This is much better for the environment vs gasoline I'd assume?
It's also much better for the environment than Tesla and other 2 tons electric cars, because it's using less materials and energy to make and less energy to run.
The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
111–120 of 271 posts
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
This happened 10 years ago too when there was a flood of manufacturers who were importing and assembling low-powered two-wheeled electric vehicles, but for some reason they never took for whatever reason - lack of range or too expensive etc. The new generation of small manufacturers assembling electric people movers face different challenges. I talked to one assembler who had no previous experience in this industry a…
This a good point. If you ask me, I think there is a difference between the product and the market demands. 10 years back my friend had purchased an e-bike. But India is filled with ICE bikes that have decent city performance and lower prices. So an e-bike is just a novelty. While Rickshaws and other people movers do not have many cheap + motorized alternatives (ICE or EV). They also run for 100s of Kms per day and t…
Cheaper batteries will change everything.
If batteries drop enough in price that e-bikes are no more expensive than ICE bikes, the changeover will be fast.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#113How about we start regulating ship engines? There are currently no regulations involving large ships' emissions. But they are extremely dirty, emitting tons of unfiltered sulfur in per voyage. They use different fuel, with much 3.5% sulfur content while road cars' fuel is 0.001%. This all goes in the air. I find it unacceptable that we consumers bend over backwards changing our habits, but the largest emissors don't…
Shipping only count for something like 2% of human caused release of CO2 and the pollution isn't local (cars inside a city is worse for humans). I agree something should be done ASAP but it isn't a low hanging fruit (hard to regulate worldwide shipping) so I doubt it will happen anytime soon.
Since when is 2% of global human CO2 emissions "only"? What single concentrated source has anywhere near such an impact?
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#114i think the way forward is electric scooters. Some like the xiaomi are cheap, have really decent figures and are actually very useful for getting you places in town. But they are not road legal. For some inane reason the answer to pollution in cities has been banned and those who dare ignore the ban endanger their licence. So we are left with bloated, overpriced, electric cars which benefit the fewest possible number of people.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
So not true. The Ami from Citroen is going to be quite the thing in Europe: https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ami Review from UK perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEKtOGmpVI
The only viable place for something like Ami is car sharing in my opinion. The thing is, car manufacturers have been doing this since long before Tesla. They make something that screams 'look, I'm a weird thing that resembles a car, because I'm electric'. And the general population just wouldn't buy them. And then Tesla came along and showed that you can actually make a car that is electric and that people would want…
In Europe the Smart for 2 managed to fill a nice niche despite being as expensive as a regular, 5 people car.
The AMI is much cheaper and can be driven by teenagers at 14, so I suspect it can really find its place between the regular car and the electric bike for city. Typically this can be the 2nd car for a family, instead of having the family car + Twingo, you can get this one which is cheaper, easier to park and can be used by your teenager.
But yeah, Americans tend to associate their personality with their cars and drive a car as big as their garage can accomodate so it's probably not for them.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#116These might work in a regulatory black hole in China, but they won't anywhere in the West. Smart has had a small electric car for sale for nearly a decade and you never see them around. Maybe when the alternative is a scooter an electric golf cart is a step-up, but the electric scooter market isn't exactly throthy in the West. Electric cars aren't that popular because the range is still mediocre for entry level ($25-…
So not true. The Ami from Citroen is going to be quite the thing in Europe: https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/citroen/ami Review from UK perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUEKtOGmpVI
car magazines always exaggerate the positive qualities of their test cars. If they were objective, they wouldn't get free press cars.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#117Norway was the first country where more than half of all new registered vehicles were electric in 2020. And if you look at the data, Norwegians pick EVs that look and drive like normal cars.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/696530/ranking-of-electr...
It's not like you can't buy the weird ones too. It's just that people don't seem to want to buy them. Maybe culture plays some role there, but I believe that there are actual valid reasons why cars are in the form factor that they're in. And being electric doesn't change much in that equation. I mean, if there really is a hidden niche of small, slow, weird-looking four-wheelers, there's no reason why ICE-driven vehicles couldn't have filled that niche before.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you see any of the tiny cars being low slung torpedoes with a safety flag stick up back? Otherwise, no.. Clive was wrong.
Right now we're trying to electrify cars, but replacing cars with something else would probably work better for a lot of journeys. I think Sir Clive was correct about the concept of personal electric vehicles. The form factor of the C5 was nothing more than an implementation detail - with a few iterations it would have been significantly better.
Clive was useless at the "few iterations". I had a stereo amp kit from his earlier days, it was unbelievably bad.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
The critical part that is playing its role as I understand is that DC motors and batteries are plenty available from decent manufacturers. Very soon, as I see articles around the web, there will be much better quality motors and batteries available across the country from brands say Yamaha or LG. Making the shell of a vehicle is not hard. ICEs have a ridiculously higher parts count compared to EVs. And not all EVs ha…
The only thing stopping this democratization would be crash-worthiness. While this is more true for Western markets currently, regulations will come to India as well. However many Indians ride in the 3-wheeled death-traps called auto-rickshaws so I don't know... I've personally been in one which almost rolled over when the driver made a sharp turn at (relatively) high speed.
> The only thing stopping this democratization would be crash-worthiness.
There is no trouble making small crash-worthy vehicles if the standard vehicle is no more than a few hundred kilos and is limited to 30-50 km/h.
On the other hand, the current trend for western vehicles has been to make vehicles that are more and more dangerous for their environment, but which are themselves well-protected.
So there is a good argument that regulation could move towards western standards by banning small cars, but banning larger cars could also produce good safety norms.
Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars
#120i think the way forward is electric scooters. Some like the xiaomi are cheap, have really decent figures and are actually very useful for getting you places in town. But they are not road legal. For some inane reason the answer to pollution in cities has been banned and those who dare ignore the ban endanger their licence. So we are left with bloated, overpriced, electric cars which benefit the fewest possible number…
It's very hard to make an electric scooter competitive with 150cc which is a mode of transport for probably a billion people.
150cc will be better, and cheaper no matter what you try. I researched the problem extensively when I worked in a number of companies working in the electric scooter space.
Cheapest 150cc scooters sell for $500 — that's the price of a battery pack to make a scooter with comparable range to 150cc on one tank of fuel.
Prices ease in 250cc-300cc segment significantly. $1500-$3000 for low end scooter in this segment, but the majority of scooters in this segment are not that low end.
You can sell 300cc for $3000-$5000 easily even in places like Vietnam, and Indonesia.