141–150 of 271 posts
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The e-up is only cheap as long as you don't compare to other cars equal in size. VW is far behind in EVs for now sadly.
VW is far behind in EVs for now sadly I don't know, the ID.3 looks competitive to me, it starts at £30K in the UK which is similar to most of the competition.
i 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 150…
I have a Renault Twizy. It's a tiny 2-seater car (one behind the other). It's so tiny that the battery is only 6kWh and thus you can only go for about 80km before needing a charge (which lasts 2h30). But I love it in fact. In my european city it's the best car to go around because you can park anywhere, it costs nothing to operate, and it's so much fun and quiet. Sadly it didn't take on, but other cars are starting t…
What's the point of "cars" that can't do at least 50mph/80kmh? You can't really use them in the city, because you get stuck in traffic just like everybody else. Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go - or public transport. You can't really use them on city speedways or circular roads, because you are too slow and hold everyone else up. And you can't use the cycle paths either. And motorways - just forg…
This is something I realized recently. I am in India and the number of small manufacturers who are making electric people movers is very high. These are not high speed vehicles, they are below 40 KM/h speed as I see them, but the big shift is that hundreds of small companies around India are producing and maintaining small electric vehicles, mostly locally. The drivers charge them at home at night or during longer lu…
That's what we all hope. What tends to happen instead, is that mass market stuff gets monopoliged/oligopolized quickly, because there's just too much money on the table.
It just looks "democratic" during the scramble, before the winners are decided.
If anything, since EVs are simple, we're going to see > centralization, not less. There will be a huge race for the cheapest/most efficient engine/battery and all these efficiencies will come from huge scale (in research, development, production techniques).
Look at what is happening with electronic circuits production. There are what, 4 state of the art producers? TSMC, Samsung, Intel, I'm probably forgetting someone.
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What's the point of "cars" that can't do at least 50mph/80kmh? You can't really use them in the city, because you get stuck in traffic just like everybody else. Here, a bicycle or a scooter / moped is the way to go - or public transport. You can't really use them on city speedways or circular roads, because you are too slow and hold everyone else up. And you can't use the cycle paths either. And motorways - just forg…
You don't get wet in a car.
This is something I realized recently. I am in India and the number of small manufacturers who are making electric people movers is very high. These are not high speed vehicles, they are below 40 KM/h speed as I see them, but the big shift is that hundreds of small companies around India are producing and maintaining small electric vehicles, mostly locally. The drivers charge them at home at night or during longer lu…
i 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…
That makes them very well suited to last mile transportation, getting you to and from the nearest public transit point, especially since most models fold for easy transport on a bus or train. As standalone personal transportation, they are handy for going a few city blocks while carrying at most a shoulder bag or backpack.
Compare this to (e-)bikes and electric motorcycles/scooters, which can carry significantly larger amounts of cargo, are inherently more stable to ride and cope well with less optimal road surfaces that would be troublesome for the small wheels on a stand up scooter. Especially for parts of the world with less-maintained roads or a high amount of dirt roads, a basic bike is vastly superior to a stand up scooter.
Similarly, the tiny electric cars mentioned in the article have more carrying capacity and as a bonus feature they shield you more from the elements. Personally I don't mind throwing on a rain poncho and rain pants when riding in adverse conditions, but not everyone is comfortable doing that. Getting people into these tiny cars is much preferable to them driving a large (possibly electric) car in the city. They're an affordable and gentler alternative to traditional cars, not a replacement for low-profile personal transport like stand up scooters and bikes. They may displace motorcycles/scooters, but I count than as either a wash or perhaps a win, if they get 2-stroke scooters off the roads.
As for the legal issues surrounding stand up scooters, I understand why some scooter sharing apps and companies have been called out and in some cases banned. They litter the cities with scooters, don't care if they're just strewn around everywhere, blocking sidewalks and bike paths, and they use barely-paid gig economy workers in open ugly competition with each other, as their recharging "solution".
But in some places even personal electric stand up scooters have been banned or at least have not been made explicitly legal on bike paths. That is an absolute travesty, we need as many people as possible to use low-impact transportation instead of their cars.
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> And, to be fair, a major part of why the US has bigger cars is that people can afford them. What about European countries with similar median wage to the US but where most people choose small cars? I think big cars in the US is partly a cultural thing, and also partly because roads in the US are bigger. Driving a big car in most Asian cities would be a horrible experience, so I expect smaller cars to be more popula…
> What about European countries with similar median wage to the US but where most people choose small cars? I think big cars in the US is partly a cultural thing, and also partly because roads in the US are bigger While I agree with you overall, I have a small thing that, I feel, you forgot about. While the median wages in European countries are the same, are they taxed at the same rate as their US counterparts? What…
Europeans live primarily in cities with much less urban planning, narrow roads and not so much parking space.
And European are 99% poorer than the average American (even in places such as France or Germany; they have similar per hour productivity but they work fewer hours so their total productivity is lower, thus their salaries are also lower, even gross salaries), while gasoline/diesel fuel, as you noticed, is much more expensive.
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if you can get 150cc for 500 then i'm living in the wrong country. In london they are ideal.
An Asian 150cc is definitely not what you get in London. It would be the most barebones scooter you can imagine, with motor making less than 10hp, body made from very thin metal, and it will rust to nothing in 5 years.