The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range | Hacker News Reader

The Citroen Ami – tiny electric car with no boot, 28mph top speed, 46 mile range

thisismoney.co.uk

162 pointsrwmj350 comments

> the £7,695 tiny electric car that has no boot, a 28mph top speed and range of just 46 miles

I live in Paris and do everything with an e-bike that also has no boot, no passenger seat, a top speed of ~20mph, a range of ~30 miles... but cost me around €1,200 (since I built it myself).

It now has over 7,500 miles. In day trafic it's probably much faster than the Ami, and it can also be put on a train. Couldn't be happier.

That's nice, but the roads around here are not safe for bicycles of any sort (think pot-holed winding country lanes with lorries speeding at above the 40 mph limit). Until the government gets serious about lowering and enforcing speed limits and introducing cycling infrastructure, an electric car is necessary.

Do you think a plastic vehicle will fare any better in a collision with the average American SUV or truck?

This particular vehicle has no safety features, but an EV with some safety features is likely safer as well as being more visible.

I wish there was cycling infrastructure and lower speed limits, but that's not how it is now. I used to own an e-bike here and it wasn't very practical.

At medium/higher speed collisions? no it wouldn't fare better. But at city street level collision? oh yeah it would fare a huge amount better actually. Not all collisions are the compact this metal box into a smaller cube type of collision.

At 30km/h and lower cyclists have a risk that simply does not exist for a vehicle like the ami and other cheap car like vehicles : being driven over. A car can kill a cyclist while driving as low as 1 kilometer per hour if the cyclist fell on the ground and the car is running the cyclist over. You can't "drive over" an ami. Unless you're driving a Monster Truck.

As a cyclist I am extremely paranoid about things like blind sides on larger vehicles because it takes very little to kill you. VERY. LITTLE.

Given that you can kill all the occupants of an American SUV by getting a fat person to take a good run up and kick the bumper hard, I'd say yes.

At anything above a walking pace shunt in a typical Yank Tank, your insides are mush.

Makes me feel slightly less backward about still using imperial units in the US that you and the article both use mph (I’d have guessed km/h).

Is it just a speed thing, or is distance always in miles there? Do people use metric for everything else? (I’ve heard Brits quote their weight loss in stones which makes me feel positively progressive)

Update, Wikipedia:

“ Most of government, industry and commerce use metric units, but imperial units are officially used to specify journey distances, vehicle speeds and the sizes of returnable milk containers, beer and cider glasses, and fresh milk is often still sold in multiples of pints, with the metric equivalent also marked. Imperial units are also often used to describe body measurements and vehicle fuel economy. In schools, metric units are taught and used as the norm. ” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Ki...

What are the death rates for bicyclists vs small cars like this? I recently considered a motorcycle and the death rates were too appalling for me to go through with it. Having a metal cage around you and windows is too vital for me.

Edit: I found this.

>The motorcycle fatality rate is over 17 times greater, and bicycle fatality rates are nearly 10 times greater than that for automobiles.

The question is how often bikes get into an accident vs. cars, relative to the number of comparable trips made, which is difficult to measure. The above statistics probably only tell you that if you get into an accident that happens to get reported, what is your relative survival rate then. It’s not surprising that bike riders have a lower survival rate when a car is involved. That doesn’t mean that bike riders in general have a lower life expectancy than car drivers.

An other question is, what does that become when you actually invest in proper bike and pedestrian infrastructure?

There are actually studies (e.g. mentioned here https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitness/cyclists-live-longer-a...) which show that people who commute by bike live the longest.

It took being hit by a car three times (two minor collisions, the last one hospitalized me) for me to give up on the e-bike idea. Car drivers (at least in the Bay Area) are not ready for bikes going at speed, IMHO, they just don’t look, or at least, they don’t see.

This thing might work out better than the bike because it’s a lot more visible, but I actually doubt there’d be much take-up. As someone else said, a second-hand leaf or similar would probably be better.

I've been driving a motorcycle for over 30 years; I still own one although I never use it anymore. I may die today on my bicycle but one thing is certain: I'm too old to die young.

Almost 100% of fatal bicycle accidents involve a vehicle. In urban areas where cars are banned or unable to navigate, the cycling death rate is basically zero.

It's sort of like a market failure. It's in everyone's best interest to ride bicycles, but since we can't individually control what everyone else does, it's in our best interest to ride automobiles -- thus continuing the safety issue.

I think with the bike fatality rate especially thats pretty skewed by the fact that no one has any education on how to ride a bike safely on the road at all. At least with motorcycles you need to take a class to prove roadworthiness. Some people riding bikes are also perhaps drunk or high, the same is true for cars of course, but consider how often you see clearly not sober/mentally unwell people riding bikes in big cities these days and how often they might end up in dangerous situations. That being said if you bike safely by taking the lane for example, and you avoid a lot of potential accidents on a bike:

https://i.redd.it/x8qqewx3m7l91.png

I live near Montpellier in France and I also live with a bicycle as my main method of transportation, but I can understand the appeal of something like the Ami for a lot of people. It takes dedication to be a cyclist during storms.

As I understand it, cars are increasingly banned in downtown Paris (even glorified electric bikes like this).

I haven't been since before pandemic but I really want to see that. It sounds like a great experiment.

They’ve been running that experiment with great success in the Netherlands since the 1970s. It’s great to see, and even better to experience in your everyday life. I love feeling connected to my environment.

The Netherlands is not a regular country and cannot be used as a template for any other country in the World, except maybe some flat urban area, like Copenhagen, or the Vatican (which has a few hills more than the Netherlands BTW)

p.s. Dutch did not like to hear this, but somebody had to say it.

I don’t think that Berlin has substantially more mountains in the city than Amsterdam. I live on one of the molehills that pretend to be a mountain and I have 22m of height difference to the river. It’s noticeable but hardly insurmountable.

> I don’t think that Berlin has substantially more mountains in the city than Amsterdam

Berlin, in fact, is not a country.

As I've said cannot be used as a template for any other country in the World, **except maybe some flat urban area**

Paris is not the Netherlands, you cannot export the Netherlands ways to Paris.

Moreover, there are on average 150,000 street accidents in Berlin every year.

Last year (2020), 14,782 people were hurt in road accidents in Berlin - the lowest figure in 30 years, according to police data. (thanks COVID I guess...)

In Rome, considered the hell on earth of street rage (69 cars every 100 people, negative record in Europe) ~10.500 people were injured in the same period.

Same population, 1.4 times more accidents.

Perception is very different from reality.

I’m a daily cyclist in Brussels and my city is far from flat.

I lived in Brussels, please consider the fact that what's considered "not flat" in Brussels is completely flat in 95% of Europe.

People cycle in the city of Lausanne (Switzerland), which has a 500m height difference between its lowest point and highest point.

Of course nobody is doing these 500m every day, but its common to see parents bring their children to school by electric bike, and maybe doing 100m of height elevation.

>cars are increasingly banned in downtown Paris

I drove in Paris past August, and didn't notice any bans.

Parking availaibility and price varies a lot, but it's workable.

They have pedestrianised some roads, but its hyperbolic to say they have "banned cars", there are plenty of places to drive if you you need to.

If it’s raining/snowing, or too hot, or too cold, I’d much rather be in an small enclosed car than exposed to the elements on a bike.

The Ami has a primitive heater but no air conditioning, but there’s no reason that these limitations are inherent to a vehicle of this size. I imagine an Ami-sized car with creature comforts of a regular vehicle would sell extremely well in cities.

Biking is great when the weather is amenable to it. When the weather is not, I'd rather not show up to my destination drenched in sweat, soaked in rain, or freezing my ass off.

> there’s no reason that these limitations are inherent to a vehicle of this size.

Of course not, but the manufacturer tried to keep the costs down as much as they could. An Ami with A/C for double the price would be a lot less attractive.

Although maybe a reversible heat pump could make the heating kinder on the battery...

> I imagine an Ami-sized car with creature comforts of a regular vehicle would sell extremely well in cities.

Seems rather doubtful, it would still have to provide limited amenities, but the price would shoot way up. And given the range of the car, the amenities are a lot less problematic: you can not use the car for long.

> Although maybe a reversible heat pump could make the heating kinder on the battery...

Isn't a normal AC a reversible heat pump?

A normal AC is a heat pump, but lots are not reversible.

Especially in cars, it's a very recent development in some EVs: on an ICE, the ICE provides the heating so a reversible AC is just more complexity for no gain.

> If it’s raining/snowing, or too hot, or too cold, I’d much rather be in an small enclosed car than exposed to the elements on a bike.

