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Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

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Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#101

Post by VadimPR »

pjc50 wrote: post #80
vladvasiliu wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lic…

The Smart cars have always looked as if they should be electric, but aren't. Then there's the whole Kei car phenomenon..

Smart cars are electric. See car2go cars in Amsterdam https://www.car2go.com/NL/en/amsterdam/

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#102

Post by majewsky »

m463 wrote: post #67
J0_k3r wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have self-driving cars already, they're called trains

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.

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.

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#103

Post by usrusr »

J0_k3r wrote: post #16
keenmaster wrote: post #15

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…

we have self-driving cars already, they're called trains

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.

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#104

Post by alberto_ol »

spiritplumber wrote: post #21

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.

there is also "ape calessino", yoi can carry two passengers http://www.piaggiocommercialvehicles.com/it_IT/modelli/ape/a...

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#105

Post by vinay427 »

weinzierl wrote: post #55
ofrzeta wrote: post #33

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.

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.

What is a BMW city? Is it just Munich or some other Bavarian city where loyalty towards BMW is high?

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#106

Post by drcongo »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #96
shawabawa3 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One advantage is they can be parked sideways on most streets They advertised this but in reality it's rarely possible. They are 2.5m long and most cars in Europe are E.g. in the UK standard parking is 2.4m wide so a smart sticks out

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.

I see them parked sideways in London all the time.

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#107

Post by fab13n »

m463 wrote: post #67
J0_k3r wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we have self-driving cars already, they're called trains

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.

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.

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#108

Post by TomMarius »

drcongo wrote: post #106
vladvasiliu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see them parked sideways in London all the time.

Same in Prague.

Re: Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

#110

Post by weinzierl »

vinay427 wrote: post #105
weinzierl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is a BMW city? Is it just Munich or some other Bavarian city where loyalty towards BMW is high?

Munich in my case.
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