I personally think it could be a great alternative to cars and bikes for those who need to take a whole family somewhere or a decent amount of stuff.
Only modifications I would make would be ride-by-wire and an extra set of pedals (so you can have two people pedalling without the annoyance of normal tandem bikes having to pedal at the same rate), and a more powerful motor (only 250W is legal in France, where this was designed, whereas 500W is legal here in Canada)
This looks like a death trap tbh
Most micro mobility stuff does, but this looks more dangerous than usual. Being strapped into it could actually decrease safety and the lack of any kind of crumple zone means any crash is going to be broken limbs at best, fatal at worst
In a collision with a car, definitely. But if we’re considering dedicated bike trails or dedicated golf cart trails (a man can dream), this thing is just an e-bike at heart, so it can only go e-bike speeds. And e-bike speeds aren’t going to be fatal unless a fast-moving car is involved.
At the same time though, I wouldn’t want to see this in a bike lane, because as a biker, it would hurt a helluva lot more to get in a collision with. Might even be too wide for the lane. But I wouldn’t want it in the street, either, as it would be too slow and much smaller than cars, i.e. more vulnerable. I feel like this would only really work if there was extremely widespread adoption
Yeah, definitely, and I think that’s (unfortunately) why we haven’t seen anything like this make it mainstream. Imo, they’re most compelling as a wholesale replacement for private cars, especially in dense urban neighborhoods. Instead of 2-ton chunks of steel hurtling by at 50 km/h, have a 100-kg (?) glorified tricycles cruising at 25 km/h. The lower top speeds would not only be great for general safety, but it would also discourage them becoming too dominant (like cars have), as they’d be too slow to allow for super long commutes from all the way out in the sprawling suburbs; instead, people would use them for shorter trips and use rapid transit for longer trips.
But with current bike lanes and car-dominated streets, I don’t think we’re likely to ever see something like this take off. It would definitely take a very forward-thinking and committed city council to build the infrastructure to make these viable.
The closest existing thing I’m aware of is Peachtree City, GA, aka the city of golf carts: https://youtu.be/pcVGqtmd2wM?si=6mqxbwk98vj6ItJo
I don’t think we’re likely to ever see something like this take off
This has already taken off, just not with people: https://www.google.com/search?q=lastenrad+paketzustellung&tbm=isch
https://cargo.mubea-umobility.com/
And yes, they are a bit of an issue, but way less than ordinary delivery vehicles parking on bike lanes and sidewalks.
Most of the places these make sense it would make even more sense to have a good public transit system. What is left if camp grounds, flee markets, golf courses…
Death trap, oh come on…
Apart from this here obviously being some prototype/DIY/research project, it’s pretty much the same as a delivery bike, e.g.: https://cargo.mubea-umobility.com/
Are those death traps? How many people have died in there? How many people have been killed by them?
Even fully loaded and at top speed, which is commonly limited at 25km/h in the EU, it maybe has 5 times the kinetic energy of a “normal bike”.
A car at 50 km/h easily has 100 times the kinetic energy of a bike.
Yes, if you run that thing into a pedestrian, that probably wouldn’t go well. But those accidents, even in countries with lots of cargo bikes, are extremely rare, all things considered.
Honestly?
Seems kinda dumb, batteries weigh a lot, so I would assume that most of the energy used here is just to move the batteries along.
The solar panels panels provide highly limited ammount of recharging.
Having to pedal to make it go means needing either a generator or a transmission, both quite heavy, wasting more energy.
I would get rid of the pedal part, and just use it as an electrical cart.
The solar panels are not totally crap, they will be able to provide some charging when everything else fails.
I would rather see a concept I saw in Taiwan, where they have electical mopeds with quick change batteries, the range would be lower, but you would just go to a charge point, check in your used batteries to recharge and checkout freshly charged batteries.
Yep it looks like it’s trying to do 4 different things, and it’s doing all of them badly
I would rather see a concept I saw in Taiwan, where they have electical mopeds with quick change batteries, the range would be lower, but you would just go to a charge point, check in your used batteries to recharge and checkout freshly charged batteries.
Ohh I saw a video on that recently, think it was called Gogoro or something. Really neat system. One of those batteries would be pretty heavy compared to a normal ebike battery though, about ~25kg vs 5-10kg
It was Gogoro I saw!
But the bike I saw used two smaller batteries rather than one large, presumably for to reduce the weight of each battery making the systwm accessible to more people.
Biggest concern: parking the beast
Judging from this video, you could probably fit 4 or 5 in a standard car parking space. Obviously takes more room than a bike, but tbh I see these more as a car-replacement vehicle than a bike-replacement vehicle. Plus, these would weigh so much less than cars that it would probably be waaaay more cost-effective to build vertical parking garages for these things (like the ones in the Netherlands for bikes) than for cars.
This seems to be in answer of a very narrow use-case. Supposing this seats four people, the same could be achieved with four ebikes with the benefit that each could go their own way at any point.
Size-wise is not too concerning to me, being only 2 meters long by 0.85 meters wide. That’s about the width of a tricycle but longer, so it might still fit into bike lanes and many bike racks. The 80 kg curb weight is somewhat alarming though, due to the risk of this large machine impacting a pedestrian with its many metal surfaces.
This is also remarkable for the use-case it doesn’t seem to enable: disabled mobility. Other designs for minicar-esque things have been deployed in the Netherlands that are smaller than this, to efficiently move a single individual with reduced mobility, while meshing with the rest of the public.
In lieu of this machine, I would rather like to see laws loosened to allow a family of four to firmly couple their ebikes together single-file. This essentially becomes a bicycle train, with all the attendant efficiency gains. Cargo needs are still better served by cargo tricycles, like what UPS and DHL have deployed in urban areas worldwide.
TL;DR: I’m not seeing the killer feature here
An electric Tuk-tuk would be a much better solution for several passengers.
If it’s electric it won’t go tuk-tuk. But yes.
That pedalling position seems SO awkward, you can’t really put much effort in, so this thing is really just an electric-drive vehicle.
It’s carrying a solar panel around, which is stupid. Better to strip the weight of the panel/converter/frame and either charge it at a stationary panel or an outlet.
It looks really awkward to get into. The seats is obviously far too high for the lady in the back, and the leftroom too short for the guy in front.
It’s a crappy electric rikshaw, built by someone who’s never seen a rikshaw.
It’s OK… I’m more in for this rig
https://www.greenenergytimes.org/2014/06/rhoades-car/
Driving with a mate, he/she can have a beer and we cruise along. But a tray in the back to go to the Hardware store and pick stuff up.
I’ve seen them locally but no solar, only pedal power. Even had the drink holders in the console and a key for the lights 😅
Surely the weight of the solar panel cuts more into the battery life than the panel could possibly generate.
Otherwise why wouldn’t we have solar panels on electric cars now.
Why are the legs outside of the frame?
To protect the front of the vehicle in case of a crash
I had to read this three times and then I started laughing.
It looks flimsy as fuck I would not want to drive one of these plus considering they’ve got only four seats no protection from the outdoors and from crashes and no where to store any items there isn’t much in the way of practicality as well something like this would probably fail in an instant
The bigger and less convenient it is to store/repair/move with, the less likely it will be used by ordinary people.
Micromobility “devices” are the opposite of cars: People with cars/trucks too big for their needs will still find ways to use them, but people with bikes/scooters will get more practical use out of them when they are compact and easy to manage.
I can see this particular vehicle being an alternative to a rickshaw or city cab for tourists, but not a family.
Weirdest tadpole I’ve ever seen, I kinda like it.