Yes and no. I have a three wheeler cargo bike I use for most of my commuting or city riding and very rarely do I opt for my car, particularly when the weather is bad. The main reason is that since where I live I basically cannot find parking and when the weather is bad, the roads are full of cars. In that case I'm usually quicker and more relaxed just loading the kids into the cargo bike (they have a roof) and I accept the wetness / cold than to try to use my car instead. It just works out much better for me.

I don't even have a driving licence, mostly go by subway / bus or scooter and right now if I go over 20kph on a scooter my face freezes, do you use a bike helmet (full face shield) when it's cold outside or are you just used to it?

It's different when you do the work to move you yourself (or even a part of it, on an e-bike). Other than that, a well designed hood helps, but at a cost of reducing your vision.

I used to bike year round in Canada. In the winter I would use a neck warmer to cover my face as I also had problems with my face getting cold. You'll adapt to the cold a little bit but even now when I go for a walk outside at < -10C and there's a slight breeze I need to cover my face.

I guess my face does not freeze? I have a scarf and a hat, and that's pretty much it for me to feel … fine? Generally I never really get cold cycling because I am moving. It's different when I'm walking in the cold where typically my feet get cold fast and I feel abysmal.

I put on my snowboarding face gear if it’s especially cold, even if I’m just walking outside. (Snowboarding speeds and weather are both typically worse than anything I see in the city.)

Very much this. Not having to faff with parking is one of the reasons I love my e-bike. It saves five minutes on what’s only a ten minute bike ride anyway.

Also, drivers are pretty much blind and drive stupidly in the rain. I'd rather be in a separate bike path in that case.

Quite honestly, an ebike solves a lot of this.

I thought I would never use it in the winter, but a cheap rain suit is perfect to keep me warm and dry, and takes about 20 seconds to put on or take off. I don’t have to worry about sweat since if I get too hot I can just use the throttle or dial up the electric assist.

I thought I would never use the thing in winter, but I actually find it absurdly practical.

Sorry but that's delusional - riding in the rain, and especially when it's snowy/icy - is order of magnitude more dangerous - traction/breaking/reduced visibility.

And the same applies to every other vehicle, but I suppose you would still get in a car on a rainy day?

You adjust speed and cycling style to the conditions, and for winter cycling there are plenty of good options for studded tires. The Nordics have succeeded in making winter cycling a more common activity, and you might want to check out the "winter cycling capital of the world": Oulu, Finland.

Last year a friend broke 2 ribs and forearm by slipping over some wet leaves on a bycicle - I don't see how that's comparable to a car.

Also I don't have windshield wipers on my face (or windshield for that matter) - but maybe I'm just wired like that.

> I don't see how that's comparable to a car.

Yesterday, local news, a car crash with all three involved drivers dead.

By slipping on wet leaves ? I guess it could happen but how likely is it ? Mind sharing the link ?

"in slippery conditions": https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/transport/snow-and-ice-ma...

(It's only a one-sentence mention in the article. There were only a few more details in the local news: two semis, one passenger car. All three drivers dead, two people in hospital. No details on what exactly happened, who caused it.)

And you think riding an ebike in those conditions on the road would not be suicide ?

2 wheels make you extremely sensitive to small traction loss - hitting a patch of wet leaves/gravel/mud/ice with a car tire is a nuisance at best - and a potential fatality on a ebike/motorcycle.

It would be a bad idea. And that specific road, even in good summer weather, I've had a truck pass me on my bike so close I could have touched it with a hand if not elbow.

But my point is, while you're better protected in the car, with speed and kinetic energy the stakes go up. If they were three cyclists instead of three drivers in heavy vehicles on that road yesterday, they would likely all still be alive.

My commute is 4mi each way in quite-rainy Portland, rain on my glasses isn't too much of a problem, though fine mist I need to wipe off occasionally. I haven't ever had any serious problems with road conditions (in ~20yr of bike commutes), though I do have to slow down / watch the turns until later in the winter when most of the leaves are out of the road.

That's unfortunate. I seen that a family of four where crushed to death and burned alive in their Nissan X-Trail yesterday when it veered off the road on ice and hit a truck full of propane tanks.

Last year I sprained my wrist slipping on ice while walking to my car, but I never fell off my bike even though I live in a temperate rainforest.

What should I learn from this one off incident?

I'm 60, and I bike everywhere.

I have a non-zero chance of getting into an accident, but on the other hand, I haven't been so fit in 30 years.

My guess is that my expected lifespan is increased by this decision. (I would add that I live in a very bike-friendly city.)

---

There's a further ethical calculation I would do, which is that using a car is wildly irresponsible giving that we are systematically eating through our resources and destroying our climate and with it our biosphere. (Electric cars are better, but still tremendously consumptive of resources.)

So even if I were less safe and the fitness issue were less important, I would still choose not to use a car, like I have chosen for my entire life.

Studded tires work well enough that I’d be really surprised if it was an order of magnitude more dangerous on snow/ice with them.

Have you tried, or are you just speculating about me being delusional?

As I said in my comment, I actually do this, and surprised myself with how practical it is in all but the absolute worse weather (there are about 7 days per year where my bike won’t work, but generally that means that it is dangerous driving conditions as well). I live in rural Canada. I’m no stranger to riding in snow, rain and darkness.

I could equally say that it is delusional to allow minimally trained civilians access to multi ton vehicles with limited visibility, built in devices intended to distract powered by explosive liquids. But that system works as well.

I used to own a motorcycle and I commute with a bycicle in ~mediteranian climate.

The only two accidents I've ever had on a motorcycle were low speed manuvers in heavy rain when I got caught by a shower.

On a bike just riding on a slippery road is terrible and wading through umbrellas, getting splashed by cars in traffic, rain in the eyes.

Riding on two wheels makes you extremely exposed - ebikes are just shit motorcycles (especially self built ones) and have a higher accident rate statistics from what I can tell.

If you're not aware how risky it is compared to a car you are you are being delusional.

Unfortunately, there are some places where the whole city is delusional, like in Finland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

It's more like the US is delusional. It was gaslit by General Motors in the 1940s and 1950s.

(Yesterday I watched a youtube called "Retrofuturism", that turned out to be, nearly verbatim, an old propaganda piece by GM. It was only about using cars and roads, not about the future (i.e., our world) at all. Some parts were hilarious, but overall it was deeply depressing.)

So you mishandled a motor vehicle that weighs 4-5x, with 100x the power as much as an ebike in the rain, and you commute using a bicycle which explicitly causes the downsides that I avoid using an ebike. I’m not surprised your experience is different

It sounds like your experience is different because haven’t actually tried using an ebike. I used to think that a bike and an ebike were basically the same use case. After having used a bike, an ebike, and a motorcycle for commuting I can say that they are three very different machines.

Please let me know what your experience was commuting in northern bad weather using an ebike before you call me delusional. It sounds like you are extrapolating incorrectly based on inexperience

I actually worked for a company making ebikes for a while so got my chance to try them out - like I said - motorcycle with cheap components, handles better for sure because it's lighter - but it's not built for traffic speeds.

People think because kids can drive it that it's safe - like I've said - quick Google search shows higher accident rate for ebikes than motorcycles ! And we are comparing to cars here - that's like >10x risk increase.

And every self built one I've seen had a way to remove speed limiting block (interested if have yours limited ?). That's a recepie for disaster.

I'll be another voice to say you're speaking from a myopic perspective. The Dutch bike through rain, sleet or snow without any difficulty. Modern electric cargo bikes like their favorite, Urban Arrow, are fantastically balanced and need only a trained rider to handle through a wide variety of inclement weather.

Yeah I dunno where they're going with this.

You can ski in the snow perfectly comfortably if properly attired, but you can't bike?

In fairness icy streets can get extremely dicey on two wheels-- no arguments there. The US in particular has a lot more extreme weather than Holland. You'll have extended periods where biking on icy concrete is not a great option.

Icy streets are extremely dicey on 4 wheels as well, except that cars tend to externalize the risk.

I.e. a bike slipping and falling tends to hurt the risk taker. A car slipping and crashing tends to protect the occupant at the expense of whatever gets crashed into.

> Around two-thirds of the 110,000 traffic victims treated in Dutch hospitals in 2021 were cyclists, according to VeiligheidNL.

www.techtimes.com/amp/articles/274249/20220413/e-bike-injuries-rise-despite-safety-precautions-according-dutch-organization.htm

And that's in a place with top tier biking infrastructure.

The victims are cyclists because so many dutch people cycle! (Because the infrastructure is so good)

Per Capita, cycling in the Netherlands is far far safer than cycling in the US.

