Citroën introduces a two-seat EV that costs €2,644 and then €19.99 a month
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The speed limits in much of Europe are really low. In the USA we're used to driving pretty fast on 2 way roads with wide lanes at over 80kph. That's not much of Europe.
I've driven over 5,000km here in Scotland just this month. The speed limits in most cities are about 60kph, and usually the max is 45kph. It is completely normal here for people to share a single lane road to drive a car, ride a bike, go for a run, and walk their dogs. It's just different than. America where every street is a temple to the car gods and walking on many streets is both weird and dangerous.
When I drove in Denmark in 2017, I would travel around the area outside and of Copenhagen where the speed limits are often 50kph max. For example, from Copenhagen, Denmark to Lyngby while avoiding highways...
https://maps.app.goo.gl/8e5DtpUDmSQSp31h7
...takes about 19 minutes (at 6 a.m. Friday, 28 Feb, 2020) to go 13km. You just can't drive that fast in the built-up urban setting.
The difference I’d say is that 45kph get you much “farther” in EU cities than the average US city.
Regular roads in cities often allow up to 45mph (70kph).
And outside cities, there are some highways with speed limits over 55mph without restricted access.[2]
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta...
US-380 runs directly through cities with stoplights too.
Great for the environment, but it means that I actually go in to cities less than I normally would now that I live outside the city and have a car. I already pay for the car, and the extra cost of the public transport is expensive in addition to this. So I go less.
As an aside - I can’t understand how businesses survive as a result of this seemingly conscious decision by councils to cripple incoming consumers coupled with Amazons shady marketplace that doesn’t play by the same rules in terms of fake goods.
This is exactly my experience since I bought a car.
For example, in California the speed of traffic on the highway is quite often 80-85mph in a 65mph zone, and not enforced. That wouldn't fly in Germany on any road with a speed limit.
In Germany, you can easily contest speeding accusations when caught on camera, especially if your face is not clearly visible. My first speeding ticket ever was actually on the Autobahn. They wrote me a letter saying that I had been accused of speeding. They never followed up with it.
Sweden has 600 traffic cops to cover the whole country (at least that was what I was told in a Swedish driving school in 2014). Getting pulled over for speeding on the motorway rarely happens. I once drove from Ystad to Göteborg going over 200kmh most of the way. No problem. I was once spoken to by a police officer after I drove through the tunnel in the centre of Göteborg at more than twice the speed limit. The officer simply asked me to slow down.
In Poland the motorways are very well made, and so the speed limit is a bit higher — 140kmh if I remember correctly. There aren't any speed cameras on the motorway, and in my experience the police won't come and issue fines to people unless there's been an accident. Even then, the maximum fine is ~€100.
Some countries — I think most — are quite lenient. Some countries like Spain are more like the USA, and actively look for people to fine by hiding in different places every time. The Polish don't even bother hiding. If they want to raise some revenue, they'll sit in the same spots every time. It's also not true that every EU country will pursue a speeding fine no matter where you are from.
Every friend I have in the USA who has been pulled over for speeding has been fined. Police in the USA are militant. That's just part of their culture. This is pretty clear in all the videos available on YouTube too.
I got a 1200cc hypersport because of these conditions - the ability to warp-speed between cities at full throttle is awesome.
At least that's my observation here in .nl. Obviously the cameras aren't always right, but the people I see complaining the most are also the ones that drive >10% over the speed limit by default anyway.
The typical 4-seat, 1600+ kg, to move around one or two people, at a total of ~200kg, is just stupid. Most of the energy is spent just moving the car... very inefficient.
Also, the environmental footprint of manufacturing modern cars is horrible: metals mining and refining, fabrication, waste from manufacturing, the energy to do it all. Making Li-ion batteries is extremely energy intensive; which is one reason they are so expensive.
This is the only solution with our existing technology.
The right to own private property is more or less bought through taxes. If the deal becomes too unfair, you get Trump or Bernie. If the deal becomes untenable, you get guillotines.
But you don't put a monetary value in zhe time stuck in traffic.
The solution is good public transport. If every car owner dumped as much money into public transport as they do for only the registration of their cars, we could have a (methane or better) bus every 5 minutes on every street. This would still be better for the environment, cheaper and safer than cars.
It used to, widespread car ownership is a relatively recent innovation.
