A large portion of the public opinion in those countries see those mini-cars as a safer 4-wheel alternative.
I'm not saying that those mini-cars are safe or that they are great for the environment, just putting things into perspective for people who are not familiar with the situation in Europe.
[1] I don't have official statistics but anecdotally I can say that as a teenager, almost everyone I knew had modified their moped or scooter.
I personally hate "unnecessary" noise, like a neighbour drilling on Sunday morning, but I don't mind big cities buzz.
In hindsight, I'm happy that I wasn't allowed to drive it at age 14 without a license; I'm pretty sure that I would have killed somebody...
I also don’t get how these are supposed to be safe for 14 year olds and pedestrians.
I had to get a license at 16 to drive a 125cc (both theoretical and actual driving test) and many of my peers had taken a smaller test (theoretical only) at 14 to drive their 50cc.
I am satisfied that such exams are now mandatory and helmets are mandatory too.
It's electric, the weight is likely due to the battery.
The tiny cube is still tiny - way easier to control (and avoid) on narrow streets.
I’ve heard this claim many times, but more often than not it was just a random mechanic who charged a few hundred euros to put a different speedometer with inflated readings.
I modded some of my own motorbikes to improve air intake, changing the exhaust, and other minor things but I consider those to be in the realm of “cosmetics” (audible cosmetics?) rather than real major performance changing.
I just don’t see how you could bore out an extra 50% of displacement on engines made so cheaply.
OTOH, a couple of moped accidents have quickly taught me to pay a lot of attention to other vehicles and to somehow anticipate their behavior. It's a risky but effective school.
As a parent of a current 14yo, I notice that her and her friends show almost no interest in mopeds or any form of autonomous transportation, while for us it was a must have - either you parents gave you one, or you kept relentlessly for fighting for it. I don't know what to make of it.
If anything, the enclosed body might make it more boring, and thus more likely to be driven slowly.
Edit: Ah, never mind. I just had a look around myself. I think what I've seen are Renault Twizzys, judging from the pictures I found online. There seem to be quite a few of them in Bologna, for some reason.
JFYI:
Anyway, 2 stroke motors were also easily tunable, and people used to change the escape, carburetor, even sometimes the cilinder was changed to have more power on those little machines.
Anecdotally neither me, nor anyone I knew, had their mopeds modded to exceed the limiter
I see a lot more of suits-on-a-tmax and deliveroo-like drivers these days. Oh, and quite a few of those loud-right-out-of-the-box cars and motorcycles.
There is a fair amount of difference even between various states in the US, and I imagine that the difference between European states is much more significant. Difficult to generalize.
"Seven countries require children to be 14 years (Estonia, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Portugal)"
and this is only EU members, other non-members such as Switzerland also have 14yo minimum age for mopeds.
In addition,
"Ten Member States allow children aged 15 years to acquire a driving license for a moped (Austria, Czechia, Germany, Spain, Finland, Croatia, Lithuania, Sweden, Slovenia and Slovakia)."
which is just one year older, so I would say it's a very similar situation.
Source: https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2017/mapping-minimum-ag...
Maybe 45kmh was the best trade off between lethality and speed?
Used small cars are cheap and they come with all the safety features that have been around and mandated for decades. They are infinitely more safe than these plastic boxes. Just tack a safety triangle in the back of the car to warn others of the slow speed. When the young person turns 18 they could just have the speed limiter removed and continue driving the same car.
Sweden has a local exception that allows turning old cars into tractors that 16-year-olds can drive. There are other limitations and those are really slow, and building tractors out of old Volvos doesn't sound too unsafe.
Isn't this 16 in most countries?
> have post-market modifications installed, either at home or by unscrupulous mechanics, in order to go much faster.
Which is ridiculously stupid, as it voids any insurance you have (obligatory at least in Germany) and may prevent you from ever getting a driving licence if caught by police.
With 45km/h you are seen as an obstacle by cars and they overtake you in dangerous ways.
By the way in cities average speed is very low. For instance in London the average speed within a mile of the city center dropped 1.22mph from an average of 6.35mph in 2016 to just 5.13mph in 2017.
https://fleetworld.co.uk/average-driving-speeds-plummet-in-u....
speed limits is usually 50km/h and there are 30km/h zones.
These cars are not allowed on high speed roads, such as highways.
Ami has never been created for teenagers , it was created by Peugeot to compete in the 'Licence Free EV' space.
Most owners of those vehicles are adult living in Urban Areas, not '14 years old'.
It's sad people keep focusing on 'Headlines' these days instead of taking a step back and actually reading the article...
