Canada's Answer to Tesla Is a $15,500 Electric Three-Wheeler | Hacker News Reader

Canada's Answer to Tesla Is a $15,500 Electric Three-Wheeler

bloomberg.com

33 pointspseudolus27 comments

I don't see how this can be an "answer to Tesla" when it has less than half the range, terrible acceleration and seats fewer people than a motorcycle. If price is your driver, get a used Leaf. The article doesn't mention crash reports, but I wouldn't feel safe in this, sharing the road with full-size cars, trucks and SUVs.

I understand the appeal of a small, cheap EV. You could design a people-friendly city around these, with narrow roads and less space devoted to parking. But that's what they said about the Segway.

You seem to be under the impression that this company is in the business of providing vehicles for transporting people around.

My impression from this article is that they are instead in the business of funneling government subsidies to unions -- hence the reference to Oshawa, the home of Canada's most powerful union.

If you can convince the government that you're creating Jobs Of The Future, you don't need to actually build a product anyone wants to buy.

Please describe how you got that impression. There wasn't a word in the article about government involvement with this company, nor anything remotely constituting a promise to hire people made jobless by the GM Oshawa plant closure.

I am in Toronto, looking outside I do not know how this thing could get me from point A to point B this very morning

I was thinking the same thing. There is a reason the big bad SUVs and trucks sell well. You'd think the people who are in Canada's government would know that it snows in Canada and a three wheeler isn't a good idea.

It says in the article that they are targeting deliveries for West Coast customers.

> sharing the road with full-size cars, trucks and SUVs.

As a Texan, I strongly agree with you. That said, I’m still a proud driver of a regular sedan - no need for a massive truck or anything like that.

So far no one has seen the utility of this vehicle. There are millions of families that have multiple vehicles, and where both partners work. When taking a trip as a family, they might want a minivan or SUV. When they commute, one might drop the kids off, but the other will be driving alone. If the commute is not a very long one, this vehicle is perfect.

There are at least a few million households with this configuration in North America, so they have plenty of potential market. I can think of a few more use cases, but this (which is also MY situation) is possibly the largest.

I'm going to play a bit of wait-and-see, but if this vehicle turns out to come to fruition and isn't plagued with reliability issues, I am strongly considering purchasing one. Right now, we have a newer minivan, two motorcycles, and I usually drive my car to work, which is older, and is often breaking down. I live in Upstate New York, so there are a couple dozen days each year where it's dry and warm enough at 6AM to ride my motorcycle to work.

So what am I left with? I don't want to deal with repairing an older vehicle, and I am happy with the utility of our minivan, and fun factor of our motorcycles, so I just want something with the lowest hassle and cost of ownership. This vehicle is pretty close to the cheapest new car that you can get, but will save me most of my $120/mo that I spend on gas. Plus, it has to be easy to park at that size.

I think that if they can pull off a good design, at a good price, and get all of the other things right (I know, a tall order), they will have a market at least large enough to keep that factory going.

Will you be spending that $120+ in increased insurance cost for the same reasons Tesla are more expensive to fix than most cars (economies of scale, limited OEM parts)?

Collision insurance (which is what covers damage to your own vehicle if you are at fault) is the main thing that’s dependent on the repair costs of your own vehicle, and it’s not required in many states (in no-fault states, it is, but most states are not no-fault).

This vehicle is inexpensive enough many people don’t need to pay for collision insurance.

> So far no one has seen the utility of this vehicle. There are millions of families that have multiple vehicles, and where both partners work. When taking a trip as a family, they might want a minivan or SUV. When they commute, one might drop the kids off, but the other will be driving alone. If the commute is not a very long one, this vehicle is perfect. ... But if they need to pick the kids on the way back for whatever reason, this vehicle is useless.

Case in point, in Vancouver, where this comes from, both evo and car2go provide the same car sharing service.

Car2go is phasing our the smart two seater car in favor of 4 seaters.

Versatility is key to usability. This is doomed.

> When they commute, one might drop the kids off, but the other will be driving alone.

Except that if the one who has the big car has an issue at work, the other cannot go and take the kids because he has a car way too small!

No, that kind of car only works for those without children.

It reminds me of a fancier Reliant Robin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQh56geU0X8

Hopefully it will be a bit more stable when turning if the battery is in the floor, no more rolling like in the Top Gear episode :)

Good luck driving this thing in the snow. I suppose having only 3 wheels may benefit it in terms of its low weight, but still....if an inch of snow cripples my Fiesta, I bet you'll have to buy snow tires for this at least.

When I was in Vancouver a few years ago, I stayed at an AirBnB right next to the company’s show room.

Unfortunately at the time, I was told the vehicles weren’t street legal in the US, yet, and they didn’t have enough staff/spare vehicles to give me a test ride within three days.

It looked really, really cool on the inside and the outside, and I would’ve happily bought one on the spot if these two issues hadn’t gotten in the way.

Very pricy, the Renault Twizzy is only 9000 euro's..

Reminds me of the Elio motors, the concept is solid, but people tend to under estimate the massive wall of entry into the automotive world.

I've wanted a single passenger commuter for a long time, but I don't see any advantage at that price point.

Elio, is circling the drain, but for more info see https://www.eliomotors.com/

> Elio, is circling the drain

As god knows how many other <4 wheel new mobility concepts.

Two gyroscope stabilised motorcycle startups went nowhere, unable to solve the desaturation at high speed issue.

Monotracers cost CHF100k, and are handmade luxury toys.

WV LX1 also costs a fortune, while providing pathetic performance

More like a cross between a Sparrow and a Merlin. Corbin motors was way ahead of its time. Went belly up I believe because they couldn’t get a stable power supply. Controllers kept coming back for repairs. Money ran out before the Merlin shipped.

I don't understand the idea of all those three-wheelers? A startup [1] in my country also launched a similar vehicle. I'd rather buy a motorbike if I want to drive alone, or get a used leaf as someone pointed our here, if price is of concern. But a three-wheeler?

[1] https://www.mynobe.com/

It was common to allow a three wheeler on a motorcycle licence. The UK used to have a weight and engine limit and gave us Del Boy's Reliant Regal[1] and the Robin. One or two places, possibly including the US, required a motorcycle licence meaning you couldn't use a three wheeler on a car licence.

More a relic of licencing history stemming all the way back to Morgan 3 wheelers and similar from the 20s and 30s[2]. Morgan actually recently re-introduced the classic 3 wheeler. You still find licence, tax, and insurance advantages to 3 wheelers despite them bearing little resemblance to the vehicles that led to the category.

That said, the Smart car was a huge hit in Europe for size, parking and convenience so I don't see why a 3 wheeler couldn't still work.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trotters.jpg

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_3-Wheeler

Well for starters this is protected from the weather and secondly it is more stable which opens up usage to more people. So comparing it to a motorbike (EV or not) is easy, the use case against a Leaf would be size.

The difficulty I see is, well the size may be off putting to many but they are likely the same people to be worried about a motorbike. The cost seems a bit high but I haven't looked at the full feature set.

I think it really comes down to a cultural shift, getting people to think of personal transportation being well, more personal in size. For the most part there haven't been alternatives to a full size car and when cost it factored in many two car families cannot afford the third one, the commuter car.

I think their idea of service vehicles is a good idea but that might require areas where there is sufficient charging

Why is it Canada's answer and not General Motors? Canada isn't building this ridiculous thing.

I like the idea of this thing! I suspect it won't be that popular because the only market is for people who can afford a second vehicle just for commuting.

There's a company in Oregon doing something similar.

https://www.arcimoto.com

My guess is these sort of vehicles will start to make sense if you live in or near a zero emissions zone.

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