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Comment by wazoox | Hacker News Reader

Interestingly, there seems to be an obvious modern recreation, the Microlino:

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.

same story behind that funny Mr. Bean car

Exploit loophole? L7e class seems very intentional, and the vehicles are pretty much explicitly designed for those?

    > Der Ellenator ist der erste PKW, der mit 16 Jahren gefahren
    > werden darf, da er trotz 4 Räder als „Dreirädriges Fahrzeug“ 
    > Fahrzeugklasse L5e eingestuft ist.

    > The Ellenator is the first car that may be driven at the age 
    > of 16, because it is classed as a "three-wheeled vehicle" in 
    > vehicle class L5e despite having four wheels.

Registering a four-wheeled car according to regulations for three-wheeled cars sounds like exploiting a loophole to me.

It's an ordinary Fiat 500 modified to be qualified as a 3-wheeler. Looks very much like loophole exploitation to me.

I've never driven a quadricycle, but I have heard from someone that they are actually harder to drive than an actual car. I think it was mostly due to its transmission.

Then there's the fact that they offer pretty much no crash protection and they can be legally operated starting at the age of 15. They are definitely dangerous.

There was an incident where an older Mercedes-Benz minivan [1] crashed into a quadricycle [2] in 2017. The 34-year-old man driving the minivan was drunk and suicidal and attempted to kill himself by crashing himself to an oncoming car. The result was that the two 17-year-olds in the quadricycle died immediately and the man got minor injuries.

[1] https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/a659907378c54818bbc915e...

[2] https://is.mediadelivery.fi/img/1920/2965ca321c7a47758ca5a81...

Article in English about the modifications and motivation:

https://jalopnik.com/theres-actually-a-decent-reason-why-ger...

There is also the Renault Twizy. It's a two seater, but in a front-back arrangement, with doors on the sides.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Twizy

This looks great! Will these be available / street legal in the US?

Forget it. The thing has no crumple zone.

Neither has a motorcycle. Might make wearing a helmet mandatory though in most states ...

A motorcycle has the distinct advantage you don't remain inside it during the collision, but continue on a ballistic trajectory from the point you separate from the vehicle.

The front seats can be mounted on top of a rigid structure that's pushed back in case of a front collision, giving enough crumple space. The lack of side doors make that solution much easier, allowing a rigid sliding cage around the passengers. The anchoring of the cage can be at the middle of the front of the car, pulling it to crumple inwards, absorbing more energy from the impact and building a denser structure in front of the passengers.

The problem is that if you start pushing on a rigid structure, then this will exert a force on the person in that structure.

It may make deceleration higher but reduces the odds of hitting the inside of the car.

But that relies on passengers wearing seatbelts. This may be one of the reasons it requires changes for the US.

A bit to my surprise, https://microlino-car.com/en/support/faq/ist-der-microlino-i... says “Due to a different legal situation in the USA, the Microlino US version will have to undergo some design changes”

I would guess it would be road legal in the USA, at least in some states, if it were an oldtimer.

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