China’s Giant Market for Really Tiny Cars | Hacker News Reader

China’s Giant Market for Really Tiny Cars

wsj.com

41 pointsprostoalex36 comments

France has VSP (voiture sans permis) https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572 , Italy had something similar for age 14 and up.

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

China is simply getting more wealthy. Eastern europe went thru similar transition after the end of Russian occupation (1989). In Poland we had Fiat 126p selling at similar ~$1500 in 1992. Very popular due to price, but soon replaced by $2500 Fiat Cinquecento in 1992 as most popular, then Tico, Seicento, and Lanos. It went bigger and more expensive with time, Fabia, Panda and finally Octavia being the most popular cars.

Chinese dont buy those cars because small and electric, they buy them because thats all they can afford.

Meanwhile in North America we have a arms race where everyone is buying bigger and bigger trucks for "safety" reasons, even though they're proven to be more wildly more lethal to pedestrians in collisions.

There's no end in sight and I don't know how we turn around from this trend, but I do feel that NA cities would be a lot safer and more efficient if we and our cities were trending toward the compact sort of small kei cars (and compact, thin streets) that they have in Japan.

It's not all doom and gloom. Major American cities are also being invaded by a litany of battery powered vehicles, especially through ebike and electric scooter rental services. Some places, like here in Denver, seem to be embracing this with open arms and it could eventually help with both congestion and pollution.

Inexpensive power-dense batteries will unlock a real revolution, not just in car-like transportation, but transportation you can pick up and carry with you, or stow under your desk at work.

Electric skateboards, electric kick scooters, electric mopeds, electric giant wheels you straddle like a snowboard (OneWheel), electric unicycles, electric rollerskates... these are just a few of the device categories exploding in popularity.

I think the battery transport revolution is already upon us, it's just harder to see because it's much smaller than we expected.

Agreed, but I am not sure how receptive small cars are in the Americas just from a practicality point of view. I've sat in many vans/sedans and they feel much more cramped. My family tends to have a significantly smaller frame and we still feel cramped. I cannot imagine a typical American family fitting comfortably in there for a 10+ hr roadtrip.

>I cannot imagine a typical American family fitting comfortably in there for a 10+ hr roadtrip.

From my experience, a Honda Fit is more than enough for 2 people + more stuff than two people may possibly need for a week-long road trip. And it's the same length as a VW Beetle New.

The average US household size is about 2.5[1], and the median is 2[2]. Again, to emphasize: over half the country are either living by themselves, or with one other person.

So, a typical American family would do well with a subcompact.

[1]https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-h...

[2]https://www.statista.com/statistics/242189/disitribution-of-...

> There's no end in sight and I don't know how we turn around from this trend

Various european cities have bans on certain car categories and expand the bans further on smog days. If widespread enough it might drive people to choose cars that would still allow them to drive on such days, e.g. electrics.

>Meanwhile in North America we have a arms race where everyone is buying bigger and bigger trucks for "safety" reasons, even though they're proven to be more wildly more lethal to pedestrians in collisions.

It's not the pedestrian's safety they're worried about.

http://archive.is/OU42o

Adding outline.com before the actual URL works oo : https://www.outline.com/www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-giant-ma...

I like how the mother is holding the child while driving around the 1 min mark of the video. That being said, how is the charging infrastructure in China (In the Shan Dong area)? I know the more populated area is more apartment style than house style.

Edit: Interesting to see the car in the rest of video. I like how it uses 10 Lead Acid Batteries for the power bank.Though is concerning since it looks like an aluminum box with wheels with no safety. The extremely short bumper zone is so concerning (and no air bags). But at least its affordable enough for people to buy.

Hard to answer that one as Shandong province is the most populous province in China. Its also the third richest, the eastern parts especially so while other parts of Shandong not so much.

1. Oh my god those are so cute! It's like a kid's car, but for adults. I can only imagine trying to fit in one, my head would probably have to be stuck out the window.

2. “It’s safe,” said Ms. Li: “It doesn’t go fast enough to be dangerous.” - Oh no, not good at all! It doesn't matter how fast you are going, it matters how fast the other guy is going! The crash safety of modern cars is not an accident. It takes a lot of money to do the engineering, buy the proper materials, and put it together correctly.

>It doesn't matter how fast you are going, it matters how fast the other guy is going! The crash safety of modern cars is not an accident. It takes a lot of money to do the engineering, buy the proper materials, and put it together correctly.

I think the safety complaint is irrelevant when the alternative is a bike or moped.