Yes but far more unsafe than using a car !

> “The Dutch data for last year (2019) shows that in absolute figures more people died in car crashes (237) than on a bicycle (203). If you calculate the figure per kilometre travelled that is reversed. Per one billion kilometres travelled the figure for cycling is 11 while the figure for car occupants is 1.6 fatalities.”

Why do I have to google these self-evident facts ? No matter how good your bike lanes are two wheels are very sensitive and unforgiving and the vehicle offers 0 protection (and in fact gets in the way of softening the landing/balancing back).

The bike enthusiasm seems to override rationality - like if I strapped a child seat on a rear seat of a motorcycle social services would take my child - meanwhile if I do it on an ebike I'm praised for being environmental - despite the similar risk factor.

Cars are far more likely to kill people, and quite a few at once. In fact it is almost certain death if a pedestrian is hit by a speeding car. And if that speeding car collides with another vehicle, there's death abundant.

You're being told repeatedly by Europeans your take isn't right but you keep digging in and entrenching. Why is that? Have you considered you might actually be wrong?

The unsafest I've ever been was commuting between Brooklyn and Manhattan for two years as a cyclist: the number of near misses and actual side swipes (yes from cars) would shock you.

Cause of death counts as well. If I get hit by a car on my bike it is a counted as a cycling injury even though it was a fatal accident because a car was involved.

This doesn't mean much absent ridership statistics.

Not the person you're responding to, but I agree with that argument. I have commuted by bike daily in a relatively dry climate for years. I had no problem with rain in terms of wetting my clothes, as you said the rain gear is easy to put on and off. But even though I think of myself as a fairly careful rider, I had a couple falls, one due to slipping on leaves on a wet bike path that left me with a concussion, the other due to a hobo riding a narrow bike path the wrong way, causing me to arrive a work with bloody knuckles. I haven't fallen since and I continue to ride, but I do feel I'm much less at risk of injury in an enclosed car.

Riding increases with proper infrastructure, even in areas with extremely bad weather.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU

Hello, I come from the land up over

As in I come from Norway and winter tires for bikes work just fine :)

> riding in the rain, and especially when it's snowy/icy - is order of magnitude more dangerous - traction/breaking/reduced visibility.

Yes, it's more dangerous. No one said it's not. No one even mentioned safety until you brought it up yourself.

If you want to bring up safety: great! Go for it! But no need to start calling people "delusional" right from the bat.

But that's the worst part about bad weather - you have to ride much slower and be on high alert - so you're in shitty conditions for even longer - and ebike only makes that worse. For some reason people on ebikes don't realize that they are riding on a shitty motorcycle and how risky it is to remove speed restrictions/zip around traffic on those things - at least that's my impression of the few friends that really got into it. And the accident rate statistics seem to back my impressions.

Sure, I understand your point; it's a perfectly reasonable. My gripe was with the "that's delusional".

Maybe if you don't have the infra, but here in the Netherlands its perfectly normal to do this.

Tell that to people of Vietnam.

That 'raining, snowing, too hot, too cold' argument keeps coming up. You know, we humans are perfectly capable of dressing up appropriately and just enjoying the fresh air, whether it's warm or cold. In fact, it makes you feel alive!

Get the nice warm gloves and raincoat out for winter, or the super light and loose shirt with sunglasses for summer.

Good luck convincing people to give up their cars and go to work soaked in a raincoat every day.

I'm an American visiting Paris and have noticed many folks on scooters and ebikes have these skirts that are fabric covers that cover the bike seat and also the legs of the rider when they ride. They also have these mitten like things that attach to the handles that allow you to operate the bike but also protect your hands from the elements. Between those two things, and a decent rain jacket (which you need anyway) it seems to protect folks well and allow them to do just about anything one would do with their car. It's not that far fetched.

Have you seen any solution they're using for transporting things, like groceries or computers or extra clothes?

Yes - a bike cargo rack.

You have a waterproof bag that attaches to it. Problem completely solved.

It rains quite a bit in Netherlands, and it's the biking capital of the world.

It's almost as if rain isn't really that big of a deal.

Baskets, racks, panniers, backpacks, delivery services, cargo bikes, trailers.

A significant number of Parisians don’t own cars so this is no different than before for them.

Even without a cargo bike, I carry 20 to 25kg of groceries using a standard step thru city bike equipped with a front and rear rack and dual bags front and rear + backpack.

In Paris, you will see a lot of uber eats/deliveroo/etc. drivers on bikes and electric mopeds. It reduces their costs by orders of magnitude while not really changing their delivery times (probably shortening them actually. Unrelated to the question, they drive extremely dangerously (because of the way they're paid, they're doing all they can to cut times. do not expect them to stop at red lights))

They have those huge backpacks [1]. Some fasten it like a kind of top-case.

[1]: https://images.app.goo.gl/XVyoMqpQiQFvC5EU8

Yes, there are entire companies devoted to making them. Here are a few:

https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle-top-cases?gclid=Cj0KCQiA...

Yep, reason #1 we're fucked, people became absolute cry babies about anythign resembling physical effort or inconvenience. They'd burn the planet twice over rather than move their asses anywhere else other than in a 3 tonne climatized metal cage

Calling them cry babies is really not helpful.

Considering we spend most of our lives trying to increase the standard of living for ourselves and for others it's not all that surprising people resist reducing it, is it?

Is it "increase the standard of living " when it decreases your life expectancy, physical shape, made the city unliveable for pedestrians, potentially fuck up the climate for the next few hundred years, &c ?

At some point we have to look in the mirror and make choices for ourselves, and yes, lots of people became absolutely pathetic excuse of human beings, if you can't stand the rain I'm sorry but you definitely are a cry baby.

What's the end goal of this pursuit of "quality of life" ? Living in a matrix style pod, being fed food through your veins while being sedated and transported into the metaverse ?

If you can't imagine a world without cars and the idea of using a bike repulses you because "rain" you're the problem, or at least a very big part of it

> Is it "increase the standard of living " when it decreases your life expectancy, physical shape

Yes, it increases the standard of living by pulling poor people out of poverty. So the rich consumer nation has their life decreased due to over consumption while increasing the standard of living of those from poorer nations. The rich consumer nation cannot consume AND increase life expectancy at an infinite rate.

Cars do not, on their own, pull poor people out of poverty. In the US it’s quite the opposite. The need to own a car is a significant drag on many peoples finances

If it was that easy poverty wouldn't exist for decades

Simply look to China and India of the past few decades. With the US offshoring a majority of their manufacturers to China, it lifted their people out of poverty. The US outsourced a majority of their tech support / call center jobs to India and India has seen the same result. You may also look to Japan and semiconductors, and engines. Note these are only but some and small portions but if you zoom out it’s hard to miss.

Hopefully, ever-increasing gas prices will do the convincing.

While I am a big human-powered-transportation supporter, feeding a human is generally more expensive than paying for gas to have a machine do it.

A human needs some 2kJ / kg / km to ride. That's 1.6MJ.

A car needs ~15L gas per 100km, so that's 45MJ for a 10km ride.

While the car uses 30x as much energy, it will only cost you $1.30.

The human needs 1.6MJ of food. That's about a grilled chicken sandwich. Which will cost you $4.30...

Most people commuting by cars need to exercise at least 2-3 times a week to be healthy anyway. Commuting by foot, bicycle or any human powered way allows you to do the exercising and commuting in one go.

* at current gas prices

What about the e-bike, how many MJ goes to electricity and how many to human power?

(Also for the human-powered case, biking often displaces some other exercise. And of course using gas is bringing about the climate catastrophe so it's unethical, money isn't everything)

Replying to myself, apparently a 25 km/h ebike does about 4.25 Wh/km of battery power which would be 0.15 MJ of electricity for 10 km. A bit more considering losses in charger.

We don't need to convince everybody. Even just convincing 10% makes a huge difference in shifting the conversation, infrastructure, reducing energy usage, etc.

I live in Montreal and winter cycling used to be a really hardcore thing. Not anymore. Winters are warmer now, just a bit, but enough to make winter cycling pleasant on most days. Dedicated, snow-plowed cycling lanes made a huge difference.

(I use my car most of the time, because usually a daycare run with kid, but now we're equipped for maybe once a week by bike)

Me and many of my collagues do this. We have a drying room at the workplace where we can hang our drenched raincoats.

Yeah -- a lot of the problems presented here (proper clothing for the weather, showering/changing/drying your commuting gear at the office) have simple and quite affordable solutions as soon as even a few people do it.

