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Comment by ARandomerDude | Hacker News Reader

It would be awesome if you had something like a bicycle, only more comfortable that could hold you, a friend, and some of your things. You could enclose it to protect you from the weather, too. For longer distances, or people with disabilities, you could add some mechanical contraption in case you can't pedal that far.

That'll be the day.

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Some of those already exist! At increasing levels of car-like-ness:

* https://www.wired.com/gallery/best-electric-cargo-bikes/

* https://www.contemporist.com/5-examples-of-enclosed-bike-des...

* https://www.arcimoto.com/

(Studiously ignoring parent's intended snark)

In all seriousness, I'm expecting an explosion of these new light vehicle body types in the coming decades, as global trends of cheap electric drive + batteries, increasing urban congestion, and less car-oriented urban planning trends converge

"I'm expecting an explosion of these new light vehicle body types in the coming decades, as global trends of cheap electric drive + batteries, increasing urban congestion, and less car-oriented urban planning trends converge"

Don't motorcycles already serve that purpose? Its already the chief form of personal transportation in most of the Earth's population.

The problem I see with all the concepts you posted is that they have all the drawbacks of a car and a motorcycle. They would fare as well as a motorcycle in a crash, and have almost the same footprint as a small car. Also, a motorcycle will handle much better than a trike with narrow tracks and short wheelbase at higher speeds.

Then, there are electric assist bicycle. They have two main problems that small motorcycles/scooters don't suffer from. A 350lb scooter/motorcycle is much harder to steal than a 50lb electric bicycle. I own a rather expensive electric assist mountain bike that I don't feel comfortable parking it out of my sight. You can't travel on the highway with electric bicycle unlike motorcycles.

I think you might be underestimating the size of a modern car -- they're huge!

By small car I meant Smart ForTwo, or Fiat 500. These not-a-car trikes/quads have comparable footprint to these cars. Which isn't small enough to fit in-between 2 lanes.

Sure, but those are exceptions to the modern car size, and the median car size on the street is far bigger than that. If everyone would switch to Fiat 500 sized cars, that would be an amazing start.

It seems to be very hard to produce such a vehicle that is affordable and doesn‘t look like something only seniors would use. Most attempts fail at both. The Pedilio https://www.pedilio.de/ looks quite ok but will be too expensive from what i‘ve seen. The cheapest new cars cost less than 8000€, making an ebike more expensive than that is a hard sell.

Riding a bike is also comfortable and fun, you should try it! I regularly see people with disabilities use all kinds of modified bikes in my city, as well as parents dropping off kids in cargo bikes. Yeah it doesn't work for every usecase but the bike is a pretty amazing piece of tech thats been around way longer than cars and will likely outlast them.

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