this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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micromobility - Ebikes, scooters, longboards: Whatever floats your goat, this is micromobility
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Ebikes, bicycles, scooters, skateboards, longboards, eboards, motorcycles, skates, unicycles: Whatever floats your goat, this is all things micromobility!
"Transportation using lightweight vehicles such as bicycles or scooters, especially electric ones that may be borrowed as part of a self-service rental program in which people rent vehicles for short-term use within a town or city.
micromobility is seen as a potential solution to moving people more efficiently around cities"
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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.
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.
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.
Frankly, if you could give me airbags, aircon, heat, 2 relatively roomy seats, etc and enough trunk space for groceries in as small a package as my fat ass can reasonably fit in with as good a gas mileage as physically possible I'd be down for that. But then the cars I've owned have been things like a Geo Metro 2 seat convertible (it weighed next to nothing, the speedometer stopped at 85 and the straight-3 engine sounded like a swarm of bees that got angrier as you went faster), a Daewoo Lanos, a Kia Forte, a Scion xD (I got talked out of the iQ), and the biggest of the lot - a Toyota Avalon.