Office and apartment buildings here (Helsinki) even compete by providing convenient bike storage even for cargo bikes with easy access, washing spots for bikes/muddy or sandy gear, drying cabinets etc.

Except when you go to work and have to spend the day with your pants and shoes drenched. And if you have glasses, you quickly can't see anything.

Or worse, sweaty and smelly. Be friendly to your colleagues

Wear appropriate clothes. Do not wear Converse sneakers when it is raining outside (or alternatively, have a pair of shoes at the workplace that you switch to once you are in, or whatever). Take a shower before work. Apply a deodorant, or an antiperspirant (the latter has different instructions, you apply them after shower, before sleep, and wash it off in the morning). It is a solved "issue", seriously. The shoes I wear when it is rainy or snowy outside do not get drenched at all, and I go to work by bus and foot. Same goes to my jacket. Actually, same goes to my whole body, as I use an umbrella on top of all this, and I hide wherever I can at the bus stop while waiting, or just use the umbrella if I cannot.

I go to work by e-bike. I have a pair of rain pants that I pull over my regular pants, and a rainproof jacket. I wear glasses, but my helmet has a visor. Would a car keep me drier? Yes, absolutely, but I’d still need to walk from parking lot to office, and I’d be stuck with all the other folks in traffic.

> but I’d still need to walk from parking lot to office

FWIW, this is effectively solved by an umbrella.

Yes, or a rain jacket. But trousers still get wet if it’s a bit windy. And then I’m back to square one, or at least close to.

What do you do about shoes in rain?

What do you mean? You wear boots or whatever you want to call them, not sneakers.

Waterproof boots or neoprene overshoes. I’ve also seen people with rain trousers that cover the shoes.

You can buy rain covers for your shoes, or just do whatever it is you do when you walk outside in the rain.

Ok good tip. Just to clarify. When I drive garage to garage, as many people do, I don't walk in the rain. When I do walk in the rain, I carry an umbrella, and that doesn't work on a bike

You can own multiple pair of shoes, and even have one stay at the office, same for pants. I do it and I don't feel like I'm having a miserable existence

But fuck it, let's buy a car and fuck the planet, that's much more convenient, god forbid we sweat or touch the rain, oh the horror !

Yes.

> You can own multiple pair of shoes, and even have one stay at the office, same for pants.

This hints at another counterpoint: it's not just yourself you have to protect from elements, but also whatever it is you want to transport with you. Like those extra shoes. Or electronics. Or groceries. Etc.

Waterproof bags probably exist, but I can't say I've seen them available, or used, by anyone at all.

I must live a very peculiar life then. All I need is a backpack and a rain coat, it's been 7 years or so and I haven't experienced anything life changing so far

I get on my bike, go to the store, office, friends, &c. rain, snow, sun, wind, it won't kill you really

Let me guess

No kids?

What you described was my bike centric life as well until it wasn't.

When you have to do school drop-off a couple miles away for middle schoolers, or do that weekly store run for a family, it gets a bit trickier on the bike.

I have kids. They’re sitting happily in the dry under the canopy. It’s great. Wherever I need to drop them off, childcare, sports, friends, I park right in front. Predictable travel times, no stuck in traffic. My long term cycling average speed is on par with the average car speed in Berlin. Sure, on some distances I loose vs. a car, but on others I win, since I can take shortcuts or pass cars stuck in traffic.

Bike packs 100kg of stuff or a large shopping trolley in volume. Works for the weekly shopping without issue.

The only time it sucks is ice on the road. Snow is fine, but ice is not - because bike lanes get treated like third class infrastructure, worse than pavements.

I do the school run (3 hilly miles each way) seven times a week on an e-bike - a Tern GSD. It’s fine. Our kid loves it and so do his friends (we share lifts). We do have a car but I haven’t driven it since August.

Waterproof bike panniers are pretty standard.

Waterproof bags have existed for centuries - waxed fabrics, well-treated leathers, and I'm sure plenty of more modern textiles. Or just put a plastic/metal box on the side/back of your bike and use it exactly like you do the trunk in your plastic/metal box of a car.

> Waterproof bags probably exist, but I can't say I've seen them available, or used, by anyone at all.

What? Almost all non-cheap backpacks are water-proof. Water-proof packs are around everywhere.

Right? I think that I would have to try to find a bike pannier that ISN’T waterproof.

I honestly never owned one in my life, nor I believe I ever seen one. Note that by "waterproof" I mean something I could stuff a laptop into and have it survive half an hour of heavy rain in it. Not something that will resist a small drizzle for few minutes before its inside surfaces start to get wet.

Where I live a pair of detachable waterproof (yes, you can literally take a 1 hour shower with them) bike bags is about 30$.

Waterproof bags or backpacks are absolutely common for electronics. Alternatively, you can buy simple rain covers for backpacks. Bike panniers are at least somewhat water resistant unless you opt for the cheapest. That’s really one of the easiest things to solve.

> let's buy a car and fuck the planet

There’s currently football matches being played in Qatar in stadiums with AC set to 20°C in 32°C weather. Thousands of people have travelled there by plane.

Me having a car is fine.

The two aren't mutually exclusive

Yeah they kinda are. Scales matter. I know the « A not as bad as B » fallacy and in my opinion it falls short when A is completely negligible compared to B, because it’s not a fallacy anymore, it’s just reality.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Using fallacies to invalidate arguments should be a fallacy by itself. Maybe my argument is a fallacy logically speaking, but in the real world, not everything is ruled by formal logic. If A is completely negligible compared to B, the « A not as bad as B » fallacy doesn’t apply anymore.

Of course it still does.

To me, your argument sounds pretty much the same as "The us dropped a nuke on Hiroshima. Me throwing a molotov at my neighbor is fine."

Sure that molotov is negligible in front of B. Doesn't make it okay

A more proper equivalent would be me throwing a molotov on hiroshima the day after the nuke impact. Same victim.

The atmosphere is global, there's no Qatar's atmosphere and my neighbor's atmosphere

I have a shoes dryer in my office for this reason.

I've cycled and driven mopeds in some pretty serious rains (including tropical monsoon downpours), and the right preparation makes all the difference. Being "stuck" on a two-wheeler during unexpected rainfall is definitely a big bummer, but a good raincoat or poncho makes all the difference, and you tend to come out reasonable dry at the end of it.

You just can't fix the extreme edges this way. Above about 300K that "super light and loose shirt" is still drenched with sweat unless your "assist" is doing all the work or there's a pretty stiff wind.

Below about 250K the "nice warm clothing" needed to make this comfortable would become too bulky to make ordinary movement practical, so we skimp. We tell ourselves nope, we're just not going outside except to do stuff, and then we're coming straight back. Below 200K it's no longer practical to keep humans alive with anything resembling "clothing". You should use a building to keep warm instead. Earth is capable of both these extremes, although outside temperatures below 200K are usually only seen in the Antarctic interior during storms.

What is 300k? Are you using kelvin here?

300K. Yes. I don't find it very convenient to work with these weird signed temperatures.

No one knows what you mean.

That's about an 86 on my scale of intelligibility.

There's some conditions that riding a bike are far less safe than a car. [0]

I've had interest in an e-bike in the past, the problem I personally run into is that I'd still need a car for most trips due to the way my region is laid out. (I think I had -one- job where an e-bike was viable for a commute range-wise, but only based on published specs which probably wouldn't fit the real use thermals of my region.) [1] Speaking of, the 'too cold' argument holds a bit more water for e-bikes; I doubt many have the thermal protections of a BEV, which could lead to a destroyed pack.

Also, IDK what it's like in other parts of the world, but in the US much of the population sees decent bicycles as a 'hobby/sport' rather than a mode of transport.

Personally I blame big box stores and terrible, cheap, 'disposable' bicycles. Aside from having cheap, unreliable, unsafe components (my favorite: I was fixing one of these, while trying to run through the gears, the grip shifter broke in such a way it shot a plastic shard at my eye,) they are at time assembled by people that are paid based on production rather than hourly. [2]

Bike shops, as a result, tend to cater to either the MB hobbyist or the Road folks. (At least in my region.) To be clear many of these are good reputable shops, but it means that oftentimes the items you would want to make daily riding practical (i.e. the right racks/bags for a reasonable grocery trip, are at best special order.)

Honestly?

If someone wanted to really give e-bikes a spiffy image in the US, I know exactly what to do. Take two Sun EZ Classics [3] and the SxS kit [4]. I also know at one point they made a middle 'rumble' seat as well as a special drape shroud for the SxS [5]. Redesign the SxS kit with an 'E-Motor' option (I'm not sure whether you could get by with just one or if dual would be required.)

