks like it costs €2,644 initial payment + €19.99 a month.
