$4k Renault compared to Tesla Model 3
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
If you're in a place where everyone drives a moped or bicycle and cars are rare, then mopeds are a lot safer. Stick the moped in traffic surrounded by clueless SUV drivers and now the moped is a death-trap.
Go to a place where everyone rides a bicycle and there's no cars and I guarantee the fatality-per-mile rate is ridiculously low. See downtown Copenhagen for example.
That said walking is very dangerous per mile, but cars get a lot more miles on them.
Maybe I'm just dense but how does that invalidate parent's point? Based on what you are saying (difference in trip length), it appears that fatalities per mile actually does a better job (than fatalities per trip) at representing the relative safety of different classes of vehicles...
Because cars kill a lot of pedestrians, but those count more vs people walking than vs people driving due to the relative distances involved.
Having a slower vehicle doesn't always mean safer, despite contrary belief -- I can get out of the way of a car merging into my lane far easier on my motorcycle than any moped rider can.
Still, better safety rating than a scooter, and that's the most important part (next to way better emission control, as scooters generally use nasty 2-stroke engines).
That is a job for the government to actually hire and train cops to enforce traffic rules (red lights, DUI, right-of-way)...
Is it? I mean maybe it is, I don't know, but I'm guessing you don't really know either. I can imagine that maybe a scooter could be safer than a very bad car. You can get crushed in a car, cars go faster, you've got less situational awareness.
I'm not sure this is one of those things that is just obviously true.
Situational awareness is a thing, though - especially in extremely crowded traffic.
But the scooter beats traffic jams.
In my experience, motorcycle riders are much less attentive to blinkers and take a lot more risks on the road.
This affects all drivers.
However, AFAIK, in most of the USA (that's it, not in California) motorcycle riding is a lot more strict, with regard to lane-splitting. Only where lane-splitting is banned I can agree with your point.
In most of the world, where lane-splitting is the norm, my point stands.
Cars are slow to crush. If you're involved in a collision while on a scooter, you don't have a crumple zone to slow down whatever might be eventually hitting you.
Cars have seatbelts. If you're hit on a scooter, you are more likely to be thrown out of the vehicle, compared to being hit while in a car. Being thrown out of a vehicle is not good for your survival rate.
I actually have no clue what safety features scooters have, if any. Cars have a ton.
In the UK you can drive a scooter at 16 but not a car until 17. Is that because they are safer for an inexperienced driver and other road users?
(Personally I'd rather ride a scooter than drive a tiny car in a dense urban area, because my awareness is much higher on a scooter, and also I've ridden scooters around London for a decade.)
The problem is, even if no new ones are sold, there will be a mass of old 2-stroke scooters being used/sold until they break...
There is one more important thing its urban parking spaces. You can never build enough car parking for India's urban population density. This is apart from the fact that scooters give better mileage(Motorcycles even better).
My Bajaj discover 150cc gives 60-70 kilometers/litre.
India's drivers are actually pretty awesome, but they've had cars for a lot longer. Still. More people driving and perhaps being the first in their families to actually own a car means bad news.
Not that I see any good solution other than waiting a few generations, widespread driver's ed is probably cost prohibitive. Still. Ugh.
It will be no more socially acceptable to jaywalk in front of an autonomous car than it would be to cut in line. (And yes, I know, line-cutting is rampant in China... but in India?)
Once in Bangalore airport I brought it to the attention of a guy who just did it, and he said "do you know where you are? You're in India, man."
I love India, but this one aspect is frustrating sometimes. (Along with the mini war that happens when boarding/disembarking local trains)
But yeah, totally, let's blame cars.
There is no “dominance game” – unless you’re trying to dominate the random cows standing in the street, negotiate a path around some random trash fire in the road, avoiding getting ensnarled in a swarm of tuk-tuts or navigating streets with potholes the size of Rhode Island or buses that will deftly try to squeeze you onto the sidewalks without any regard for anything else. Then there is the sea of people flowing along and through the road like refugees fleeing Smyrna.
India is not Brooklyn or San Jose.
I think they are, they just don't care in that part of the world. I remember in Cambodia seeing the Lexus SUVs constantly almost running pedestrians and riders over, if you can afford a Lexus in Cambodia, you can afford to get out of trouble for running someone over (although most of the owners had drivers, who would end up taking the fall).
Sorting by the second column gives a good picture about which country has more dangerous drivers. And Thailand is #2... so your claim tracks well against this reality.
I'd guess wealthy drivers simply paid the deceased's family (and the police if necessary), or in other cases the pedestrian or cyclist was blamed entirely and the accident not recorded as a motor vehicle accident.
