121–130 of 198 posts
There's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
A single occupancy car will be more commercially lucrative once we have full self-driving technology. If you hail a self-driving cab for yourself, the fleet will send a single-occupancy car. If you’re with a few others, it’ll send a sedan. Etc...all under a tiered subscription model. Not sending a sedan every time saves on hardware, electricity, and maintenance costs. Some of the savings would in turn be passed onto…
You're banking on full autonomy from a vehicle you can just plonk into any old city with no alteration to infrastructure, that would be served entirely by commercialized hail services for people who can afford it. We should be hoping for ubiquitous public transport infrastructure that everyone can utilize and afford.
This is a form of ubiquitous public transport infrastructure. Automobiles and roads are already the most inclusive form of public transportation ever invented (measured as percent of public served), and have the cheapest per-rider cost to maintain for any government out of any infrastructure ever invented to date, while still supporting full distances and high service rates.
And while cost of vehicles and driver requirements are currently barriers -- reducing the cost of vehicles and improving their ability to self drive, would let everyone utilize and afford it.
There's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
We live in a house and it's our only vehicle (granted, we commute to work by e-bike). I actually fitted it with a trailed attachment so I can run some "big" errands (to the waste-center, buying some wood, etc..).
Maintenance wise it's great: only thing to change is the windshield fluid.
Negative points: the range. You can do 80km with it only. I plan to buy a tesla battery module one day and double the capacity, thus doubling the range. But for now the rare time we've had to go "far" we just rented or borrowed a car.
There's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
I think it hasn't done very well, probably mainly because it's an open vehicle. If it had proper doors I think it would've done better. The formula can work, it just has to look a bit more normal.
At the moment, in my country people are much more likely to go for an e-bike.
There's also the Renault Twizy that is readily available and significantly cheaper (starting at 7000 Euro). Actually even the regular electric car by Seat (Mii) is much cheaper than the Electrameccanica.
The few that are here are limited to 25 mph, 40 kmh and are car share novelties.
This is the land of the pickup truck and massive SUV. Heck, even motorcycles are bigger than the Twizzy here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One advantage is they can be parked sideways on most streets They advertised this but in reality it's rarely possible. They are 2.5m long and most cars in Europe are E.g. in the UK standard parking is 2.4m wide so a smart sticks out
Can't speak for the UK, but I often see Smarts parked sideways around Paris. The car is indeed longer than the spaces are large, but a factor that helps a lot is that regular cars are rarely parked nicely inside the lines. Which means that, in practice, the sideways Smart doesn't stick out from the other cars.
Assuming your native language is French, I think you mean “wide”, not “large”.
This is awesome. But nobody’s going to buy it if they have to drive it sharing the road with hulking SUVs. It’s nearly as dangerous as a motorcycle simply because it is so small and light. The only advantage is protection from the weather.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
we have self-driving cars already, they're called trains
Single-occupancy trains are a terrible idea though.. Jokes aside, the dependence on self-driving OP was alluding to is wildly exaggerated in my eyes, because the other kind of self-driving (user drives a short-term rental) works just as well. And with short term rentals, physical footprint is making an actual difference because their availability is bounded by storage. There used to be a wave of microcar concepts tha…
User drives short term rental gave me all kinds worries which I don't have driving my own car. Being responsible for checking damage when picking it up, worrying about minor (as in accidentally kerbing a wheel) damage while I'm driving, having someone hit it while it is parked somewhere, getting caught in traffic while returning it and being fined for going over the allotted time.
Writing this down has just made me realise how nice it would be if there was a car rental company which worked on a first come first served basis with rental charged per minute. If they also had some kind of automatic photo booth to take detailed before and after photos that would be almost perfect.