The world would be a more fun place if we all drove bumper cars
That’s terribly inefficient for a motorcycle
How do you figure? 70mpg isn’t too shabby for a motorcycle today. In the 40s? 70mpg is pretty bonkers for a 40s machine.
It looks like a bumper car without the bumpers and pole
it looks like a Twinkie fucked a space ship.
It’s easy to make a 100mpg car. All you need is to make it small, flimsy, no aircon, no heater, no stereo, no airbags, toss emissions standards out, pack you in like a snake going up a bear’s anus, and drive around at a steady 25 mph without any stops.
It’s that last thing that america (or at least California) has an issue with. We fucking love stop signs. If you have a stop sign every other block, your mpg is gonna be in the range matt gaetz would be interested in regardless of what car you drive.
Idk man, I got comfy 50mpg from a 2 ton Mercedes-Benz with most of the trimmings. Well… it was too old to have AC.
The acceleration was utter dogshit tho. Comfy ride tho.
Idk, Dutch micro cars are pretty comfortable. They’re quieter, safer for pedestrians, and environmentally friendly. Had a chance to use one last time I was in the Netherlands. The American mindset of “it has to be a giga-truck or it’s bad” really sucks.
I’m in love with the Citroen Ami
I mean just look at this little guy. If I had ovaries, they’d be popping right now.
They’re cute but very niche. They’re very expensive for what they are, those weird plastic folding windows are not fully waterproof, and the ami generally inferior to a scooter in every way except safety kinda. It’s not like it can carry more than a large grocery bag anyway.
Owning that car really tells a complete story: “I am a 16/17 yo suburbanite so I can’t get my license yet, daddy/mommy is tired of driving me to school, my wealthy parents won’t let me ride a moped because it’s too dangerous, and riding a bicycle or the bus isn’t even an option for someone of my social standing”.
Unsurprisingly, it’s not been selling particularly well. Which is a good thing, because what cities need is more micromobility solutions not cars cosplaying as micromobility.
riding a s bicycle or the bus isnt even an option
for someone of my social standingthat even exists in my area.I was leaning more on the “I am a 30/40 yo city worker who lives in a small village with no train station and poor bus service. I don’t have kids, but like weekend getaways with my partner and this car speaks to my meagre price range and eco sensibilities.”
Then get a small car like a VW Up. It will be cheaper, will be more practical in literally every way, and will have a lot more range. It’s also not limited to 45 km/h, which you will quickly find is painful on the kinds of semi-rural roads that separate your hypothetical village from the city.
With a 75 km announced range and no fast charging (!) your best bet for a weekend getaway is to use the Ami to get to the nearest train station. Hell, if you can’t charge at work it might even struggle to get you back home.
The Ami is simply a terrible value proposition if it’s your only mode of transportation. And if it’s your secondary mode of transportation, then its carbon footprint skyrockets as all the lithium that makes up its battery will hardly be used over its lifetime.
One can always make up a scenario where someone, somewhere, somehow has the exact situation to justify such a purchase, but it is very niche. What Citroen really tries to market it as is a “city car”, which is anything but a green concept but also the only way a 45 km/h car with 75 km of range actually makes sense.
Micromobility will never be a solution for places where it rains a lot or where it gets cold often. People need an enclosed cabin like this.
Uh, yeah, no. Copenhagen and Stockholm are cycling capitals. SE Asia literally gets a monsoon and everyone still rides a motorcycle.
“It’s wet/cold outside” is nothing more than a paltry excuse. There’s a whole NJB video on the subject if you want.
I got to see one at a Stellantis exhibition here in the US! Although they won’t be sold here, so IDK why they brought them to a US event. They’re such neat little cars.
No, that’s pretty much what I mean. I’m having trouble finding references to the gas milage of the Canta, but Kei cars tend to max out around 60mpg, and the Canta is only a bit smaller. I also found plenty of posts from locals saying it’s loud, uncomfortable, and unsafe.
The Peel P50 can get close to 100mpg, but that’s pushing what a person can even fit in. This sort of thing is pushing into “why not get a moped?” territory.
The original Honda Insight from 2001 got 68 highway, 60 city. And it had all the goodies you’d want in a “modern” car like airbags, aircon, heat, 2 relatively roomy seats, etc. Close to the Doodlebug’s best possible mpg with twice the passengers.
Unfortunately, after 20 years of improvement in auto design, material science, etc, the new Honda Insight in 2022 actually has notably worse city /highway mpg from the original, because it’s so much bigger.
I guess my point is all the innovation in the world won’t fix the fundamental problem that people want bigger and bigger cars?
Auto manufacturers want bigger and bigger vehicles, and they’ve done an excellent job of convincing the masses that they aren’t safe without one, or a man, or they’ll look poor. Most people I’d wager if given the proper knowledge and experience wouldn’t want to drive a huge lumbering land whale, they’ve just been told their entire life that they do.
But it’s hard to make such a car street-legal in the US.
My 2007 Ninja 250 made about 35 horsepower, could achieve a top speed over 100 mph and could also travel nearly 70 miles on a gallon of gas.
My Honda Metropolitan gets 117 MPG. As a result, its fuel tank is precisely 1 gallon.
…It only makes 4 horsepower and has a top speed of 40, though.
Yeah I couldn’t quite hit that efficiency with my Ninja but it was fully capable of traveling on the interstate and it it had a damn near 5 gallon tank. That bike was designed in 1988 and received only minor adjustments for 20 years and basically nothing has that combination of efficiency and capacity.
That thing looks like it falls over on its side if you look at it funny.
I beg you pardon?
Ah yes, a scrotumnudger
Only 10HP? It’s not likely to live very long with such a low amount of hit points.
It’s fine! AGI is totally maxed out, so you’ll never land any hits.
