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Comment by riffraff | Hacker News Reader

The Piaggio 1 has been around for a while in Europe, and I think it's in the same category, I'm not sure why this is a big news.

https://www.piaggio.com/gb_EN/models/piaggio-1/piaggio-1-1-2...

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The Piaggio are 3x more expensive than the asian (chinese, taiwan, HK) variants. You get the asians for 800 to 1600 EUR, with are better equipped than this Honda.

And for this price segment only one seat? You need at least two.

Regarding seats: In Norway (and a few more countries) it is forbidden to ride with a passenger on a moped.

In China there have been millions of electric scooters on the roads for years...

Yup, I think some (all?) cities have banned ICE scooters. I only ever saw electric ones there (though this was 5 years ago now).

sure, but the article talks about regulations in Europe, designs being filed in Europe, categories in Europe etc.

It seemed euro-centric.

They're around Europe as well, in fact they've overtaken sales of petrol scooters recently [0]. This one is low power and has pedals though, which makes me wonder if it's trying to compete with pedal assist electric bikes... and why, since those are much more prevalent. Unless this one has a much bigger battery I guess.

[0] https://mijn.bovag.nl/actueel/nieuws/2022/februari/meer-elek...

There have been many more electric scooters in europe already. The only thing differentiating it seems to be the pedals, which makes it more of an s-pedelec (in german at least). Compared to those it mostly has a larger frame and possibly battery.

Overall I wonder why this is interesting in that context, too.

Even worse, this article is purely speculative based on a design document.

Honda advertorial? I mean, forget Piaggio, you can go into any larger supermarket and have a pick of several models. Or several dozen models if you shop online.

This is a scooter, not a moped. Then again I don't see why does Honda feel the need to introduce pedals.

What's the difference? It fits within the 50cc drivers license.

I think vehicles like this have pedals so that they can pass legally as a bicycle on the road (in certain jurisdictions) and be exempt from requiring insurance and license.

It fits with a history of these hybrids; the aforementioned Puch [0] brand has been around for decades. My grandma would come over to visit on a Spartamet [1], predating electric pedal-assist bikes. These things are underpowered; enough to chooch you along on a flat road, but here and there they may need some assistance, or they run out of power / fuel.

[0] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puch#/media/Bestand:Puch_Maxi_... [1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartamet#/media/Bestand:Sachs...

It has a motor and pedals. Isn't that exactly what a moped is?

edit Apparently some jurisdictions around the world use the term "moped" to refer to small motorcycles even when they don't have pedals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moped

I assumed that moped is a contraction of "motorised pedestrian" but sadly that doesn't seem to be correct.

I remember many years ago when in France to be a moped (technically a cyclomoteur, that could be driven by 14 years old without a license) there was the need to have pedals, so there were "funny" motorbikes with pedals clearly added on as an afterthought or however explictly added for the French model only.

Example of a 50 cc Vespa with pedals:

https://vespasmallframeforum.proboards.com/thread/7725/vespa...

The reasons are legal, it (and the speed limit) allows all people to use them without a motocycle license.

> allows all people to use them without a motorcycle license

Also (and I think more notably) the DMV does not require registration in most US states.

There's a fair number of people who end up on them after getting DUI's as well (although technically this is not legal since you're still required to have a valid driver's license almost everywhere... but they probably don't get caught that often).

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