If you looked at the page, the road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles ranks Thailand somewhere in the middle out of all countries.
One of the best ways to make roads safer would be to just let people drive less. The US has fairly safe roads per VMT (by world standards), but people end up driving a lot more than in most other places, which negates this somewhat.
Of course, one problem is that despite being a very small percentage of the distance traveled, people walking account for 22% of deaths. http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
In 2015 they had the largest car industry in SE Asia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_Thailan...
Yeah, god forbid the masses get access to effective means of personal transportation. /s
Regarding a skateboard.. seriously? Effective isn’t just about energy consumption, it’s about time as well. A five mile trip on a skateboard doesn’t sound very “effective” and it’s pretty much impossible in a place like India. Riding a bicycle in India (or a motorcycle) is also rather ineffective unless you want to be scorched by the unrelenting sun and covered with the ubiquitous dirt and dust. If you have a child, it becomes even more ridiculous.
For a single person going from point A to B with zero cargo, a bike or motorcycle might be effective, but as a primary means for family transportation, it’s ludicrous.
“Effective” means safe, reliable and multipurpose, not “smallest possible footprint.”
Case
In the immediate cities sure. But go outside to the "highways", and it's like Mad Max out there. Seriously. Everyone is hauling ass on no lane roads, passing each other constantly into oncoming traffic. Also NO ONE wears seat belts. I had to demand them in cars that were picking me up. Usually they were either disconnected, or hiding away never used. It's terrifying.
If the cars drive themselves and we are then less rushed as we can entertain/work during a drive, will lower speeds be accepted? And if they're safer as a result of the self-driving and lower speed, could a cheaper shell work? And even more so if price is a primary consideration and you don't own the car?
In Australia, a scrape on your car feels like the beginning of the end. In Europe, where people cram into tiny parks out of necessity, bumps and scrapes seem more like a fact of life.
Also, if we think of other road users, less safe cars might encourage the driver to drive more carefully and less likely to endanger others.
Edit: I mean that in the context of India where cars, mopeds, bikes, tuk-tuks, and pedestrains intermingle. See the image in the article.
I really hope you intended this as satire. Over a million people die each year in road traffic accidents because people aren't perfect and have accidents. Feeling safe in a car has very little to do with how safe the car itself it, and more to do with how "normal" travelling in a car feels.
Also, the driving and road culture in most lower income developing countries are very different from those in developed countries.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-lock_braking_system#Eff...
"Anti-lock brakes are the subject of some experiments centred around risk compensation theory, which asserts that drivers adapt to the safety benefit of ABS by driving more aggressively. In a Munich study, half a fleet of taxicabs was equipped with anti-lock brakes, while the other half had conventional brake systems. The crash rate was substantially the same for both types of cab, and Wilde concludes this was due to drivers of ABS-equipped cabs taking more risks, assuming that ABS would take care of them, while the non-ABS drivers drove more carefully since ABS would not be there to help in case of a dangerous situation.[26]"
edit: plus, it can hardly be worse than 6 children in a moped... http://www.nydailynews.com/news/overloaded-vehicles-gallery-...
Given that this car is targeting people who own 2-wheelers and want to upgrade, I'd still say it is a safer option
Reminds me of the Tata Nano (also 0 stars): https://youtu.be/buMXtGoHHIg
Also Volkswagen was selling the Polo in India without airbags??
You just don't want to make the passenger part of the crumple zone, which appears to be what Renault has done here.
1. Can a 190 of that vintage be had for $4k now? IMO, that is a better investment than the Renault.
2. Could a car company license to build that 190 in India now at a low cost? That would have saved a lot of the design cost and provided folks a safe design.
1 is true, but I assume the Renault will have a warranty, dealer support etc
2 I'd doubt it. Older Mercs were over engineered (the last of which was the w124) - it's not rare to still see them today, whereas other marques from the era are in scrapyards
In the Global NCAP page above, it seems that the Kwid was re-tested and in subsequent tests, it looks like the passenger cell retained its integrity.
The other week I was in Armenia, and although the average wage is $400/mo, you see more BMWs and Mercedes on the road than you do in the U.K. Admitidely the climate helps, as you don't need to worry about rust in most of country.
In order to have a car in such a good condition, you have to take care of it. Not just mandatory service intervals, but really take care about every detail.
The same thing happens everywhere, a country goes through a period of wild-west capitalism, then, if things go well, eventually it gets rich enough to be able to afford things like safe products, worker safety laws, a social safety net, and so on. I am not aware of any country that has gone straight from non-industrialized to safe industrialization.
For that money I'd rather buy a used Toyota with actual airbags.