Bam. You have a comfortable e-bike that has some protection from the elements and has some room for crap in the back like groceries/etc. Additionally, you have the ability to have a 'passenger'. I'm -guessing- in volume you could sell the finished product for ~2000-3000 USD, but that would assume that you are doing enough volume to make it worth it to all involved parties. (Why the wide swing? Last I knew the SxS kit was done by a small, low-volume shop, making it almost as much as one of the bikes.)

[0] - To be clear, safety is different than comfort/ease of ride. I've ridden through 3 inches of snow, and while it was a grueling ride, It was honestly safer than a typical ride due to everyone's reduced speeds. OTOH I've had times where there was no snow but enough (black) ice on the roads/sidewalks that snap physics calculations became important.

[1] - As we have observed with BEVs and the like, cold weather has a pretty big impact on battery efficiency. Even in my Hybrid I can see a 5%-10% fuel economy difference between 28F and 40F

[2] - At least, that's what happened at some of the stores around here. They would essentially abuse a system where infirm people can be paid less than minimum wage, by an 'output' system compared to how much a normal hourly worker would produce (easily rigged with the right person as a 'benchmark', of course.)

[3] - https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-sx/

[4] - https://www.sunseeker.bike/index.php/products/ez-classic-sid...

[5] - We actually did one of these full setups at the shop once for a family that had a child who had physiological/mental developmental issues but loved the feeling of riding. He could pedal when he wanted to. Them picking it up was the happiest sight in the world. Things you miss about working at a simple bike shop I guess.

My problem is the lack of infrastructure. We have a few streets in the entire city with decent bike lanes. Mostly you're on the road with cars going 90km/hr right beside you with no barrier or even road markings. I'm not going to do that in anything but perfect weather and even then not very often.

That's a perfect example of how we have allowed cars to endanger the public space. We all live in a constant fear to be hurt or killed by a motorist: watch both sides, do it again, are you _very_, _very_ certain? Then attempt to cross a street. And STILL 35.000 people die every DAY worldwide in traffic accidents. It's dystopian.

> too hot, too cold

Ami don't have air conditioning or heating systems.

According to the article, the base-spec model Ami has a heater and a “demister” but not A/C.

It has heating but not cooling.

I'm a keen cyclist but I still don't much enjoy cycling in moderate/heavy rain.

Cold I don't mind.

Agreed, the amount excuses that people have. I'm not talking about HN itself. Is too much.

As my grandma would say, you're not made of sugar. If the new baseline for human life is to not be exposed to rain and never sweat we can give up now because we'll never manage to make that sustainable.

Aluminium-based antiperspirants work for days between re-use if anyone is worried about sweating (and yeah, according to studies it is not as unhealthy as people think it is, at least not in those amounts, and no one told you to bathe in it).

Not being exposed to rain... well... I dunno, I live in Europe and people just dress up appropriately. Mostly it is just a matter of using an umbrella anyways... and proper clothes, seriously.

> Aluminium-based antiperspirants work for days between re-use if anyone is worried about sweating

Or go to the bathroom, change tshirt, use some deo and you're set for the day, it really isn't rocket science. You're exercising, saving hundreds of kilos of co2 per year, and saving 10+ sqmeter of parking space. Not to mention no gas, no insurance, virtually no maintenance.

Sure, there are many alternatives. I prefer the antiperspirant way, because I hate sweating a lot, and I would rather not wash clothes more regularly, but to each their own. It is still car-less. :)

For short distances, getting my car out from under fresh snow is more work than taking the bike. Even when it's just a small layer of light snow that needs to be dusted off.

Also if I'm going to spend any time outside, I need to spend equal amount of time picking my clothes and dressing for the weather regardless of whether I pick the car or the bike.

The weather is only as bad as your worst clothing. I did invest in Shimano neoprene overshoes to catch the crap my super-low muguards don't, but only because my gf objected to plastic bags (which were admittedly, a nit of a pain. On very cold days i put bubble wrap inside them for added wind-breakage/ windsulation. For my hands, I absolutely refuse to not wear washing up gloves, with liner gloves inside, though.

When I was younger my car broke down and I did not have the money for the replacement part. So I rode my bike to work for 5 months.

This was quite enjoyable most days, it was only 3.5 miles each way. On rainy days, I packed a 2nd set of clothes wrapped in a plastic grocery bag, and also wrapped my laptop in one.

The worst was when it started to drop below 40F outside, and raining.

It was fun until it wasn’t- then repairing the car went near the top of the list.

Check the FreZe NIKROB EV [1]. EU version of the popular Chinese Mini EV, 4 seats, has AC.

[1] https://nikrob.at/ edit: typo.

As a Dutch person im out here exposed to these elements on the bike and yes I do own a car and even when it rains I do take the bike,I'm adjusted too it.

I did never broke something, yes I did stupid things on a bike. Even in the snow and ice. Using a bicycle isn't difficult.

It seems people are never thinking what happens if he is getting old. Good luck when you can still ride a bike when you are 70s and in the snow.

If and when I can't ride (which I suspect will be never, since it's an ebike and my parents, whi are both in their nineties, still occasionally ride non-electric bikes), then I will find something else. It's not like the ebike is a huge investment that nails me for life...

"It seems people are never thinking what happens if he is getting old"

You really think, that we people who do drive bicycles, do not think about cold and rain? We are the first to notice it first hand. So we do think about it, as we have to regulary deal with it.

The solution is adequate clothing.

But yes, I also own a car as I do not live somewhere with good public transport system. And I do know people who ride a bike in their 70s, but I am aware, that there will likely come a time, when I will be indeed too old for riding in the winter. But chances are, that by then I am also so fragile, that I might be too old for save driving also. Hopefully self driving is ready by then.

You want some 70 year old guy driving a car in your city in the snow? People outlive their ability to drive a car by 5-10 years. If you build a city that welcomes and requires cars, and discourages biking and walking, you are dooming the elderly to spending the ends of their lives at home.

70 isn't old.

The visual acuity of a 70-year-old is roughly on par with a 20-year-old wearing dark sunglasses at night.

That's not actually true.

Although it's bizarre because in the US 70-year-olds seem incredibly frail compared to 70-year-olds anywhere else.

It is true. At night a 70-year-old person is basically blind. They can't cope with oncoming headlights because their pupils take seriously minutes to make adjustments that a young eye can make in seconds. Old pupils don't open as wide as young pupils. Old eyes have only half the rod receptors a young eye has. These effects are already noticeable to people at age 50.

The elderly can only drive safely under ideal conditions: sun high, not on the horizon, not at night, in clear weather where nobody is using their headlights.

> They can't cope with oncoming headlights [at night]

One of the reasons I stopped driving 20 years ago (~30) was because I have this problem. Made night driving much more stressful.

That'll be why it's all people half my age (I'm about 50) who are terrified of driving at night because they can't see properly, and I (and people my age) can read the number the guy in the car in front is calling on his phone, then.

If people exercised instead of living in their cars/offices and walking 5 minutes per day they'd be able to do basic human things at 70 instead of having their body give up at 40

> If people exercised instead of living in their cars/offices and walking 5 minutes per day

I did that. Running, cycling, walking, etc. Substantially more walking than 5 minutes a day, too...

> instead of having their body give up at 40

...and my right knee became unfixable trash somewhere between 45 and 50 (a variety of ailments, possibly exacerbated by a ~2001 injury.)

I'm sorry for you, and it's a data point, but statistically at 45 virtually everyone is an heavily overweight/obese excuse of a human being. For every sport injured person you have 100 obese who can barely go though basic human movements anymore

Anywhere a bike can go, an electric wheelchair/scooter ("Rascal") can go. I intend on swapping out my bike for one of those when thr time comes.

There are also electric adult tricycles, etc.

Dad is 77 and biking in the snow just fine. He's never been a car person so he's quite used to it. Always gets studded tires for slippery weather.

Elderly people driving cars isn't exactly an ideal situation either...

I mean the answer is to just put on a coat? In the upper midwest plenty of people switch to snowmobile based commutes and errand running in the winter for example. You aren't enclosed then. You survive, in fact people even find it fun.

Good for you.

That does not invalidate the point of a mean of transport alternative to big empty cars riding one person each and to bikes, that ride one person each and have no trunk.

Bikes are also more dangerous than small slow 4 wheeled vehicles. Because, you know, bikes don't stand on their own, their braking abilities are very limited due to very thin tyres, they have no stop and turn signals, no rearview mirrors, etc etc

Cars are expensive because of safety devices and regulations, not because a box of metal with an engine could not be built for a couple of thousands euros.

