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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

#191

Post by bluGill »

K0balt wrote: post #98
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?

Plenty of people buid airplanes and helicopters too.. Established templates and parts compatibility make it possible for people without a great deal of engineering knowledge but a high level of technical skill (which apparently many yokels posess) to build things. Building an ice vs electric vehicle in the discussion context means design plus build, not a kit or retrofit. It's a bit different.

In 1900 people designed built their ICE and their car at the same time. It isn't hard to design an ICE. What is hard is designing an ICE that will run for years and meets modern emissions standards.

Note that in 1900 the electric car was also seen as viable and people were building it. For "reasons" the ICE took off, while the electric car remained as mostly a thing people did in their garage.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#193

Post by bluGill »

Arainach wrote: post #113
Daho0n wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If it was only shipping it would be small enough to not worry about. The world was slightly CO2 negative long term before modern burning of buried fuels, so a small amount (but probably not 2%) could be called useful.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#194

Post by bluGill »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #160
SamuelAdams wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So what? The vast majority of vehicle trips have only one driver, 2 seater or 1 seater vehicles need not cater to families. And you're already incorrect, there are already millions of 2 seater vehicles, be it pickups, trucks, sports cars, or extremely compact cars.

The vast majority of trips don't count. Anyone buying a car is looking at the entire lifecyle of their use. They don't care that 95% of the time they are alone driving to work, the car needs to cover the one time per year they need to pickup grandma, so it better have more room.

Two seat pickup trucks are mostly sold to delivery customers. 50 years ago they were more common when you put the kids in the bed, now that isn't considered safe (for good reason) and so those customers buy the extended cab for the family. Sport cars and Compact cars exist, they are a small niche (and often sold to people who have a larger car for "the wife" to drive alone to work)

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#195

Post by bluGill »

Yaggo wrote: post #137
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…

There are probably multiple factors: - Norway is a rich country with high standard of living, people are used to drive "big" cars – Northern climate and terrain with lot of mountains probably plays a role, capable AWDs are popular - Low population density, plenty of space for cars, excluding small city centers - Electric is cheap in Norway due to hydro – Electric cars are "cheap" in Norway due to low tax & high GDP

I would say the difference is mostly rich. I suspect the poor people in China would prefer the large car too, but that isn't a practice option. The article makes it clear that the customers include a lot of people who can't get a drivers license, and given that China isn't exactly a rich country (they are improving and have a lot of rich, but overall they have a lot of poor people)

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#197

Post by pharmakom »

elric wrote: post #196

What the world needs is fewer, smaller and slower cars. In that order. This is even more important than the fuel they run on. Better public transport would go a long way towards making that more viable, of course ...

almost sounds like... wait a minute... an electric bicycle!

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#198

Post by bluGill »

Judgmentality wrote: post #99
kleiba wrote: post #96

A problem with such tiny cars is that they cannot absorb enough kinetic energy in a crash. Although they cannot go very fast compared to traditional cars, a frontal collision between two tiny cars going at full speed will likely have severe outcomes for the drivers and passengers. Of course, it might get worse when they get hit by a faster driving traditional car.

> a frontal collision between two tiny cars going at full speed will likely have severe outcomes for the drivers and passengers Wouldn't the lower mass of the vehicles mean less forceful impact of the crash? Momentum, kinetic energy, impact - everything scales linearly with mass. If that cars weigh half as much they only need to handle half as much impact. > Of course, it might get worse when they get hit by a faster…

The fraction of the total mass that you are is larger though which makes the whole analysis complex.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#199

Post by elric »

kleiba wrote: post #96

A problem with such tiny cars is that they cannot absorb enough kinetic energy in a crash. Although they cannot go very fast compared to traditional cars, a frontal collision between two tiny cars going at full speed will likely have severe outcomes for the drivers and passengers. Of course, it might get worse when they get hit by a faster driving traditional car.

That's such a red herring. Bigger cars are safer for the people in the bigger car, but way more dangerous for everyone else. Faster cars are more dangerous for everyone. The solution is smaller and slower cars. Not an arms race of whose tank has the best armour.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#200

Post by josefresco »

inasio wrote: post #57
xrd wrote: post #47

What's the hack to get something like this in the US? I don't want to drive my kids around in it, but I have a short drive on 35 mph roads to my co-working space and I would love to go electric.

A guy in jalopnik.com imported one of these mini electric cars from China and detailed the whole process, he was very happy with how it turned out [0]. [0 - one of many articles on the car] https://jalopnik.com/unboxing-the-worlds-cheapest-new-car-re...

This was a great read last summer. I'm eager to see a follow up, so thanks for reminding me!

Found some follow up articles:

First Drive: https://jalopnik.com/heres-what-the-worlds-cheapest-electric...

3 Months: https://jalopnik.com/heres-how-the-cheapest-electric-car-in-...

New Version: https://jalopnik.com/holy-crap-the-new-2021-changlis-have-be...

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