I think at one point in the past, HN allowed titles to be rewritten to reflect the actual content, vs. having to strictly stick to the original title.
While it was a bit controversial, as it left some trust to the OP, and sometimes resulted in debate, I do miss that it didn’t give clickbait titles the satisfaction of sensationalism, at least here.
I often wish we were still allowed to do that.
So much so that the car I drive the most via car sharing and that I'd like to buy is a smart fortwo.
And I rode a bicycle at the same time - me and my friends used to cycle 2-3 times per week, 100-120km per day, just for fun. But that's not a good option to go with friends to a cinema, when the nearest one is 45 minute bicycle ride away along major roads. A scooter improved that ability immensly, and I'm sure a small car will as well.
45 minutes doesn't seem like a big deal, most people, especially in cities, probably live a lot closer to a cinema, and the main issue is dangerous main roads without sufficient cycle infrastructure.
Taming car traffic in cities and providing easy to use cycle infrastructure would be enormously more beneficial across the board that a competition for "fast as legally possible" mini cars and scooters, even electric ones.
I didn't get my drivers licence until I was 23 and I didn't miss out on anything, because I could (and did) travel the whole country via train and bus - despite growing up in the countryside. The train station was just under 2km away and that helped immensely and had regular service (2 times an hour) to the nearest cities.
People forget that bike riders, once its past a certain amount of distance will sweat + are exposed to the elements. Sure ebikes help with this. But nobody in my country is going to go to work in a full suit + on a bike.
When considering what the right direction is, you should consider convenience, but also environmental impact. It's a trade-off to be made.
Driving home yesterday in a light rain I saw a gentleman in a bright yellow soccer shirt riding a bicycle slowly on the sidewalk. A wide stripe of dark brown mud ran up his back and onto his helmet! As I drove past I just had to laugh and wonder what the front wheel was doing to him!
No one owned a bicycle without fenders when I was young; today finding a bike with fenders is difficult. And some of today's aftermarket fenders are ridiculously flimsy.
I do not understand the absence of fenders on today's bicycles.
I know not all offices have showers, but it was something I looked for when I was deciding on a coworking space a couple of years ago.
Don’t present your opinions as facts.
Not everyone is fit to ride a bicycle, and riding a bicycle where there's cars on the road is a lot more dangerous than being in a car.
And let's stop using the word "should" for every problem out there, people are free to make their own choices.
This is true. Nor is the climate suitable everywhere, etc. However:
> riding a bicycle where there's cars on the road is a lot more dangerous than being in a car.
This is a problem that absolutely can solved by more "should". The police should police more, and the courts should be strict about endangering others with deadly weapons, even if those deadly weapons are on wheels.
> people are free to make their own choices.
People are "free" to speed, or to drive drunk, or to otherwise endanger others "where there's cars on the road". Looks like these "own choices" aren't a terribly good fit to many of the problems posed by cars.
As long as it doesn't impact too much the rest of society. For instance, people aren't free to drive a tank on the highway.
If we believe data on global warming, and if we consider it's an issue to be addressed (and most people believe both), some choices which are available now should be restricted in the future.
Quick facts about Paris:
- there is motorcycles and scooters everywhere
- most people make trips way superior to 5km to go to work or even to go out
- no one can really afford parking his car outside of it's own neighborhood, because you don't have discounts then => 35 to 50€ a day!
You can buy an 125cc scooter with heated grips and a nice warm rain cover for around 3000-4000€ (new) / 1500€ (old) with a 200-300km range and you don't need to pay parking anywhere (yet).
IMO French automakers are lost and this car has almost market. They know they can't compete with Tesla in the near feature on real electric cars. It's way too expensive, for sure it's not targeted at 14-18yo in Paris "intra-muros". Its only features are you don't have to wear a helmet / protects you from rain. It has almost the size of a gas Smart ForTwo without the speed and range to go on a weekend trip.
Only 250 parts are used compared to 30 000 for a standard car.
Source (in French) https://www.caradisiac.com/la-citroen-ami-la-meilleure-amie-...
They start selling it this year. How such a number could bring anything to the discussion ? We don't know if it will be 0 next year (if it's failure) or 200000 (if it's a success).
They're causing issues as you are allowed to park them on the sidewalk (which is already crowded by bikes).
https://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/Driving_and_parking_...
Price can be a significant step toward transport electrification.
That doesn’t seem like a good comparison, perhaps the tweezy would be closer (smaller/easier to park while a tad less comfortable, still electric and “two-wheel” category)
Con: On main arteries vehicles definitely move faster than its speed limit. I'm thinking University Ave or Spadina in Toronto.
