Twike

The highways in America are super easy to navigate with carplay/gps and to be honest, and I have yet to see a jam where your car is completely stopped for more than 10 minutes. What I see is a dance of cars where every car travels to cruise speed.. another thing I’d mention is that I consider americans good drivers and very respectful of the laws compared to other countries.

I’m currently planning to build a velomobile that I can live out of while cycling round Australia for a year. A trailer too, designed around a digital piano and some sort of fridge (either a production model or one constructed manually from a compressor).

It’ll end up heavy enough¹ that I’ll want to put a motor in it, so that for local journeys I can get from Point A to Point B more quickly and more confidently dispose of my car, and because otherwise when touring there will be some hills that I simply can’t climb, and that 200–250W² should make it possible (though probably still not easy).

So then I figured, how about a fully electrical drivetrain? Even with the best components, it’ll still be a bit less efficient than a well-maintained chain³, but getting the chain and front chainrings out of the way would be great, making the decision of how to facilitate sleep much easier: go quadricycle (rather than tadpole trike, which is two wheels at the front and one at the back), then to sleep tilt the seat back flat, and shift the pedals/generator a bit out of the way, and there’s no chain to worry about so you’re ready to sleep in the vehicle.⁴

Unfortunately, the legislation is drafted in such a way as to forbid such vehicles. Excerpt from Victoria’s Road Safety Road Rules 2017 https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2...>:

> bicycle means a vehicle with 2 or more wheels that is built to be propelled partly or wholly by human power through a belt, chain or gears (whether or not it has an auxiliary motor)

The way they keep talking about power assistance as the use of an auxiliary motor is troublesome, and this potentially doesn’t even allow things like hydraulic, shaft or electrical drives. But then, what is an electrical wire but a belt for electrons?

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¹ Though nowhere near the the two-seater Twike’s unladen-save-batteries 246kg. I’m aiming for a this-is-my-home practical loaded long-term touring weight of 125kg, including things like 50kg of vehicle and trailer (including all vehicle electronics), 12kg of piano, 12kg of fridge, 12kg of battery and 5kg of solar panels.

² Broadly speaking, Australia currently has two classifications: 200W with no speed limit, and the pedelec 250W but limited to 25km/h. Finer details vary by state. Not sure if you could legally get away with producing 250W if pedalling and under 25km/h, or 200W if over 25km/h (and pedalling, in some states); “an auxiliary motor capable of generating a power output over 200 watts” hangs quite a bit on the interpretation of the word “capable”.

³ An electrical drivetrain could easily be better than a poorly-maintained chain.

⁴ The main alternatives I’m considering include making the vehicle expandable in a way vaguely reminiscent of a pop-top van, and a larger and/or expandable trailer and sleep in that. But I don’t want to be messing around with tents every day.

The variation in task requirements for a vehicle is high, so it is economically efficient to buy a single vehicle suited for as many tasks as possible.

If you can acquire a limited vehicle for a much lower price (including parking, safety, and other externalities) it can be useful to do so -- but the limited vehicles are generally too expensive.