ALSO the subway is much faster than a bike, cost much less and does not interfere with pedestrian walking spaces, I can pay 10 years of public transport with 1,200 euros.

Of course bikers of HN will not like it, but cars are the killer app for private transportation, the ICE engine is an accident, it's their form factor that wins.

Decades of design have been spent on them. while bikes are still the same old two wheelers now with an electric engine, so more like stripped down mopeds, not so great if you ask the majority of people who simply need to move and don't care about the flex.

Please, don't be un parisien.

p.s. I'm a biker and a pedestrian, I drive less than 100km a month, only when I have to and don't own a car since 10 years ago. But Ican't stand the attitude of many bikers that think that if they do it, everybody should or could do it. It's simply wrong.

>Bikes are also more dangerous than small slow 4 wheeled vehicles.

Cars are WAY more dangerous than bicycles.

> Cars are WAY more dangerous than bicycles

wrong.

cars are more dangerous on average (the concept of average should be banned from any statistical analysis) because they travel many many many more kilometers than the average bike and mostly for very long distances at high speed.

But if you notice, I wrote "than slow 4 wheeled cars".

Ami is much safer than a bike, especially for the occupants.

Example: there are 3.75 million cars in Rome urban area (5 million residents)

There were 121 deaths last year caused by car accidents.

It's 32 per million vehicles.

Bike users deaths caused by street accidents have been 50 in the same year.

Meanwhile the number of people brought to ER for either having an accident with an e-bike or and e-scooter have tripled in the past couple of years. Mostly is people falling on their own and hitting their head. Main two reasons: lost balance on the e-scooter, going too fast with their e-bike.

Try getting hit by either a >400kg Ami or a 20kg bike each going 20km/h and let me know the results.

If you wanna have a conversation, please try at least to understand a few simple concepts.

A bullet weights 50 grams.

Would you prefer to be hit by a bike or a bullet?

A bullet has more kinetic energy because it's significantly faster than a bike. But a bike is actually slower than a car, even an Ami so I don't understand what argument you're trying to make here. Cars kill people every. single. day.

All the traffic rules had to be created just because how dangerous and deadly cars are.

> A bullet has more kinetic energy because it's significantly faster than a bike

that's part of the problem.

The bullet is also shaped to cause damages

If the same 50 grams were a disc of few microns of thickness and a diameter of 50 cm, they would be much less dangerous.

A bike is shaped like a battering ram, an Ami has to pass very rigorous safety tests and is shaped to cause the less damage possible on impact, because it's the law.

So a bike going 20mph is more dangerous than an Ami going 25mph.

Because the Ami has a real braking system and it's possible to maneuver it out of the danger zone at the same time. A bike is much harder to handle in emergency situations, because, you know, the aforementioned gyroscope effect does not work as flawlessly as having 4 stable wheels on the ground.

Good news is that when a biker does some stupid shit, they can blame cars.

Except that when a bike hits a pedestrian it usually causes grave damages, ask my cousin, who got a broken hip from a bike riding on the pavement.

> All the traffic rules had to be created just because how dangerous and deadly cars are.

That's like saying that rules around train safety were created after trains were invented.

No sh*t Sherlock!

Bike safety rules existed before, because bikes existed already.

>So a bike going 20mph is more dangerous than an Ami going 25mph.

This is absurd. It makes me really doubt if you have any understanding of physics.

I also don't appreciate you editing your earlier posts to pad out your arguments.

> This is absurd. It makes me really doubt if you have any understanding of physics.

You are looking at the problem from the wrong angle.

Weight is not the issue.

How about this: would you prefer to be hit full force in the face with a pillow weighting 1Kg or with a bar of steel weighting the same 1Kg?

Or maybe you would prefer to be hit with a metal ruler weighting less than 100 grams.

Sounds better than 1Kg, doesn't it?

I don't know you, but I would choose the pillow any time.

I might be wrong, but I think that density is discussed in physics too.

The point is not that a bike runs as fast as a bullet, but that a bike is basically a bar of very hard, very dense, very rigid, indeformable stuff (metal and/or composite materials) like a bullet, while a car is made in a way that in case of impact its deformable body absorbs a good chunk of the kinetic energy.

The same way being hit with a piece of metal embedded in a pillow causes less harm than being hit by the naked piece of metal, even though the weight of the pillow + metal bar is higher than the metal bar alone.

TBH a car is a very heavy pillow, running too fast too often, but looking at just 15 years ago cars have gone a very long way towards safety, bikes haven't, they have in fact gained a brand new clean and green engine, becoming much heavier, much faster and much more dangerous.

The bicycle is also more dangerous for the occupant, it's irrelevant what the biker hits, could be a wall, a car, a bus, another person, the person riding the bike will be projected forward at the same speed she was riding, no way to stop it, no safety mechanism.

That's why in the Netherlands are worried about "fewer road fatalities but more serious bike accidents" and are thinking about making it mandatory to wear an helmet when riding a bike.

I'm quite sure the problem is speed.

Specifically they state that

- the number of motorcyclists or moped drivers who died following an accident increased by 24 victims to 101 last year

- While the overall number of road fatalities has reached a seven-year low, number of cyclists seriously injured in accidents continues to rise, data released by Dutch safety organisation SafetyNL reveals that the number of cyclists seriously injured in road accidents has increased by a third over the past 10 years likely as a result of the rise in popularity of the e-bike. (too fast, maybe?)

When we talk about safety, rising numbers are always a net negative, no matter the reason why. Cars are getting safer, bikes are getting less safe over time.

Bikes are not for everybody, I think not everyone should drive a car, but slower, lighter, smaller, mostly made of derformable plastic city cars will have a major impact on urban transportation, while bikes will not.

Let's talk about it in 5 years, I bet I won't be proved wrong.

maybe a video made by someone "addicted to cycling and coffee", living in a very bike friendly Country, will give you some more perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3s2gVxLN9Q

> A bullet has more kinetic energy because it's significantly faster than a bike

Confirmed. Kinetic energy is E = 1/2 m v^2.

A bullet might have v = 1000 m/s, m = 0.01 kg, E = 5000 J.

A bicycle with rider might have v = 5 m/s, m = 100 kg, E = 1250 J.

I'd prefer a bullet, if it's traveling at 20km/h.

I would prefer a bullet too, compared to an e-bike, at any speed.

Does that mean we should all ride bullets traveling at 20 km/h?

I'd rather not. Never rode one, but I heard bullets are really impractical vehicles. My bike seems much more comfortable.

> My bike seems much more comfortable

cars are much more comfortable than bikes though.

so ranking things by speed we get

- bullet +3

- car +2

- bicycles +1

ranking them by comfort

- car +3

- bicycle +2

- bullet +1

final ranking

- cars +5

- bullet +4

- bicycle +3

cars win, bikes come last.

>Bike users deaths caused by street accidents have been 50 in the same year.

and most of those deaths were caused by cars.

> and most of those deaths were caused by cars

Or by the humans driving them?

It's no surprise that the most common vehicle is involved in most of the fatal accidents.

Absolute numbers are not very interesting in this context, the difference in number of vehicles is at least an order of magnitude, it's obvious that cars are top of the list, like adults cause most of the homicides and you won't find many toddlers there.

As a data point, when Rome was in lockdown and cars were banned from the streets, accidents involving bikes and other means of transport like e-scooters, went up 5x and hospitalizations to HR went up 3x for the same kinds of accidents, compared to when cars were allowed to drive around.

I used to take the subway in Paris. Now I ride a bike, carefully. I don't ignore traffic lights. And even riding this way I am always surprised that I'm faster than the subway. No connections, no wait, arriving directly at the exact destination helps.

Not to mention no need to stand in an overcrowded metal box.

> I used to take the subway in Paris.

yeah, the subway in Paris is not great, but that's mainly because a lot of people use it.

one particular reason people feel they are fast using bikes is because a few people use them.

it's always underestimated by bike users how terrible bike jams are.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/resizer/2nIUJ2wOHIuaxiM6vvCL...

https://www.fastcompany.com/3052767/this-is-what-rush-hour-l...

If you are the only one crossing a street with your bike, good, if you are in a lane with hundreds other people, not great.

Paris has that problem with the subway, doesn't mean that the subway is slow, it is simply crowded.

Bikes also seem faster because they break every rule in traffic, stopping at the traffic light is mostly about biker's own safety, but skipping traffic lanes it's not permitted by any traffic regulation and yet every biker does it (every two wheeler actually).

This is what the average traffic light stop looks like where there are a lot of bikes or motorbikes.

https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/crowd-motorbikes-stand-red-t...

https://cdn.road.cc/sites/default/files/styles/schema_org/pu...