Summary: new car introduced at same price as current leading car in category, but with a bit more room and slightly nicer, and they give you cake when you pick it up.
Literally, that's the whole article.
> Short of a supercar delivery, I have never witnessed such time and effort spent on a customer. Actually, that’s the jaded American in me talking. Power Renault Kattupakkam didn’t spend this time and effort. They devoted it. They invested it, in a way merely given lip service during the sales training most American salespeople allegedly get, and which clearly isn't building goodwill with customers.
> In the US, everything about the car ownership experience — from research to negotiation to delivery to service — has been utterly and depressingly commoditized. Any positive emotional relationship between sellers and buyers has been sacrificed on the altar of efficiency. With rare exceptions — generally limited to the ultra high-end — the American buying experience is a circle of resentment. It’s I want your time vs. I don’t have much time.
I'm tired of feeling jaded about the American car buying experience so hearing something like this is very refreshing.
I was fascinated by the priest coming in to conduct puja as part of ceremonially handing the car over to the new owners. While it probably won't fly in America, it is this blending of modern and traditional that is lacking when we commoditized everything.
5 Paragraphs later:
It would be the same price as the sector-leading Maruti Suzuki, but with more space. It would include a 7” infotainment system with a touchscreen. It would have real ground clearance. It would resemble a smaller version of Renault’s wildly popular Duster SUV.
New sexy features don't make something disruptive. Sure, it may pan out to be a popular vehicle, but disruptive? because it has infotainment?... spare us.
It is an interesthing thing to write about, but the voice here is wrong.
Seems exactly what the world needs right now.
(1) when the car and the ICE advanced so many other places of the world, we didn't have alternative technologies. Now we do,
(2) climate change is already underway, with mid-term scenarios ranging from very worrying to catastrophic,
(3) the population densities and city sizes in those places of the world where ICE cars saw a boom in the last century were nowhere near that of India. A car-centric model in cities over 10M population is a disaster,
(4) for this reason the most comparable example would be China, who is experiencing massive pollution problems in cities, and has already reacted with traffic-restricting laws and the rapid construction of metropolitan mass-transit networks and a high-speed rail network.
I get the argument that it's unfair for the West to deny to others what we already experimented in the past, but I really don't think it's in the interest of India (even ignoring global factors like climate change) to become a massively polluting car-centric society. We know better now, the way forward is not to reenact the West's 80s, it's to take advantage of not having made the West's errors to skip that and embrace newer tech and trends directly (just as landlines were skipped in so many countries).
“In India,” he said, “you cannot look or be strange. Choosing a new entrant is a risk. You have to be careful with your money. A new product must be different.”
Isn't this contradicting itself? What I understood from this article is (1) Renault are selling the cheapest possible standard looking car and (2) They do localized, ritualistic sales & delivery which appeals to their buyers.
Seems to me that this is a story about a car that isn't trying to disrupt anything or be any more radical than absolutely necessary to meet its price/cost goals. It is trying to bring standard low cost Renaults to India.
The article mentions the Tata Nano, a more radical low cost concept. It could also have mentioned the Twizy, Renault's current attempt at a tiny lower cost car radically different from other models. Both of these stretch the standard definition of "car" and you might call them disruption attempts. The Kwid is explicitley trying to do the opposite.
The current suite of car types (budget hatchback, family sedan, SUV..) is fairly stable. This is probably because use cases have remained the same, the technology has remained similar & underlying economic factors of production haven't changed much.
Two things could change that: EV technology & AV technology, especially AV.
For example, if most passenger cars are autonomous taxis, we might see more specialized designs. Slow, single seaters for urban travel. Larger comfort vehicles for longer distance travel.. etc. That would be disruptive.
I'm also wondering how long that friendly attitude - and the traveling pop-up repair program - will last. Once everyone wants one of these, you no longer have to cajole people.
Well, I guess it's a good thing the article isn't about westerners, let alone introverts...
Hope it works out for them - seems like a fun little car.
1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-honda-results-idUSKCN0Y40...
There's actually a lot to be said for having only one supplier. It's not for nothing that Deming advocated for this. See e.g. http://michelbaudin.com/2012/09/17/demings-point-4-of-14-end... supplier
So talking about "quality cars" for $4000 here seems totally surreal. And that that would be disruptive is even more of a strange observation.
The author sure has an interesting story to tell, but the conclusions, title etc of the article shows of actual lacking good journalism/storytelling.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/6-surprising-facts-ab...
However, there are other estimations around that make India's middle class much smaller, say ~25M
http://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ind...
