The road to electric is filled with tiny cars • Hacker News Board

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#261

Post by IkmoIkmo » Wed, Feb 24, 2021, 8:26 PM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #241

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. havi…

I believe heating is most problematic for daily micro EVs in winter due to lower battery capacity, but adding capacity makes it not micro.

Fair point, should probably have removed that. Still it's so much easier to stay warm if you're out of the wind, with doors closed, and can wear a jacket that doesn't turn you sweaty like biking 20min in warm winter clothes often does for me, due to not working out.

To me the biggest downside to all these electric vehicles over bikes is that walking and biking is super healthy, and a city focused on infrastructure to accommodate it (with public-transport for larger trips) is a net benefit. The average American gets 3500 steps or so per day because they get transported everywhere by a vehicle, meaning probably a hundred million Americans get just 1000-2000 per day, when we ought to really be somewhere in the 5000-10000 range. If these things displace (ICE) cars, great. But I've never owned a car in my life and just bike/walk, but with electric vehicles becoming so convenient, cheap and useful, I see it displacing that very soon. A washing machine or water faucet displacing manual labour to clean clothes or get water from a well is great, a machine displacing even just walks and bike rides... not so much.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#262

Post by tonyedgecombe » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #103

VW has trouble selling electric cars in China. There are too many low end competitors and VW simply doesn't offer the right kind of car for price sensitive customers in China. Tesla is doing well in China, precisely because their cars are primarily luxury cars.

I don't know where you got this idea. VW sells twice as many cars in China than it does in Europe.

https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2019-full-year-glob...

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#263

Post by elric » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

fomine3 wrote: post #243

elric wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Arms race is bad but anyway we need trucks for logistics.

Trucks are trucks. Cars are cars. Their use cases have virtually zero overlap.

That being said, a lot of trucking could be replaced by freight trains or by ships, depending on which part of the world we're talking about.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#264

Post by ansible » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:02 PM UTC

zdragnar wrote: post #237

ansible wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... Reliant Robin- at least the single-wheel-in-front variety. To be clear, this is because the single-wheel in front vehicles will roll over if turned sharply or at too high a speed. The single-wheel in back designs are much more dynamically stable.

True. There is a picture of a wheel in front version in the article, which is what made me think of it. I do have an irrational desire to take a Polaris Slingshot for a drive, though.

The various three-wheelers available in the NA market are kinda cool, but don't particularly appeal to me. Except for the Piaggio MP3 and similar that allow the rider to lean into turns.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#265

Post by morberg » Fri, Feb 26, 2021, 7:25 AM UTC

MayeulC wrote: post #182

pyrale wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> vehicles that are more and more dangerous for their environment, but which are themselves well-protected. Don't be fooled by what they tell you. A heavier vehicle is more dangerous to its occupants as well. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/as-cars-get-heavier-eve...

I’m confused. The article you linked to says the opposite:

> Ironically, much of this trend is fueled by the fact that safety sells, and the biggest, heaviest cars are the safest—for their occupants, at least.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#266

Post by specialist » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

baybal2 wrote: post #255

specialist wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I researched the problem extensively... Just curious: Did your efforts identify the sweet spots, given misc costs. Like the "makes sense" price as carbon costs rise and battery cost per amp fall. Factoring weight, distance, speed, recharge times, etc. Why I ask: The most interesting part of the Tesla origin story, to me, is the recognition that laptop battery cost per amp trends would make full-sized EV automobile…

Are you working in this field by any chance?

Hi. Sorry, no. Just trying to make sense of things.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#267

Post by MayeulC » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

morberg wrote: post #265

MayeulC wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> vehicles that are more and more dangerous for their environment, but which are themselves well-protected. Don't be fooled by what they tell you. A heavier vehicle is more dangerous to its occupants as well. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2021/02/as-cars-get-heavier-eve...

I’m confused. The article you linked to says the opposite: > Ironically, much of this trend is fueled by the fact that safety sells, and the biggest, heaviest cars are the safest—for their occupants, at least.

Sorry about that. I'm slightly confused too.

Size doesn't make much difference in case of a full-stop (wall or similarly-sized car). It could help with bigger crumple zones though. In the end, I am not sure what proportion of passenger injuries is affected by car weight, but would love to see the data.

And being heavier makes a car universally more dangerous to its surroundings. Which might be part of the appeal.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#268

Post by llampx » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:10 PM UTC

TacticalCoder wrote: post #173

jgilias wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American, so can't speak for them. Pretty much all kids in my relatively small town have scooters. The girls have Vespas or some Vespa lookalikes, whereas the guys do wheelies on theirs. Some seem to like a Mad-Max style where they get an old scooter, and strip it almost naked, some have nifty ones that look very sports-bike like. Bigger kids have 125cc motorbikes. Some look like dirt-bikes, some look like sp…

> If I was 15, you'd see me dead in one of them Amis. Yes, at least the Smart looks ok. But that Citroen thing is totally ugly: it reminds me of the car that the billionaire was using in one scene in Silicon Valley when leaving the restaurant, where it's actually only half a car. But Silicon Valley is satire. It's weird that a country like France so well known for its luxury brands and "savoir faire" can come up with…

Somehow the French have never made pretty cars. On the other hand, you have the Twingo.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#269

Post by mattbk1 » Wed, Mar 03, 2021, 7:47 PM UTC

rank0 wrote: post #212

mattbk1 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't disrupting traffic, they are traffic.

Sure. Just like how a reckless driver is traffic too. Doesn't mean cyclists or the reckless drivers are automatically justified.

I'm not even sure how to respond to this type of lumping.

> Good drivers and reckless drivers are both traffic. Doesn't mean they are both automatically justified.

Re: The road to electric is filled with tiny cars

#270

Post by rank0 » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

mattbk1 wrote: post #269

rank0 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Just like how a reckless driver is traffic too. Doesn't mean cyclists or the reckless drivers are automatically justified.

I'm not even sure how to respond to this type of lumping. > Good drivers and reckless drivers are both traffic. Doesn't mean they are both automatically justified.

Your original point seems to be: "bicyclists are not disrupting traffic because they are part of traffic"

My counter point is that "being part of traffic does not preclude you from disrupting traffic. See reckless driver example."

Did I misunderstand your original comment?