Depends on the AC.
I doubt it even had AC
The other AC
AC 0 ain’t what it used to be.
Armour class
It makes up for it with enough mana to keep a shield spell up indefinitely.
If you’re still worried, though, you can pair it with a Volvo for tanking and a Fiat 500 for nimble single target dps and flanking.
A Fiat 500? Glass cannon much?
Rogues often are 🤷
With an insane mana point gain rate or MPG of 70, your mana’s already full before the end of cool down.
Looks like if you ever hit a pebble on the road it would probably flip and kill you. Note also the conspicuous absence of a seat belt. Cute little death machine.
Did anything have a seatbelt in 1944?
Early seatbelt design
I like it. Why live with potentially life changing injuries, when you can simply have your neck broken by your seatbelt instead.
NO SHOT. That’s a joke, right?
Unsurprisingly it was not a successful prototype.
Still, better to have an instantaneous snapped neck/ decapitated than to be speared through the chest by the steering column.
Drug Church?
Volvo filed a patent for some sort of seatbelt in 1889. SAAB became the first car company to make any sort of seatbelt standard in 1958. Volvo became the first car company to install modern 3 point belts as standard equipment in 1959.
So yes, but actually probably not.
So a patent existed prior, but that doesn’t mean they were made. SAAB made them standard 14 years after this car. Do with no other data, I’d say no and no.
Edit: just realized that reads like I’m being pissy, but that wasn’t the tone my finger was swiping with. Thanks for the data!
Well the key word there is standard. I’m guessing that seatbelts were optional equipment prior to that, because I have seen a '50 SAAB 92 that had a driver’s side lap belt, which I believe was original equipment. I have also seen a '45 Chevy truck that also had a lap belt, but I’m unsure if that was original equipment.
That’s why I said yes, but probably not.
Got it, thanks
I think the popular argument against seatbelts was a long the lines of
gunscars don’t kill people, reckless drivers kill people. Which, I guess, is the same argument that we use for anything that’s a bad idea for society as a whole, but is lucrative.
No, that was before Ralph Nader made a whole ruckus about car safety (and rightly so). Still, we’re looking at this from the year 2024 so you can really tell this vehicle doesn’t make sense in our time.
I sometimes think about Ralph Nader, and the overall balance sheet of lives he is directly responsible for saving, vs lives that he is (I guess indirectly) responsible for ruining and/or ending due to spoiling the 2000 election.
Interesting thought experiment. I guess.
I admire the hell out of him, even if I resent what happened in the 2000 election. He really did stand for what he believed in.
Velomobiles are a modern thing. Speed records are over 80kmh from human power only, but ebike motors can achieve that easily.
While most are not this “delta trike” format, and instead have 2 wheels in front, the stability is not crazy bad for deltas. Most are weather proof.
Yeah but not instantly. It would drag you around the road grinding your meats and bones into a nice pasty consistency.
I mean, I could see a modern version being made with a rally harness-type restraint system and a windshield frame that doubles as a rollover bar. In this case the biggest danger would be to the driver’s limbs.
So a motor scooter with a car-like wrapper.
That looks pretty fun. People are always driving around here in those Rhinos. They’re not street legal, but the cops don’t seem to care.
That last picture doesn’t look too bad
It only got two stars sadly
It’s basically an all terrain vehicle with a roof
^^^
Even comes with a napping package
The long sleep in the great blue beyond
It’s almost a motorcycle. Something like this would be great for commuting, if not for all the Compensator™ Trucks and SUVs on the road.
I feel bad for driving a big SUV, but I needed something electric that was easy for my wife to get in and out of.
I totally get the need for tall vehicles that are easy for people to get in and out. Not everyone can lift themselves from a low seat in a modern sedan or coupe. Accessibility is important.
Any electric vehicle is high because of the batteries. That’s why so many are those awful looking crossovers. SUVs you have to climb into which would make them harder to get in and out of. So I don’t really follow your logic I’m afraid.
Perhaps I’m not being accurate. The VW ID.4 is easier for her to enter and exit than the GTI.
I’m not sure I’d want to do 45 in that thing, hell of a way to go if you got speed wobbles. I could see a use for kei vehicles in downtown areas. Traffic is so bad that a car’s top speed might be 30 if you are lucky. Mass transit, bikes and tiny vehicles are what most people could easily get away with day to day.
Oddly enough my state made UTV’s(side by sides) street legal and that opened up the legality of kei trucks and the such being street legal here. One of my coworkers has something like this.
Not entirely sure how long that’s going to last. They’ve already threatened removing that law because people are abusing the hell out of it. They had to do an education campaign because people just thought you could take them on the road. They need to be licensed, registered and insured to the same standards as a car…aka at least liability to state minimums.
They can’t go on any road over 45mph(even though a lot of the nicer ones can go much faster). It was kind of comical to see the number of roads that went from 45 to 50 because of this.
Red light? I’m in an off-road UTV! Hop this curb, go over the side walk and make my right turn! Not to mention the jack assess that have their 50” 40,000 lumen light bars on the roof blasting at ALL TIMES.
That and one city had $350K of damage done to a park because somebody thought doing doughnuts in the fields was a good idea. Much harder to do if you have to trailer it there first.
I’m mostly in favor of it but the people outright breaking the law need to be dealt with. There are some safety concerns I have with it as well. Those vehicles are not safety tested. Even a small sedan would make an absolute mess of them in most accidents. That’s fine if you are making that decision consciously. The amount of people that load up their entire family and kids in these things is alarming though. Sometimes kids that would need a car seat in a car but it’s a UTV!
Well that comment got a lot longer than I was planning. I’d love a kei car for around town though. I’m aware of the risks…it’s not worse than my motorcycle.
Looks like a giant tape dispenser.