2. moving is a simple matter as after we stop financialisation of land it is no longer a huge financial gamble
3. money for good schools everywhere because we are taxing land and spivs cannot avoid it
Cheap vehicles which are limited to 45 km/h have always existed, they were never popular in Europe. Make it 60 and it will be usable for city driving.
I assume the there are also less requirements from manufacture side, that makes it easier and cheaper to produce.
If it would be 60km/h you can not make it at this price point, because you are making a full car. And then there is no reason to limit it at all. They are already popular here, where I live and are much similarly priced or even higher because of the lesser requirements for getting around.
I can see it as perfect second car for city in my hometown and would buy it.
Aixam microcars are ubiquitous in rural France, providing independence for teenagers and the elderly. The Piaggio Ape is ubiquitous in Italy, providing quick and convenient deliveries in narrow medieval streets. Small, low-powered vehicles have an important role to play in the transport mix.
A bigger problem with these small cars is they lack practicality for bringing more people or luggage, and they're never cheap enough to make up for it when you can just buy a used car.
Also, the scooters and motorbikes might be part of the solution, and larger vehicles part of the problem.
https://www.thedrive.com/tech/19658/neighborhood-electric-ve...
This is something for San Francisco, not for jetting between its suburbs.
In Europe cities are small on average and traffic flows ok. Big cities like London, Paris and Berlin are the exception and even there you'll have problems if your vehicles speed is capped at 45km/h.
I own a twizy (that can go up to 80km/h, and 100km/hour with a software modification, thus needing a licence), and it's the perfect urban vehicle. I live a bit outside the city (15km from the city centre) and it's perfect: you can park anywhere, you go the same speed than others and I even got a (silghtly legal) tow bar for a small trailer.
If I recall correctly, the twizy is no longer produced because it's true that it had some flaws: two seats one behind the other and no real windows (you need gloves and a scarf in winter). So seeing this citroen car is a delight to me. I hope they make a 80km/hour version too.
That's nothing compared to a car license, that need to be 18, takes 1000~2000€, several months of training, a theoretical exam and a practical test (that's common to fail).
But once you have the license you can drive on highways without speed limits, where safety and following rules is important (while the free ride is a bit of a myth - many segments have speed limits, there is lots of traffic limiting speed and in case of an accident insurance restrict payment when going fast)
Really? Now I realise why some Americans looked so confused and dismayed when I was living there without having ever learned to drive.
So there's nobody from USA who chooses to have an education, and not to drive a car?
HS graduation requirements vary (in some cases, much more than you would think) between districts. Usually, each town/city has its own district -- in rural areas a district may span many towns, in more urban areas, you may have more than one district in a single city. There are state guidelines, but we also have 50 different states. Federal guidelines are pretty sparse, and often only enforced by accepting funding -- don't take their money and you don't have to play by their rules.
I suspect that there is no blanket statement about the US public school system that will hold true nationwide (except, perhaps "it could be better" or "it makes no sense").
The reaction to not having a license is probably simply due to 60+ years of "The American Dream" for a kid was having their own car and the freedom^tm that came with it, and the simple fact that in the majority of the country, public transportation is crap, and our cities are not designed around walking. So a car, and license, is pretty much a requirement.
A lot of people would argue this is very good policy.
Given that most students do get a drivers license, it wouldn't be surprising if Drivers Ed were a mandatory part of some high school curricula. Note that this is probably just the theory part in most cases and doesn't include actual on the road instruction. (Which is typically done by parents or by a company--the latter again in part for insurance price reasons.)
First article I found from 2018, citing numbers from 2017, says 37% fail theory, 28% during practical test, which is quite a lot, considering that you have extra training lessons and instructors should know what's being tested (conspiracy theory would be: failed test leads to more lessons and more fees) https://m.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/panorama/knapp-37-pro...
They've since changed it to 16 with 50 hours of supervised driving.
You can get a limited ”hardship” license to go to school or work at 14.
Traffic fatalities per billion miles driven:
Belgium - 7.3 United States - 7.3 Slovenia - 7.0 Japan - 6.4 France - 5.8 Finland - 5.1 Canada - 5.1 [similar requirements as US for license] Germany - 4.2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
From your link: Belgium=7.3, France=5.8, USA=7.3 versus Germany=4.2, Netherlands=4.7. I don't know what the P-value on that is (I never thought of looking at this until you mentioned it) but so far it looks like the data matches intuition.
