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The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

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Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#161

Post by Dumblydorr »

haspok wrote: post #139
Faaak wrote: post #71

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…

Old people, young children, and the disabled can not just hop on a scooter.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#162

Post by IkmoIkmo »

haspok wrote: post #139
Faaak wrote: post #71

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…

Price of purchase, price of ownership, price of use, is all a lot lower versus a car.

Protection from rain as well as some traffic protection versus scooters/mopeds/bicycles, as well as speed versus a bike or slow moped, especially at certain times of the day and certain areas.

Also easier to go with two people and to move more luggage or groceries, than on a bike or scooter or moped.

More comfortable, too, e.g. having music on, heating, navigation.

Conveniently, no helmet or motorwear requirements. You can lock things away in your car.

And finally, because they're smaller, electric and have a higher occupancy percentage, congestion, sound, pollution and parking are all improved if more people would use them versus a car. Most 4-6 seater cars have an average occupancy per trip of Tiny cars in combination with decent cycling / moped infrastructure, decent public transportation, and a high-tax on personal 4-6 seater cars and SUVs (which still makes economic sense if you actually seat 3-6 people, but don't if you're just sitting alone in your SUV tank) would make the streets safer, less congested, less polluting, less noisy, cheaper and better for the environment.

This model where the norm is to sit in traffic in a giant and heavy ICE car seating 4-6 by yourself, makes no sense. These cars have a place, but only for the niche 15% of trips that actually seat that many. Tiny personal cars, and public larger ridesharing cars, makes more sense.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#163

Post by marshmallow_12 »

brainless wrote: post #11

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…

£500,000,000 wasn't enough to get James Dyson's electric car company off the ground. The future of cars will not be more democratized. The proposed democracy will rest in electrified non-cars. Which is not a bad thing. But what's to convince a Western person to give up his car? Making them more expensive won't help. Making tiny, very cheap things more socially accepted and desirable will. (Note: this CANNOT just be done by punishing car owners)

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#164

Post by alexisread »

haspok wrote: post #139
Faaak wrote: post #71

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…

The Ami is designed specifically to be driven without a licence, from 14 yo. I think those regulations exist in France, Italy and The Netherlands. As such it has a lower speed, it's also as stated weatherproof and can haul a friend / toddler or shopping safely.

Tbh the idea of a car is a bit redundant compared to a proper smartrail system. Hang the rail from streetlights to free up ground space. You can run AC power and cat6 in the rail, it's separate from pedestrians so driverless is easy, no parking issues, no need to store power so you can run a pod at 300mph to take a family/ palette point to point, and hanging means you can run it straight into factories or halfway up buildings.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#165

Post by ajnin »

taneq wrote: post #104
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet every yokel with a garage, builds an ICE car for fun. Not even college educated. Some disconnect here?

In practical terms the GP poster is wrong. If you consider an internal combustion engine to be a single unit, an ICE-powered vehicle is of equivalent complexity to a battery electric vehicle. They both need body, suspension, steering, seats, etc. etc. The “ice-ness” adds effectively nothing to the build complexity from the overall vehicle builder’s standpoint.

You're forgetting the various fluids : oil, coolant and associated tubing, filtering and pumps, the radiator and fan, the starter/alternator, the gearbox, the transmission, the air filter, various belts ... Quite a bit more complex than the electrical alternative.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#166

Post by sjwright »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #155
Faaak wrote: post #71

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…

Sadly 2 seater vehicles won't ever happen en mass. There's a lot of people with families who will need at least 3 seats.

Maybe not en masse, but the market for households' second vehicles is still pretty big. I think there's a lot to be said for subcompact electric cars appropriately sized for solo commuting and shopping. It's limitations don't matter so much when the primary car can do all the bussing and long distances.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#167

Post by [deleted] »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #163
brainless wrote: post #11

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…

£500,000,000 wasn't enough to get James Dyson's electric car company off the ground. The future of cars will not be more democratized. The proposed democracy will rest in electrified non-cars. Which is not a bad thing. But what's to convince a Western person to give up his car? Making them more expensive won't help. Making tiny, very cheap things more socially accepted and desirable will. (Note: this CANNOT just be d…

[deleted]

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#168

Post by wizzwizz4 »

virgo_eye wrote: post #138
jgilias wrote: post #117

Norway 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 a…

It is true that the design of ICE vehicles is not arbitrary, but depends on weight/power/size/speed tradeoffs. However, there's no reason that these tradeoffs should be the same for EVs. Drivers in city traffic can't go fast, but they like to accelerate quickly. This means a big engine, which means a big car, which means more weight so the engine has to be even bigger to keep the car accelerating 0-30 quickly. For EV…

A capacitor (or two batteries) would improve acceleration performance without the need for as much of a trade-off.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#169

Post by emteycz »

oblio wrote: post #145
brainless wrote: post #11

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…

> What I conclude is that EV revolution is going to be way more democratized than we realize. 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…

Since when are semiconductors anywhere near "simple"? An EV can be made in a garage. Look at airplanes - small companies indeed are successful.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#170

Post by wil421 »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #70
justapassenger wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of those companies builds their own motors and batteries. They get them as kits, same as you can get ICE engines. It’s simpler to integrate, that’s for sure, but not orders of magnitude.

Elektrek has been running a series of amusing articles lately where they review some outrageously cheap vehicles for sale on Alibaba. Think mini jeeps, SUVs, pickup trucks, go carts, etc. selling for something like 1500$. Some of these look like a lot of fun. None of those are street legal of course but they are dirt cheap. That's kind of the point. All you need is some cheap batteries and an electric motor. Most of…

Most of those cheap Alibaba vehicles look like what we would call golf carts in the US.
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