Even in the presence of bike lanes, everyone tries to be in front, of course they are faster, they are literally cheating.

I would be the fastest in every line, if i could skip it and pass in front of everyone else.

Truth is other people would not like it, but we tolerate it for bikes (and motorbikes) for reasons I still don't fully comprehend.

Paris has one real feature: it's a greatly enjoyable city to walk and a terrible city for bikes (or cars)

So if you are in Paris, walk!

Nobody can steal your feet!

- As bicycling boomed in the French capital during the Covid pandemic, so has the number of stolen bikes.

- “This is the worst place for bikes, The mafia networks are organized to steal them. With everyone currently riding bikes in Paris, it’s become a simple and easy way for thieves to make a lot of money.”

The meek shall inherent the earth.

Biking sucks, it is dangerous and uncomfortable in snow, rain, cold, and heat.

> In day trafic it's probably much faster than the Ami

No way, man. The Ami has flames on the side:

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/weird/ha-check-out-citroens...

And does your e-bike strike fear in the hearts of criminals everywhere?

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/citroen-ami-now-po...

I think not.

> And you don't need to have any form of licence to drive one in France!

FWIW, that's wrong: only people born before 1985 ~ (i don't know the exact date) don't need any license. People born after that do require a license, which is much much lighter than standard driving license in France, but still requires several hours (I think it takes a whole day?), which I think is equivalent to what actual driving license in some countries.

A French driving license is an ordeal, at least compared to your typical US state.

This licence you can pass in a day or two, and the theoretical part is often done at school as a way to improve road safety.

Yes, you need the "Permis AM" if you are born in 1988 or after. This category of cars is still often referred as "license less cars" though.

The article is still kinda right in the sense that the AM license is only a certification that you got a formation, there in no exam to get it.

If this was half the price, say £3,500, I'd probably get one. The price seems wildly out of line with what you get.

Also I wonder about modding - larger battery, a roof rack and a bright orange paint job to compensate for lack of safety features.

It would probably cost close to that range just for the battery, but it begs the question who this is for.

If your budget is £7k there are plenty of used options around that would involve sacrificing much less than this for about double the range (thinking early Leaf/Zoe/Ion).

It’s neat, but it reminds me of the Twizy. Just too many compromises to still make sense.

"you don't need to have any form of licence to drive one in France"

I think that might answer your question.

Also, you talk about sacrificing things. Which presumably means you consider the alternative to be a car. But this is much smaller than a car, and might appeal to people who don't own a car and don't want to.

> Just too many compromises to still make sense.

A huge chunk of car journeys are done to move 1 person + limited cargo across less than 30km roundtrip. The sort of journeys that could be served by a e-bike or public transport, but absent infrastructure for both could at least be served by a small car.

> If your budget is £7k there are plenty of used options around that would involve sacrificing much less than this for about double the range (thinking early Leaf/Zoe/Ion).

The Zoe is a 33 000 € car brand new. Cars must start somewhere before a used market show up to cheapen them further. This one will be even cheaper down the road once it appears in the used market.

As for who uses it, I know plenty of people who own one to do things like small size deliveries, citroen sells a version of this car that doesn't have a passenger seat for the sake of more cargo capacity. It's a pretty nifty car to have as long as you mostly drive it within the city, where most streets don't allow you to go past 30 kilometer per hour. For city dwellers in Europe, it works plenty fine and better than cars that are too big for some of the parking spots you might have taken with a small one like the ami.

> The Zoe is a 33 000 € car brand new.

The Zoe has been around since 2012, although you're probably want a model from 2015 onwards. There's a big used car market for Zoes out there.

I get your point though, more modern EVs are only just coming onto the market now so it'll take a while for them to filter through.

So far it seems to be very popular as an alternative to buying a scooter for the kid, for parents with enough income. Especially with the £100/month plan.

The nimbleness and ease of charge (the thing comes with what's essentially a hoover charging cord) make it rather convenient for city dwellers or close suburbanites.

It's also much cheaper than license-free cars (Aixam, Chatenet, Ligier).

I think a lot of people who don’t have electric cars don’t realize that essentially every electric car can be charged with a “Hoover charging cord.”

Charging a Model S over an american household plug takes 3 days.

> Charging a Model S over an american household plug takes 3 days.

… from zero to full.

If you just want to top up the 30-40 miles that are driven in a day, then 10-12 hours overnight is fine with a regular plug.

People ask me all the time about how long it takes me to charge my tesla. I tell them that it’s a different mentality than ICE cars:

1. Instead of a cycle of low/empty —> full —> low/empty, it’s a cycle of use —> top up when not using —> use. For most people, a regular wall outlet is fine.

2. If a regular wall outlet is used as the main charging source, then a supercharger may need to be used after long trips to top up. If you have days when you don’t drive much or at all (e.g., if you work from home or have a short commute), then even this can be skipped since you will eventually get full.

3. For road trips, something people seem to think requires long wait times, aim to keep the battery in approximately the 20-60% charge range. This allows for two hour recurring range with a margin for error while maximizing battery charge speed at super chargers. Typical charging time will be the amount of time it takes to go to the bathroom and get something to drink plus maybe a short stretch if those things go very fast. For me personally, bathroom and drink of some sort at a nearby Starbucks (which are frequently near superchargers) is almost perfect timing.

4. The only genuinely sucky thing about EV charging is road trips during peak travel times, especially holidays. The current infrastructure doesn’t handle peak demand well, but I think that will be fixed over time.

> If you just want to top up the 30-40 miles that are driven in a day, then 10-12 hours overnight is fine with a regular plug.

Okay, but you probably live in a city in the US, where you don't really drive.

I live in Scotland, and I use my vehicle for work. I don't think I've done less than 100 miles any time I've put the keys in the ignition in years, and quite often I fill the tank a couple of times a day (dual-fuel LPG and petrol) or just burn the dirty stuff.

I don't really "get" what Teslas are for. I don't need something that can accelerate to 60mph faster than if it had been thrown off a cliff - I can't imagine why you'd ever need to accelerate to 60mph flat out - and I don't really have a use for something that'll get me to work and then need charged for three days. Also given that with the cost of electricity and the cost of propane the way it is, it's actually cheaper to drive a V8 Range Rover than a Telsa, I'm just not convinced.

Maybe all of these things are true in Scotland, especially your part of Scotland.

In your particular use case, it would be prudent to have a faster charger installed at your home. It’s an additional expense, but your use case is not typical, so I don’t think that’s unreasonable. With a slightly faster charger, you can go from low to full overnight. I have a $20 adapter that can plug into my dryer outlet (which is next to my garage) for days I take long day trips.

The only folks I know who drive over 100 miles minimum every time they drive is folks with long commutes, salespeople, and folks who live in extremely rural areas.

For some of those folks, EVs may not be the right car for them. That’s ok — different people have different needs in vehicles.

The reasons I like my Tesla:

- I live in a relatively small beach town/city, so almost everyone drives. Some things are close. Others are not. 10 miles to the center of town.

- very low maintenance. Just tires, windshield wiper fluid, and air filter. Maybe brakes after 5-7 years (probably will not own it then).

- no gas stations while starting each day at full. It’s easy to charge in my garage. Not everyone has a garage, but superchargers are very common where I am, and it’s easy to charge while shopping if necessary.

- it’s relatively quiet in the car

- the ride is smooth

- the acceleration is good on a few short on ramps that are unfortunately too common in my part of California. Otherwise, I drive fairly conservatively.

- I love the clean dash design. I also love the voice controls and screen controls (when needed, which is rare).

- the autopilot is very useful for my use case.

- overall a very positive driving experience. It’s just fun to drive.

- Total cost of ownership is relatively low, although the purchase price is high. When I bought my model y, the purchase price was comparable to a highlander hybrid, but the cost of ownership after purchase is much lower for the Tesla (mainly due to less maintenance).

Overall, my comment to people is that you will be miserable if you bring an ICE mentality to an EV. But the opposite is also true — bringing an EV mentality to an ICE vehicle will be a miserable experience. ICE and EVs just have different patterns of use, especially regarding refueling/recharging and maintenance.

So what? It has about 10 times the range of the Ami. Especially if you drive it at just 28mph. 8 hours of charging at is about enough to equal that range with a Model 3. And at the higher voltage of UK circuits, about half that.

It is <€1500 for the battery and <$1000 for the motor/inverter. People have diy built higher capacity electric ducati-type sports bikes on YouTube for about the cost of this clown car.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGDhgAUeBL8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxTZkSj_qV4

Range 200 miles, top speed above 100mph, street legal all for $6000-7000 by two dudes in some garage who make it up as they go along..