Pro: 50 km/h (30 mph for Americans) is already the speed limit in most neighborhood streets. It would be interesting to see an Ami cut across 4 lanes to turn left on a multilane boulevard. :) But then again, Paris has tons of these multilane boulevards (like the Champs Elysee) and it seems to work there.
Con: An Ami would be treated like a bicycle except one that takes up the full width of the lane, which might annoy drivers who can't pass it.
Pro: ... which the regulatory framework technically already allows for (bike riders can take up the full lane, and motorists are supposed to allow a 3 ft buffer if passing).
Con: Canadian winters. In Southern Ontario, winter temperatures hover around -10 to -15°C (-30°C wind chill on some days).
Pro: There is a heater, and since it's an enclosed space, it should be fine if one bundles up.
Maybe it could work in denser cities like Toronto and Montréal...
Cities should subsidise these services, or at the least not charge sales tax on them.
Marketing it as a city vehicle, especially in dense Paris, seems strange to me. The only people who are going to be attracted to it in that setting are those who really hate public transport.
Many cities lack appropriate and affordable public transportation and force folks to buy a car. If you live in a town large enough to have shopping centers and you work in that same town, this car would fit well.
Unfortunately, living in a rural area actually makes these cars more difficult, at least in some places in the US. There are roads you couldn't drive on due to speed, and your commute would be longer. Unfortunately, the roads you need to take are also the roads that get snow cleared less often and seem to have a higher rate of disrepair.
We don't own a car, and used to just get everything done by bike and public transport.
But we've stopped using public transport. We do more by bike now, and use car sharing wherever that would be impossible.
I wished more people would understand this.
I can get work either via a highway, or by driving through the center of town. Besided adding to trafic in the city center, I’m also looking at an additional 30 minute drive.
In my mind by only designing these tiny city cars to urban driving, manufactures are limiting them to the extend that they are bound to fail. Instead, with minor tweaks, they could remove full size cars and help lower pollution levels.
There are other vehicles for driving on the highway, but in Europe they need crash protection and so on.
You raise a great point though, cargo bikes are much more expensive than conventional ones. I don't see why either as I'm guessing there would be a big market at a lower price point (£500 vs £300 for a conventional rather than £2500), hence the scale to make them cheap.
(Thanks for link BTW, not seen this bike before)
usrusr's comment in that thread: "And less obvious ones, like https://www.ellenator-gmbh.de/ which exists solely to exploit a legal loophole to get something that is arguably more dangerous than a car into the hands of people who are not licensed to drive a car."
In university and since, I lived in many different countries. I haven't had a long-term visa. Currently I'm in New Zealand. Here it takes 2 years to get a driving licence. If my residency visa is approved, I'll be able to start learning to drive. For now, I use an old rusty bicycle that I bought from a scrapyard for $20. It would be nice to have a vehicle like that in Paris, because it would cover my head when it rains.
Legislation was intended to educate and protect people, and that is good. The problem is that the educators realised they had a captive market, ramped up prices, and now entire market segments (foreigners, young people) are excluded. Compared to the dangers of other mobility options (e.g. scooters), I think the Ami is much safer. It would be interesting to see how it is treated in other areas of law (parking fines, collisions) compared to bicycles.
Right now, I would prefer to have this over my bike or a scooter because Indian roads are such a hell. Many people here don't even have driving license and jaywalking is common. A new emerging trend is people sticking to their phone while driving.
I would feel much safer. Even my dad get into almost accidents a few times monthly. He has been driving for decades and always maintain a stable speed of under 45kmph.
I envy countries that have driving as part of the school curriculum. I was in the same boat as you, and it's an incredible PITA to make the required logbook hours unless you have a partner or very patient friend.
I'd suggest looking into a 150cc motorcycle license, for some reason the regulations are less strict. Still won't keep the rain off your head.
If you do an advanced driving course it's 3 months
but possibly less dangerous than a moped/moto-scooter, which is what most 14 year olds drive in many European countries.
But it's not only about the passenger, is it? It is also about the pedestrian. A cube might be safer for a kid but the same cube going 45 kmph driven by an unlicensed person can be lethal to others.
Nobody's buying a car on the merit that it will protect victims of a crash that aren't in the car itself. I think that's mostly due to the cognitive dissonance that people have where they think that they're not going to be the one to cause a wreck somebody else dies in. Because if you were aware of that possibility, you'd have to be aware of your responsibility to drive safely. But driving should be cool, fun, and maybe even practical, at least that's how car companies sell their product.
Safety is only ever marketed to the consumer as something that protects them.