Yes, both of those are real problems but if you look at the economic data from India there is a rapidly growing middle class that can now afford something better than a $600 two stroke engine scooter. When you have a population of 1.2 billion, even if a large majority remain in relative poverty, the disposable income and buying power of the new middle class is not something companies are going to ignore. India is a fascinating study in contrasts, the gap between rich and poor is incredibly huge. There's a domestic space program that was capable of sending a probe to Mars, yet designated defecation streets are a real thing. It seems surreal because it is, but that's been the status quo there for a very, very long time.
People get far too excited by Tesla's brand, when there are really competitive EVs out there.
Feel free to AMA about EVs or how mine compare.
As with Teslas, charging time depends on the charger's powerand whether you want 80% or 100%.
Zoes support chargers up to 43kW and home chargers up to 22kW ("Wallbox"), Tesla's superchargers are 120kW and home chargers are up to 19.2kW (though IIRC that requires the $k High Amperage Charger Upgrade)
That gives the Zoe a charge-time of just over three hours (as we have a 22kWh battery) versus over 13 hours for the Model X. That's 35 miles of charge an hour for the Zoe, and 21 miles of charge an hour for the Model X.
The Zoe can fast-charge at up to 43kW on motorway service stations, whilst the Model X and charge at 120kW. In the UK there are way more locations with fast-chargers the Zoe can use than there are Tesla superchargers.
Either 22 or 41.
I've only been able to get the Model X because I've been irresponsible with money, and because we IT folk get paid more than we're worth to society.
Under his model, the marketplace disruptor attacks from the bottom. The challenging product is demonstrably, objectively worse in one or more ways than the incumbent.
If introduced into the US, the Kwid would indeed be a marketplace disruptor. But in India, where the article itself points out that relatively few cars are driven, the Kwid is a luxury item.
In this view, neither anything Tesla has offered nor the Kwid should be considered disruptive. They're both vulnerable to a determined, capable incumbent.
safety = mass of your car / average mass of collisionable vehicles + C, where C is a constant that describes how safe the car would be driving the road alone
The safest world is one where you have a tank and everybody else walks.
It's $3-5k to replace airbags after an accident, for example. The Kwid lacks them entirely.
I've wondered if less safe vehicles (lighter, cheaper, smaller) could be made and required NOT to be on high speed roadways (above 45mph, freeways, etc.), or just have the US admit their regs are too strenuous.
When will this big government madness end. When will the US admit their regs are too strenuous so we can finally buy our cut rate industrial runoff baby formula in peace.
Your sarcasm would have made a valid point if modern sedans were the low bar in vehicular safety in the US.
Spoilers, The Versa is totalled, but the driver can probably survive. The Tsuru has the front half obliterated and the crash test dummy's skin comes out. No airbags on the Tsuru, but who cares, the car body can't survive the crash anyway.
It'd probably be very easy to strip out the catalytic converter, airbags, ABS, no-stick upholstery, and a bunch of other modern stuff from a Toyota Yaris to get it below the $10k line. It wouldn't make a huge amount of sense, even if you didn't care about safety and emissions. A lot of that modern stuff (engine management! corrosion resistance!) is responsible for cars lasting so much longer than they used to, with relatively little maintenance required.
The stuff about the Renault is interesting, but all the "what these unthinking Musk fanboys don't realize..." is obnoxious and doesn't add anything to the article.
Citation needed.
And the Kwid would probably injure yourself and anyone driving with you... but, there's a version with ABS and Airbags, so the GP has a point.
https://auto.ndtv.com/news/renault-kwid-1-litre-variant-to-c...
Edit: by the way, I owned a Maruti Alto, and now own a Renault Twingo. I'd say it's surprisingly safe.
Clearly this guy hasn't walked into a Chrysler dealer and asked "How much horsepower can I get with four doors?"
Meanwhile, look at all the energy (and human time) being put into selling one car, but the streets and surrounding areas are covered in trash and worse.
I would much rather see these car salespeople doing what "The Ugly Indian" (see Facebook for group) is doing - cleaning up and decorating disgusting areas and teaching people by example how not to trash their home environments.
That being said, the ceremony looks a little too elaborate compared to what typically happens—the car is covered in flowers, and the dealership guy ceremoniously hands over a symbolic oversized key to the buyer. Pooja may or may not happen.
I know that in the UK, I bought a new BMW and we came in, my wife got flowers, the car was covered and she got to pull it off to 'reveal' it, and the vendor took a good 1/2 hour explaining all the gadgets etc. So no flowers on the car and priest onboard, but definitely 'ceremonious' enough.
I dunno if it's standard in the US, but Indians typically also distribute sweets to friends and neighbors to 'celebrate' the purchase.
Surely the irony must be intentional.
How do you know?