Not quite a car, not quite a motorcycle: a vehicle built for one

But in +100,000km of total riding time I've had very few injuries, just scrapes and bruises because I'm always wearing boots, helmet and gloves as a minimum.

I've high sided on a track twice (too fast into a corner, lost traction, immediately got traction back and flew me several metres in the air). And I've low sided from road debris twice on public roads (once on a round-a-bout at low speed) and private roads (oil slick in a private car park).

I imagine this vehicle for the average person who doesn't ride a lot with the view of safety first would be safer in this than a motorcycle. But I agree with your and the OP's point above yours. An economy budget car would be a safer and equally viable purchase.

Why don't you own a Twizy already?

It shouldn't be a mystery why motorcycle accidents are more common. A superbike like a Yamaha R1 is capable of 0-100mph in less than 6 seconds, all in first gear. Ownership of an R1 is within the reach of many under 25s and most enthusiastic under 30s. Contrast that with a supercar which, for most people, will be out of reach until much later in life, if ever, and even then is such a big investment that most just sit around in air-conditioned garages rather than hitting the B-roads of England every Sunday morning.

None of that means that commuting on a more sensible motorcycle is particularly dangerous in the grand scheme of things.

Yes, for rainy days I have a pair of waterproof overpants in the top case and a pair of waterproof gloves. The jackets are all waterproof (Goretex or similar). I got soaked wet while commuting on the bicycle, never on the motorcycle.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a2065371/cabin-cruiser-flying-...

Caveat lector. I know this to be technically illegal in some European countries, even when the entire vehicle is parked within the lines.

Then there's the whole Kei car phenomenon..

They advertised this but in reality it's rarely possible. They are 2.5m long and most cars in Europe are <2m wide.

E.g. in the UK standard parking is 2.4m wide so a smart sticks out

I think they are all electric now, at least in the UK.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a27310639/smart-fortwo-dis...

The main use of these cars was the Car2Go service, which was owned by Mercedes themselves, and that service has also shut down in North America.

They were cute cars, decent for a short trip certainly, but we never saw an all-electric model

So the question I asked myself is why would anyone buy this instead of a motorcycle? I guess some may argue that it's safer, what with it having four wheels instead of two, but that's about it.

You still need some sort of gear if you don't want to end up wet, you still need some sort of gear in the winter if you don't want to freeze.

I also wonder what the summer situation looks like. As it's not closed, it most likely has no air conditioning, but it's enclosed enough to get much less wind than on a motorcycle (which is still unpleasant in a congested city).

It's big enough that you can't filter in places where it's allowed, you have to park it like a regular car, which in France means paid and limited street parking, or far away and expensive underground parking. Motorcycles can park on the sidewalks for free (at least for the moment).

To the end customer, the only difference would be cost, and if you are rich enough, or the service is subsidized enough by investor cash, or the cost of living in your area is low enough, then it all ends up roughly the same.

Sidenote: i wonder whether the lockdown may work as a selection pressure on the covid to produce the more viral, like long living on surfaces, etc., mutation of the virus.

Jokes aside, the dependence on self-driving OP was alluding to is wildly exaggerated in my eyes, because the other kind of self-driving (user drives a short-term rental) works just as well. And with short term rentals, physical footprint is making an actual difference because their availability is bounded by storage.

There used to be a wave of microcar concepts that were trying to solve parking by folding up a little. Back then those never made sense because they were still intended as personal vehicles and those end up taking up a one-size-fits-all spot anyways. But combined with the innovation of micro-rentals (modeled after docked bike-share) those fold-up tricks could turn from a gimmick into a key enabling technology. All you need is self-parking to store them in a compact FIFO and self-parking is beyond solved. Once you have that, all minor extension of the unparking range (from unparking just enough to unfolding at the storage dock to dedicated pickup locations nearby to pickup anywhere) would be incremental improvements to service quality that would require much less than full autonomy.

A single ride hailer should be sent a sedan when they are on a more conventional route with easy pickup and drop off points. That would make more sense from both a unit cost and quality perspective than pooling every time. Augmented reality could also highlight and fill open seats quickly, including when that second carpooler can’t be found.

This is a form of ubiquitous public transport infrastructure. Automobiles and roads are already the most inclusive form of public transportation ever invented (measured as percent of public served), and have the cheapest per-rider cost to maintain for any government out of any infrastructure ever invented to date, while still supporting full distances and high service rates.

And while cost of vehicles and driver requirements are currently barriers -- reducing the cost of vehicles and improving their ability to self drive, would let everyone utilize and afford it.

That means that any attempt of pushing everybody at mass transportation at those places will fail, even if executed perfectly. But small cars are perfect for feeder routes.

!

That said, these things seem brilliant the more I reason through it. I’d guess that nearly all the same sensations of riding a motorcycle are there with the Nikken... all of the things that make riding a motorcycle fun like punchy acceleration, open air, and leaning in corners. At the same time, doubling up the front end in this way has to be a huge boon to traction. I suspect the suspension travel on these things allows for more lean angle than I’d be comfortable with outside of a track.

One way some manufacturers approached this was putting powerful hydraulics for steering, but that made the mass of a bike even higher, thus negating the benefit by far.

A good bike must have low centre of mass, and easy to turn.

- You can't take an arbitrary person as passenger (they need gear and pillion experience)

- You can't take more than a backpack's worth of cargo (slightly expandable with panniers)

This can't take a passenger at all, and looks like it has the same cargo restrictions. It looks fun but I can't see it replacing a small car which solves both of these problems, so it needs to be cheap enough to be a 'fun' second vehicle.

It's like they distilled bad down into a concentrated form.

Edit: I couldn't find anything on their website about safety at all. I'm guessing that means the safety story isn't something they can brag about. So probably no airbag.