this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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To be honest I don’t see much use for this vehicle in the US. Even in most cities, you will likely need to drive on the highway sometimes, which this can’t do. And if I’m not on high speed roads, why wouldn’t I just use a bicycle? Particularly as e-bikes are now widely available and far more affordable than this thing.
Here in Montreal we have a very popular car sharing company that allows many of us to not own cars.
It's biggest issue at the moment is that the company can't buy cars as quickly as demand increases. This type of cars would be a great addition to their park since a lot of the trips their customer do are short inner city trips.
As a parent, I don't know if I agree. It takes significant effort to get my kid out on a bike as our road system isn't great for them. (My city is actually fairly good, but we still can't, for example, get to his school without needing to ride on the road)
If it could do 45mph and had a 40 mile range then it'd work for nearly all our in-town trips. We have a phev that can only do about 20 miles on battery and at the start of the pandemic we went 9 months without needing to put gas in it. I wouldn't want it as our only vehicle but it'd be pretty viable as our secondary one.
The top speed is 28. So that’s what I’m saying, this vehicle occupies largely where riding a bike is fairly safe.
Maybe in some places, but that's definitely not true in my city. The intersection i can see from my home office window has a 35mph speed limit and their are accidents there all the time. I haven't seen anyone badly injured, but there was at least one that went up a berm, over a multiuse bike path, through a fence and crashed into a neighbor's house.
I'd totally take my 9 yr old on a 3-4 mile bike ride if we're going somewhere that we can get to on protected bike lanes, but there are lots of places in this city that aren't accessible that way and I'd be much happier in a small city car. I've taken him along a 45 mph road on a few occasions and it's nerve-wracking, legally you aren't allowed to pass a bike until you can give them 3 foot of space but it happens ALL THE TIME and it's a real deterrent to cycling for us.
The 28mph top speed i think is a european classification thing, but yeah that'd be the showstopper for me - not the size or range.