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Comment by b123400 | Hacker News Reader

I live in Tokyo and drive an old kei car. Despite being not very powerful, it does provide me whatever I need. Driving it on highway (about 100km/h) feels alright, of course it’s not as quiet or comfortable as bigger cars, but not unacceptable. I am sure newer models are much improved. Many car parks here have height/size limit, or even kei-car-only space, and it’s just easier to park even for regular places. I find myself feeling more responsible by driving a small car, when I stop at the side of a road, it occupies at most half of the lane, so another kei car can bypass easily. Maybe it’s a Japanese thing, but unlike SUV’s “getting higher up to see more”, I am more like “I am as small as everyone else so I don’t block people’s view”.

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Kei cars would be great in America and I would fully accept laws supporting them as an effort to reduce dependence on big consumptive engines in our transition to electric mobility.

One can dream.

Can Kei Cars meet the USA's collision safety requirements although? Part of the reason why cars are beefier is collision safety regulations.

Kei cars are death traps and I don't think the US would accept going back to gruesome, brutal car wrecks as the norm.

as far as big consumptive engines, Kei Cars consume around 3-4 Liters/100km

a prius is not that much worse at 4.4 L/100km

It's all kind of moot anyway with EVs coming.

Better mileage than a Prius without even being a hybrid seems like exactly the sort of reason why someone would want one. And with EVs coming, kei cars/trucks seem like perfect candidates for EV conversions.

Re: crash safety, I wonder if it's possible to retrofit some extra safety measures on these things?

> And with EVs coming, kei cars/trucks seem like perfect candidates for EV conversions.

Is there enough room for batteries for them to have a reasonable amount of range?

>Re: crash safety, I wonder if it's possible to retrofit some extra safety measures on these things?

That's a good question for any older car. I can think of a number of measures, but it would be interesting to see some real engineering go into retrofits. Besides new/proper seat belts an interesting angle would be a partial roll cage that is safe for a helmetless driver.

I'd love to a have a Kei truck purely for around town (we don't have any traffic lights to give you an idea) in snowy weather. Small = good when the streets shrink due to plowing, small = good for dragging out of a ditch, cheap = good just because it's easy to hurt a car in serious snow.

> Re: crash safety, I wonder if it's possible to retrofit some extra safety measures on these things?

Mass and/or crumple zones help absorb and deflect energy in crashes. There's no room for a crumple zone in a kei car's perimeter. Smart Fourtwo got close, but those are as wide as a normal car.

And perfectly rigid vehicle is dangerous because it transmits the collision forces to the passengers - high G deceleration will destroy your organs

Kei cars don't have the crash safety required for US roads, speeds and the traffic they need to share the roads with. A crash between a Kei and a US truck at 55 mph would be a bloodbath.

Keis work in Japan because the average speed is much lower and you're more likely to get into an accident with another kei.

I see a lot of people making the argument of “a bigger car is safer when crashing with other cars”, but that’s not very sustainable when everybody thinks the same. A US truck is small when everyone is driving a monster truck to protect themselves from “normal” trucks

Best selling kei cars are like Honda N-BOX and Suzuki Spacia, both are called "super height wagon", near 1800mm height (higher than RAV4) and eyepoint is also higher than sedans. So it blocks some people's view, but not annoying thanks to very narrow 1475mm width.

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