It does also very much matter how fast you're going because a huge fraction of crashes only involve one vehicle.

I think it concerning because people probably think its more safe than it actually is. This is definitely no safer than a bike or moped but the outer car housing gives a much stronger false sense of safety for the user.

>This is definitely no safer than a bike or moped

Any tri- or quadricycle is most definitely safer than a bike or a moped. You can't fall off it when it's not moving, for starters.

On the other hand you can, for example, get trapped inside it while it is on fire.

There's tradeoffs here and it's not at all obvious which of the two options is safer.

Maybe they're using lap belts but the little kids certainly weren't buckled in :(

I'd say it's good enough. The average speed on a town road is like 30 to 35kph (or 18mph), much "safer" than an ebike/bike which is the primary peer traffic in these kind of places. On faster roads, these guys drive "on the shoulder" so to speak, due to their speed they cannot stay in the main road.

PS: There are now 200,000,000 electro scooters in use in China.

Many of those are actually trikes used for moving small loads around. I don't know that the 200M number is right, but at least in Shanghai and Beijing the 2Cycle gas scooters were banned, and that's not the case in the interior provinces.

I just read 200M today, before I had 100M in my notes:

https://www.accessmagazine.org/fall-2010/electric-two-wheele...

Interesting, but besides from shopping trips where I don't want to transport 10-20kg.. I don't see the point for myself. I'm going to work by bike most of the year and if I use a car I'm usually going 100 - 1000km. (Not saying I won't take the car out of sheer laziness sometimes, but I wouldn't buy one of these) Might actually be ok for 2 person trips in the city, though.

On topic of LSEVs bans: some cities simply ban "cars smaller than x and y in width and length" because poor people drive them.

and in the US, our only option is the smart fortwo, which is starts at $25K.

granted, it's better engineered, but i doubt it's 16 times better.

It actually might be better than 16x...Engineering (especially mechanical) takes a lot of time and upfront money. For instant, the smart car has a highly rated roll cage for safety [1]. It takes a lot of time and money to design and get certifications. Companies need to recover their cost somehow and make a profit.

[1] https://auto.howstuffworks.com/smart-car1.htm

Exactly, if your medical bills can easily exceed the cost of the car, safety should be a bigger concern.

I am not sure if it's true or not but I have anecdotally heard from a local car dealer that exported large volumes of compliance EVs to EU telling me that Mercedes actually owns the lithium battery in the Smart fortwo eletric drive as a purchaser you are "leasing" the lithium ion battery. So the actually cost of the vehicle is more like upper bound of 30k, close to 40k range, far exceeding the MSRP.

In Europe smaller "cars" (they are not actually cars) do exist, they are limited in speed/power (they can be electric or gasoline or diesel) to be compliant to the Law and they can be driven (it depends I believe in which states) either without license or with a "simplified" driving license that you can get as early as 14 years (or 16 years for the more performing types).

BUT they tend to be very expensive (when compared to what they offer) and - basically - are mainly "toys" for rich kids or in some cases, used by people that for one reason or the other cannot have a "full" driving license.

Only as an example/reference:

https://www.aixam.com/en/

Very interesting. https://www.aixam.com/en/range/discover/legislation has some legal background. Is there anything similar in the US? Brings to mind some retirement communities such as Celebration, FL, where golf carts apparently outnumber cars. IMO it ought be much harder to get and keep a license to drive a full-speed vehicle than it is. The availability of slower and smaller cars that may be driven without a license might make this more feasible.

An even smaller example:

http://www.estrima.com/en/

Unfortunately, the price of EUR 12000-14000 is not so small...

Yes, that one is more similar to a Renault thingy, called Twizy:

https://www.renault.it/veicoli/gamma-ze/twizy/versioni-e-pre...

that has also an interesting option, i.e. the battery that can be rented instead of bought.

They are more like a cabbed quad or an upgraded golf cart than a mini car as the Axiom or Ligier (or the Chinese ones).

In Portugal we call them "mata-velhos" (old-people killer) as most drivers are usually old people without driving licenses..

Netherlands has the odd Canta, which is allowed to drive on the bike paths:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canta_(vehicle)

Just go North of the border and pick up a Nissan Micra. A manual with no ac and windup windows goes for under $10k Canadian.

Here's some Ontarians test driving it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K1EIrJOXMo

Sorry, but China is likely heading the other way.

China is the only market in the world with taste for American car brands...

G-Wagen or Buick SUV or something even bigger is the logical apex of what locals consider a "proper car"

And they look like a BMW, Mini or Jeep!

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