Of course, there's a lot more factors, like that in the USA and Germany have towns much further apart than the Netherlands (I've said before that in NL you're never more than a few minutes away from being at least in hearing distance of the nearest human). This makes public transport much worse and those who don't like driving may be obliged to, but also the infrastructure costs more when there are fewer inhabitants per km² to make use of each road which should make the infrastructure worse. Indeed, driving from NL into Germany during rain, the highways instantly and universally turn from nearly dry (due to permeable concrete) to lots of spatting and aquaplaning risk.
I'm also not sure fatalities is the only thing we should be looking at. NL is higher than Germany but if you have more city traffic than highway traffic, you probably hit more bicycles and pedestrians despite better infrastructure.
Nevertheless, interesting statistic.
With my birthday being in July, I technically should have had to take a Drivers Ed course, but because I moved my senior year of high school, I basically got a lot of free credits because the state requirements were different and I would have had to essentially take an extra year of HS if they didn't just hand me credits. It's weird.
Regarding 50-60 hours of instruction, that’s enough for a private pilots license and airplanes are vastly more complicated than driving.
Despite the nil enforcement, they strictly follow red lights. I'm surprised it's not more lawless. In N. America I ask people "What do the police do?" and locals answer "speeding tickets". In France, I never get a clear answer.
While "It isn’t because French drivers are better." may be true for safety, I do find their drivers far more predictable than N. American drivers on highways.
They'll stay in the right on the highway, unless passing. And when they finish passing, they'll go back to the right. With signals.
At least in S. Ontario, drivers pick a lane randomly, and stick to it for ??? reasons. Signalling after its clear what their intentions are (ie: not a "signal" at all). Not uncommon to see drivers on an merge onto an open highway, and immediately start multiple lane shifts with nothing to pass for miles ahead.
It took a while for my French handlers to get me to stop angling my wheel while parked because of the bumper cars you mentioned.
One thing I've noticed about the US is pulling over for emergency vehicles. Cars will pull over quickly and stay over. In Canada people will barely pull over, take their time, coast a bit.
This course is on a race track and you will learn how to deal with aquaplaning and controlled avoidance of obstacles amongst other things. They also force the car to lose control so that you can experience that (I believe you drive over a metal sheet that moves, causing the back to spin out).
Not quite snow/ice training but it gives you some experience in how to deal with situations where you lose control of your car.
Costs obviously vary with your driving skills and whether you live in a rural area or in town. I think the later is more expensive...
It’s a pretty good deal, I’ve been debating getting a moped, but the equivalent with a roof and a bit safer is certainly appealing
Not a problem re: 40mph roads.
I’d love to have one for SF.
I say this as someone who wants a commuter vehicle similar to this. It's fine for me if it cannot go on the freeway, but it must be able to not hold up traffic everywhere else.
Edit: I also prefer the shape of the Toyota iRoad. While that thing can go 37mph I think 50mph or at least 45 is the minimum to not be a nuisance.
I'm always surprised rich parents don't buy these for teenagers since you can drive them at any age - no need to wait till you have a driving license, and significantly more practical than a bicycle and more independance/cheaper than an uber.
You bring up a good point: small cars like this with a roof should have a rack from the factory. Since they don't go fast, aero isn't an issue.
Every single time: They do something insanely stupid and dangerous, on actual roads. (I guess they bought this because they were too stupid to get a driver's license.)
They also tend to drive around 30 km/h at most, on roads meant for 50-80 km/h.
I can't wait until we banish them from the roads.
Liability though...
Everyone seems to love comfort of SUV's, especially in new world where cities were designed for cars. European cities just can't fit large cars, but move to the country side and you can certainly enjoy utility of larger car (although I'd argue actual 4x4 almost certainly overkill for 95% of roads).
I'd certainly love more heavy machinery to move to electric. Buses and trucks are just so loud, benefit most from the torque and are heavily utilised meaning much faster payback than sedan that sits 99% idle.
Pretty good for a daily commuter in Europe. Especially considering how narrow the streets are in Spain. Sounds like it's ripe for that market. Can't really take this sucker outside the city though, but at that price, I'd certainly consider it for a daily driver.
This fixes all of those, for cheap. 45mph limit isn't an issue when your limits are 20-40mph.