You are required to have a class-AM driving licence to operate these. Unlicensed driving is a criminal offence in many countries anyway so it wouldn't matter if the person drove a little cube or a fully loaded lorry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric)
It doesn't seem to be for sale in EU :(
Not exactly true: by law, employers must pay half of that amount, so most Parisian pay €38/mo for that "all-zone metro and suburban rail pass". If you don’t work, that’s free. Pretty much nobody pays the full amount.
But the target of younger people generally pay a reduced/student price anyway, which is low too.
That is not true, if you don't have the transit pass (eg. you only take your car) you are not paid 38€ more than your coworkers.
Personally, I didn't feel more in danger compared to other cars when they're around.
[1] https://www.renault.fr/vehicules-electriques/twizy.html [2] https://www.automobiles-chatenet.com/accueil.html
In fact, most of Europe for a long time had multiple tiers of licenses for "regular" cars. It's my understanding that part of the popularity of the three wheeled Reliant Robin was caused by the fact that until 2001 you could drive it with a Motorcycle license, which I presume is much easier to get than a full car license. Also, I believe it was cheap.
This can be a game changer in urban set up especially in my part of the world where it can protect the occupants from the weather that is either rain or hot.
I'm involved in an IoT project where we have a few Toyota EV COMS cars (2nd generation) that is similar in size and purpose to Ami [1]. It's a joy to drive and convenient to use if you want to travel from A to B in urban environment.
[1]https://www.newlaunches.com/archives/toyota-releases-ultra-c...
Then I saw this article and followed it up: "More disposable cars: Ignoring unintended side-effects" https://joshuaspodek.com/more-disposable-cars-ignoring-unint...
I started by saying:
> Walking around Manhattan, with many people moving out, sidewalks are overflowing with what they don’t value enough to keep. What are they disposing? Sofas, mattresses, shelves, chairs, books, televisions, printers, scanners, lamps, mirrors, plates, toasters, silverware, . . . I could go on.
> Notice anything about them? All those things used to be once-in-a-lifetime purchases. Some were high-tech wonders when introduced—now disposable. We don’t value them as much as the effort to maintain them. We turn them into pollution.
> Our market system has shifted from creating value to creating craving. People like novelty, I guess, so marketing engineers figure out how to generate craving so they can temporarily satisfy it.
> Meanwhile, markets motivate people to figure out how to deliver with lower cost. The result? Everything becomes disposable—food, plates, furniture, silverware (now plasticware), clothing, everything.
. . .
and ended with
> We don’t lack comfort and convenience. We’re choking on waste.
> We like comfort and convenience, but our world doesn’t lack it. On the contrary, we’re drowning in it. Our lack of physical activity and feeling entitled is making us depressed, obese, and sick, lacking resilience, discipline, or initiative to respond.
> History implies people will buy this product in droves, competitors will match it, the market will keep driving down cost and durability, increasing landfill waste. We will increase total waste and lower quality of life, meaning, and purpose.
The windows are a nice touch, and the identical doors and interchangeable panels are, frankly, ingenious!
Something I didn't see mentioned in the article was the range - as a city car, I guess it's not that important, but does anyone know what it is?
You can fit two such pods side by side in one of the tunnels of the Boring Company. If they run at 2 second intervals, one after the other, with an average occupancy of 1.5 people, a single tunnel can provide a peak throughput of 90 people per minute or 5400 per hour. That's about half of what a subway can handle. You could also create "formations" of pods even more tightly packed for longer cross-city links. Full computer control requires much less safety devices such as airbags - like in a subway, the crash is ruled out by proper management of trafic.
Outside the tunnels, they can blend in easily and provide a sane mass transport alternative, as opposed to congesting the city with more full sized cars. An existing row of paralel parking spots is all of a sudden a mass transport station where pods dock perpendicularly and await commuters; no need for fancy elevators, just an steep slope to the tunnels below.
I like optimism in general, but think about that for just a second. At the vehicles' top speed of ~45km/h, 2 seconds translate to an average distance of just 25m.
This leaves very little room for error and isn't enough of a safety margin.
Then there's the obvious thing which renders this idea completely impractical: have you ever tried to stop a car going at 45km/h, get out of it and have another person enter the vehicle in well under 2 seconds?
That's practically impossible.
Also, it's time to rethink cities instead of regurgitating failed concepts (e.g. individual transport within densely populated areas) over and over again. A liveable city should be made for people, not cars (no matter the size). Going through the insane effort of stuffing individual traffic underground wouldn't change anything - you'd just have your congestion during peak hours underground; it wouldn't go away, though.
