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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

#161

Post by peatmoss »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #151
baybal2 wrote: post #133

The problem with tricycles is that they are less stable than both motorcycles and cars. Unlike motorcycles, tricycles can't bank on turns, or are very limited in that.

The Yamaha Niken[0], which arrived last year, would disagree. [0] https://www.yamahamotorsports.com/sport-touring/models/niken

My initial reaction to seeing one of those was, “hmm, that looks freaky and weird.” I also suspect that it’ll be doomed to commercial failure.

That said, these things seem brilliant the more I reason through it. I’d guess that nearly all the same sensations of riding a motorcycle are there with the Nikken... all of the things that make riding a motorcycle fun like punchy acceleration, open air, and leaning in corners. At the same time, doubling up the front end in this way has to be a huge boon to traction. I suspect the suspension travel on these things allows for more lean angle than I’d be comfortable with outside of a track.

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

#162

Post by sudosysgen »

01100011 wrote: post #57
nsl73 wrote: post #39

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 trave…

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…

I would rather get into an accident on a motorcycle than in this death trap.

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

#163

Post by spacemark »

michaelt wrote: post #154
geddy wrote: post #144

These three-wheeled vehicles always make me think the same thing, "all the risk of a motorcycle, with none of the fun." They don't exactly have good cargo space, so storage isn't the focus - is the whole point space savings and fuel efficiency? A novel idea, I guess it comes down to price in this case. EDIT: I say "fuel efficiency" referring to the fact that there are gasoline-fueled versions of this same type of veh…

If you can't lean into corners, can't split lanes, can't exceed 80mph, can't do wheelies, can't make it fall over, and can't go over the handlebars in a crash, I strongly suspect this will have better safety statistics than a motorcycle.

This is the comment of someone that knows very little about motorcycles. Half the things you mention are not negatives, but positives.

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

#164

Post by AdrianB1 »

silon42 wrote: post #114
haspok wrote: post #113

Can it whizz through traffic jams like a moped or motorcycle? The Twizzy, Smart et al have the exact same problem. I don't see any benefits of owning this versus a cheap Nissan Leaf or Renault Zoe, for example. Also, the top speed is extremely high compared to the alleged security features. Can you survive a crash in it?

Why is #1 a problem?

Because this is why I would consider it over a car, until then I continue to ride my bike.

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

#165

Post by sudosysgen »

trothamel wrote: post #137
globular-toast wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Ownershi…

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.

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.

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

#166

Post by kiliantics »

m-ee wrote: post #97
globular-toast wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Ownershi…

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.

Amen. Cagers on their phones instead of watching the road.

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

#168

Post by sudosysgen »

pengaru wrote: post #12
cptskippy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It doesn't fall over, unless you get into a turn that exceeds your capabilities. Capabilities that you cannot sense easily at all.

Which is incidentally exactly the same situation as falls on a motorcycle.

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

#169

Post by iso1631 »

majewsky wrote: post #102
m463 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

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

#170

Post by tomtheelder »

sudosysgen wrote: post #158
michaelt wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't lean into corners, can't split lanes, can't exceed 80mph, can't do wheelies, can't make it fall over, and can't go over the handlebars in a crash, I strongly suspect this will have better safety statistics than a motorcycle.

Leaning into corners is a good safety feature of motorcycles compared to tricycles. It makes motorcycles much more stable.

I think their point was that leaning allows you to corner at high speeds, and that not being able to do so would discourage dangerous driving behavior.

I'm not sure I agree with that, but there is some logic that to thinking that a larger, slower, clunkier vehicle might lead to fewer fatal accidents.

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