I don't live in a city. I live in a relatively rural county in the UK but I work from home and most of my journeys are <5 miles. Shops and school runs. This makes sense for me, and will for a lot of people doing similar journeys.
Interesting. How did they get around that classification, and for something that operates on the street?
Similar ICE-powered vehicles are rather popular with younger folks and some of the elderly, at least in countries where a full license is only available at 18. These vehicles are not without drawbacks, though, as they have poor crashworthiness (even in the kind of accidents they may very well get to).
It is not driving license free in most countries, though. E.g. in Finland an AM/121 class license is required (above a moped AM/120 but below a motorbike A or regular car B), which you can get at 15 years old.
https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/automotive/vehicle-categ... (for a start)
Nah, will never happen. People here are buying bigger and bigger cars. Is much so that even mini vans are being discontinued.
I can't believe on HN this has only 160 upvotes in 10 hrs. HN audience seems climate-conscious. But if it's not a Tesla solution, you don't care. Sigh.
Bicycles have been around for a hundred years. But if its not an electric car you don’t care. Sigh.
Maybe it will fail but kudos for putting it out there.
That's way cheaper than the €14.995 Estrima Biro [1] that it will be competing with here in the Netherlands.
I love my twizy, it's the perfect city vehicle
that link is gonna remain blue.
Unlike bicycles/scooters, it's still going to take up parking spaces.
Without licensing, I wonder if it will introduce a new class of drivers who won't know the rules of the road and introduce more unpredictability into driving.
As far as other drivers are concerned, the only problem is that over the years they started looking more and more like 'regular' cars, so 'regular' drivers coming behind are surprised because they wrongly estimate their speed (well in fact they don't estimate anything, they have the mental model that cars always drive around 80 km/h, and bicycle around 15 km/h, so they are surprised both ways when a car or bicycle goes around 40 km/h).
But drivers must be reminded that normal roads are not a space reserved for cars, motorbikes and lorries cruising all the time near the speed limit, but can be rightfully used by any kind of vehicles (tractors with or without trailers, bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and so on), and that they can be encountered moving at any speed in ]0, speed limit] for a good reason.
I want to say the same issue applies to cyclists, but then the compliance rate of cyclists is not high. The only consolation is that cyclists loo sufficiently different from cars that drivers give them a wide berth.
In my experience they drive as well/bad as other drivers, just slower. Even in 50 km/h areas you'll see them drive at 20/30. Generally not a problem in cities. On bigger roads I've seen some move a bit to the side so you can overtake them more easily.
You actually need an AM license, which is a 1 day training.
Voitures sans permis (VSPs) can be driven by anyone aged 14 and up and are limited to 45 kph—just 28 mph. VSPs can’t be driven on expressways or highways, since a 28-mph top speed and, well, you get it. Drivers must only acquire what’s known as an AM category license, which requires a seven-hour training course, of which only four hours are spent driving on roads. Those born before 1988 require no license at all.
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a15345640/an-aixam-to-grin...
I can't understand why anyone still shares TechCrunch links. It's inaccessible without accepting their cookies.
There are enough bad drivers here despite our quite tough licenses - a metal box at 28mph with a battery on board will still ruin my entire day.
I wonder if it would be feasible/worth it to incorporate a pedal assist system to lengthen the range.
Also I would love a convertible version.
What about safety? Especially rolling? Would this work in the US from a regulatory standpoint?
Not sure if I would want to drive this in Australia though. Coming from Europe the size of your roads here is crazy. Lots of 2-3 lane inner city roads with a speedlimit of 60. You'd be a sitting duck in an Ami..
And yes, existing "voiture sans permis" are not known to be anywhere near as safe as a full size car (or high-end quadricycles like the Aixam). Yet like them, this is dirt in terms of cost, and far better than most of the existing options that have been around for over 70 years.
I don't think there will be the change you are thinking they're will be. Especially because I don't think there will be a ton of these sold, and the ones that do sell probably sell to people with licenses anyhow.
Seems like a bit of a stretch to call that €19.99/mo when you also need to pay the equivalent of 11 years of rent up front.
Looks like it costs €2,644 initial payment + €19.99 a month.
This just screams safety issues to me. I'm not sure I would want to drive down some city streets in one of these.
In fact, even the F-150 is virtually impossible to drive on tiny streets.
Vehicles all have different uses. This is very cheap, and while it's not ideal for every possible use-case it certainly will be very good at others.