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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

This more like a two person Sinclair C5 with a roof than an actual car. It won't be allowed to go on the highway and you may have to ride it on bike paths in some countries next to national roads between towns, which is a real nuisance for the people on actual bicycles.

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In multiple countries, a lot of these vehicles cannot go on 40 MpH speed limited roads. That makes it hugely problematic for getting from A to B, even if you are willing to accept the low maximum speed or will just be on those roads momentarily. I'm not even talking about freeway/motorway driving, but even a lot of towns and cities have modestly fast roads running through them.

“ The top speed is 45 km/h (28 mph).”

Not a problem re: 40mph roads.

I’d love to have one for SF.

That's a legally mandated top speed to fit into that class of vehicle. "Brommobiel" we call them here.

That is such an annoying maximum speed. It's just shy of the speed limits of many residential areas. In Germany on towns it's generally 50kmh. On the US many roads have 30 or 35mph. This is just slow enough to be annoying to be behind and fast enough to make it not trivial to overtake.

I say this as someone who wants a commuter vehicle similar to this. It's fine for me if it cannot go on the freeway, but it must be able to not hold up traffic everywhere else.

Edit: I also prefer the shape of the Toyota iRoad. While that thing can go 37mph I think 50mph or at least 45 is the minimum to not be a nuisance.

If it were ever sold in the US, the top speed would likely be different, since it's determined by local laws rather than the tech.

I'm always surprised rich parents don't buy these for teenagers since you can drive them at any age - no need to wait till you have a driving license, and significantly more practical than a bicycle and more independance/cheaper than an uber.

Peachtree City, Georgia has an expansive golf cart road network, and is useable by teenagers. Tom Scott did a good video on the city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcVGqtmd2wM

I don't think parents in the US actually want their <16yo children to be that independent. drive themselves to/from school and sports? sure. be able to travel an arbitrarily long distance in a day? probably not.

Totally agree. While living in Berlin I used to rent Coup (now defunct) e-scooters quite a bit. They would go up to 48-50km/h. Considering that most cars drive just a hair over 50 it was right in the annoying spot you described.

45 km/h is the speed limit of the AM license that you can get while being 14 years old.

Yeah, it is and I remember being annoyed by that when I lived in Germany. Who thought it was a good idea to put vehicles on the road that are forced to go just 5kmh below the speed limit?!

In the US, we call them NEVs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

Those look like golf carts. The Citroen doesn’t so much.

Buy yourself an NEV. Those are the North American equivalent. They've been around for 20+ years.

This one doesn’t look quite so golf cart-like.

Are there not 35mph roads in SF? Every artery in LA is 35mph and between 8pm-4am and 11am-2pm you are expected to be going 45mph lest you be aggressively tailgated and immediately cut off by some asshole in a Bellinger jersey.

Most of SF is 25. They’re very different city driving experiences.

It seems like one of those cases, where very small % of people say "oh wow", and the majority of actual drivers say "oh no".

Yeah, a bit like abolishing slavery. Yet, it seems to be a good thing that we did.

What a ridiculous comment. Re-read my comment again, it's actually the opposite of what you said.

> This more like a two person Sinclair C5 with a roof than an actual car.

You bring up a good point: small cars like this with a roof should have a rack from the factory. Since they don't go fast, aero isn't an issue.

For sure. I would not want to share bike paths with it. But that is what I fear it will come to if this becomes popular.

Motorized vehicles, except electric bicycles (250W max, motor shuts off above 25km/h), are forbidden to use bike paths in France and I guess most of Europe.

Bike paths? This thing will prob go quite fast compared to a bike. That sounds like a horrible idea.

Agreed, it is a horrible idea. But vehicle class wise it is a moped where I live and those end up on bike paths.

In France mopeds aren't allowed on bike path.

I've had the misfortune of interacting with "vehicles" of this class here in Sweden a few times. (I'm guessing the one's I've seen are crappy PRC imports, legally pretending to be powered bicycles or similar.)

Every single time: They do something insanely stupid and dangerous, on actual roads. (I guess they bought this because they were too stupid to get a driver's license.)

They also tend to drive around 30 km/h at most, on roads meant for 50-80 km/h.

I can't wait until we banish them from the roads.

No safe for bicycles!! These aren’t safe on either road type.

I guess on the road they're mostly a danger to themselves. I can't imagine a real car getting more than a smallish-dent from even a head-on collision with this thing. Lots of bloody carnage though.

Liability though...

No, this class of vehicle should be banished altogether. There is enough choice already and this does not fit in well in the existing infrastructure to the point where it won't endanger the occupants and the other road users multiple times per trip. Inside a city, maybe.

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