Clearly the stopping and picking up of passengers is not gonna be done on the main lane. Just like with regular cars, pods exit the speed lane, enter a deceleration lane, then stop into the actual station - a series of parking spaces - where people can embark and disembark at will.
Btw, using the same optimistic math, mass transit can do 90,000 pphd (2k ppl every 90s), in reality the max is around 40K.
Also, there is a more fundamental problem with reaching high thoughtputs with mass transit: you need to force people out of optimal routes from their distributed destinations and origins, into enforced stations. This makes sense for point to point links like LA to SF, but it's very inefficient when trying to cover a 2D city: the more routes and stations you add, the less you are likely to reach peak capacity of any one link. If you are going for city-wide subway, you will pay much, much more to build large, expensive tunnels that will stay mostly idle at the perifery of the system.
Counting cars instead of people again. You should work for the department of transportation.
At peak, the 1.5 occupancy rate I factored is achievable and quite typical for car commuting.
I keep wondering how you are supposed to charge a car in an (un-specially-prepared) city if you can't afford a place in an indoors lot. Do you just throw an extension cord out your window? Do you book lamppost electricity from the local authority?
Though I guess Paris is not a place with this problem.
I've taken the bus for years at that age (10-18 years old) to go to school, I regret so much not using a bike, I could have woken up later and have more freedom (not have to wait for buses)
> ..., two young women stared open-mouthed. “How did you manage to get hold of it?” asked one. “ ... it’s environment-friendly"
Part of its appeal is to the lazy and stupid.
OTOH, riding a bicycle in Paris is not ideal, although the safety of this thing doesn't convince me either.
Meanwhile a kilometer of driving this vehicle in France has a footprint of ~7g.
The battery's manufacturing footprint sits at around 450kg of CO2 - and this is something that has to be "paid off", but it's entirely possible within the car's lifecycle.
Basically unless you're vegan, it's likely more environmentally friendly in France to drive this.
Luckily, it may not be true that this is more environmentally friendly than cycling. I would think this 485 kg car uses more road space and causes more wear and tear on roads than a 25 kg bicycle. That must count for something.
You also have to take the health benefits of cycling/the effect of more car driving on obesity into account.
We call them mini car or micro car.
A popular brand is Ligier.
The solution for traffic jams have always been mopeds here, but given their higher safety, and the price tag that was very close to a modern scooter, parents have started buying them for their children.
But they have soon become a status symbol for rich kids, the prices went up considerably (between 10k and 15k but up to 30k) and now they usually rally in some of the popular high end neighborhoods (such as Parioli) and act like gangs.
They fight for territory with those coming from other neighborhoods, spice up the engines and make a lot of noise.
To the point that they have become a nightmare for the residents and for the police.
If you are interested there are is a news video reportage about the "rich babies" generation in Rome, it's in Italian but auto generated English subtitles are not bad
Around minute 23 they talk about the mini cars
On this quote, it should be noted this is for the Ami specifically, and not for the market it is targeting.
There are other vehicles already existing in this “less than a car, more than a scooter” niche, notably Renault’s Twizy, but also makers like Aixam who build “license less” cars mostly for elderlies, people who never bothered passing the driving license or lost it at some point etc.
Perhaps the Ami is just not competitive enough to take significant market share from those, and is pigeonholed in 18- market, but the whole targetable market is larger.
But I don't think there is much to do with design, I guess all shapes have been already designed for these cars, and they all invariably end up being a sort of caricature of a "real size" car, more or less the inside needs to be big enough to house the driver and passenger (that do not and cannot shrink) whilst the outside is reduced in size as much as possible leading to things that are "stubby".
The only two exceptions I know are (like it or hate it) the already mentioned Renault Twizy that has a somewhat unconventional design and the Microlino which is a sort of (good ol') Isetta replica:
The weird design is to cut down on costs: as mentioned in the article, the doors are identical, the front and back panels are as well.
A sleek carlet wouldn't have cost 6000€.
The kids will be fine.
What a waste of energy.
If batteries improvements aren't just rumors a v2 could work.
plus I know there is big kick here on HN for bicycles but it is wholly unrealistic to rely on a mode of transport that is not useful in all weather conditions. Hell the number of people who fall into the trap that a motorcycle will save them money and then don't ride it for the same reasons is legion.
They are fun, your chance of injury is magnitudes greater though, and they are not suited for all people. This can be based on needs to carry stuff, to being secure from the weather, or being handicapped.
Sure, if you're in Dallas or Phoenix or Atlanta, it's not going to work, unfortunately.
What would insurance requirements look like for this?