> who this is for

I've seen a few of these around my city. Also Twizy's and a bunch of 50cc ICE cars that you can drive with a moped licence.

From my admittedly anecdotal information, it's mostly -90%- "rich kids". I mean, I don't know if they are rich, obviously, but they are teenagers in at least nice areas. I've even seen some of them around the tiny cars using them as a bit of status item.

They don't need to carry much luggage, they don't need to carry more than 1 lucky friend / love interest, and they don't need to go very far or that many places.

Family member own one, he permanently lost his driver license because of multiple dui but he can still move around the village with this

To me the size is an advantage. Living in SF this would be easy to park and probably more maneuverable.

A used car comes with maintenance costs, and in practice for this price range would probably be an ICE.

Personally I would be comparing this more to a micro mobility device than a traditional vehicle. In which case it’s a couple times more expensive than a good e-bike but more convenient for errands

In Italy it costs 9000€. It's not a small price, but it's less expensive than minicar like Ligier.

In France it’s 7800€, but with government subsidies it goes down to 6900€.

There are options (including the orange colour you want!), but the only worthwhile one is the Cargo variant (in place of the second seat) for 8200€/7300€. No battery upgrade.

You'll probably be able to get a used one for that price.

This type of "car" is quite popular in Sweden. You might think that such a cheap "toy car" would be for people with low income, but they're quite popular among teenagers younger than 18 (age limit for car driving license) in affluent neighborhoods.

We also have a different class of "car", an "A-traktor". They're usually normal cars that have had their top speed limited to 30 km/h among with some other modifications, and are classed as tractors. They used to need a flatbed necessitating a more extensive rebuild, bud that changed a while ago so now we have Volvo V70 and Porsche Cayennes (and a Scania 164 Topline V8) with 15 year olds as drivers.

https://www.thelocal.se/20211021/why-do-swedish-teenagers-dr...

The NEV category (basically golf cart) make sense in specific neighborhoods -- not in dense cities (where they're still too big), not in really long distance rural settings (although a Gator/UTV or something on your own property can be awesome), but in the right kind of suburban/resort/etc. community, amazing.

I am not a big fan of bicycle/moped/motorcycle because I usually want more stuff with me if I'm not just going by foot, but something like this would be ideal on a large campus/neighborhood with 15-35mph streets, etc.

I don't think I'd be willing to use a Citroen for branding reasons, but a Toyota or Tesla or Hyundai or something would be great. Not as a first car, and probably not as a second car with 2 adults, but as a third vehicle. Maybe even do graduated licensing and let 14-18 year olds drive this, raising driving age to 18 for regular cars.

> not in dense cities

The Free2Move car sharing uses the car in the article in central Paris, which I understand is a fairly dense city.

And in Paris 14yr olds are legally allowed to drive them too

Renting them is $0.30/minute

Compared to a Bird scooter which costs around $0.15/minute on average (with fees to start them) in the US

You'd be surprised what you can get on a bicycle with just a rear rack and a bag. It does require a bit more planning ahead, which I'll admit can be annoying.

I still feel safer in a golf cart than on a bike

Or a trailer for more stuff.

>I don't think I'd be willing to use a Citroen for branding reasons.

Why???

Calling these "cars" is clickbait to make these sound novel. But, NEVs like this (and even better than this) have been around for decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neighborhood_Electric_Vehicle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadricycle_(EU_vehicle_classi...

Part of the reason they are so cheap is that they are legally not cars, and therefore are exempt from many regulations that make cars expensive.

*> exempt from many regulations that make cars expensive.

Which I never understood.

If you're driving in the middle of the road, why does it matter if it's a NEV or a 18-wheeler? I think the same rules should apply.

That NEV can be rear-ended by a regular car at 80km/h and the car driver will be fine with their airbags and whatnot while the NEV driver is probably dead.

You shouldn’t be on roads that are heavily trafficked by fast moving vehicles with this kind of vehicle in the first place.

I own an electric Ranger (not Highway legal) for around my place and it fills a real need. There is no need for airbags or anything of the like on it. I didn’t even bother purchasing it with a windshield. The biggest threat to me in that vehicle is the dense vegetation and steep hills I often drive through.

I think there is an expectation around safety levels of different kinds of vehicles. If I buy a car that is capable of going 100mph, I expect it to have features that will help me survive a crash in those conditions. However, a motorcycle is a completely different kind of vehicle with different expectations. I don’t think a reasonable motorcyclist expects any thing remotely close in safety to that of a car despite also being able to reach the same conditions.

*> You shouldn’t be on roads that are heavily trafficked

Please help me understand. NEVs are road-worthy but not all-roads-worthy? Is there any law against NEVs in heavily trafficked roads? If not, it's left to common sense?

In France they're banned from highways, but legal on most other roads.

In practice though, since they're limited to 45 km/h, people avoid driving them on anything way faster than that

The idea is that they're not intended to be used in most vehicle traffic. Their intended purpose is more like the way people use golf carts in the US. And often, they fall under the same or similar regulations. If you look at the spec sheets, really the main difference between these and a golf cart are the doors.

There's nothing wrong with that, if that's what you need. But it ain't a car, at least not for people in North America.

So do bicycles need airbags and side impact protection and abs too then?

Bike lanes.

What country on earth has a full bike lane network?

Even the Netherlands doesn't. So what are you advocating? That bikes be banned until that infra is on place, or forcing all bikes to have the same safety standards as new cars (because old cars don't have all this stuff)?

I'm not advocating anything. I was discussing NEVs and cars.

The ultimate stage of evolution in personal urban transportation is the golf cart.

On one end you have increasingly fat cargo bikes - some have roofs or windshields.

On the other there are kei-cars, heavy quadricycles like the Twizy and now this.

Like sea creatures evolving into crabs, it's converging into the perfect form.

The only issue is you still end up with all the issues cars have, especially the inefficiency of having people in a dense urban areas get around by standing in line 20 feet apart from eachother, which is what private vehicular traffic basically is, and of course the need for having some place to store the golf cart wherever you go on the other end. At least with bikes you can compress the peleton quite a bit at a light and they don't take up as much space to park (especially stacked vertically like in most bike hubs today), and on a bus you can probably fit a good 60 people inside at least and really maximize the ratio of people moved per square footage of roadspace consumed.

Why 20 feet? Golf carts are much shorter/narrower than that:

https://jsgolfcarts.com/blog/golf-cart-dimensions/

You could comfortably fit three of them on two lanes, and believe me people will do it. Italians generally drive smaller cars than other Europeans and that's what happens there on intersections.

Actually, considering the dimensions, a fully packed four-seater has a smaller footprint than the equivalent bicycles - even Dutch ones.

If you put everyone in two-seaters riding alone, then indeed you'll have 1/3 the density of bicycles, but that's the lower boundary!

Personally I don't see the point of maximizing it any further than what golf carts achieve. Especially that they provide appropriate comfort and stability.

I say 20 feet to factor in some sensible margin between vehicles. I'm also not measuring bumper to bumper, but driver to driver.

> Hundreds of Ami rentals line Parisian streets, which you can hire for just €0.26-a-minute (with a subscription fee of €9.90 per month). It's probably nicer - and more hygienic - than taking the Metro.

>And you don't need to have any form of licence to drive one in France!

> Anyone as young as 14 with a 'voiture sans permis' - a certificate to show you've passed a basic road safety course - can hit the road. And because a licence isn't required, they're [reportedly] proving popular among the country's fraternity of disqualified motorists. 'The drink-driver's vehicle of choice' probably isn't a slogan you'll see on advertising billboards, though.

Interesting USP. We saw a similar thing in India when rental e-scooters started appearing everywhere. Basically they're the cheapest and best ways to 'drive' drunk from pub to pub. Why would you want to drive drunk just because you can? Because the only legal mode of transport - cabs - cost 3-4x more during drinking hours at night. So these were quite popular for that.

Over time, however, they got completely taken over by delivery agents, who found it cheaper per mile than any other vehicle

The solution to urban mobility is less cars, not different cars than we have now.

>She hates every second of the 1.1-mile journey home, shrinking into the seat to shield herself from the constant finger-points the Ami attracts from passers-by.

>She refuses to be seen in it again.

Yikes if that were my MIL I'd refuse to be seen with her too.

The arrogance and dogmatized manifestation of the motorized individual transport in our society knows no limits.

Driving 1.8 miles to the gym probably to have a go on a running machine is something else :-/

It's nice to see that the Citroen Ami weighs around 500 kg. In a crash with a person/vehicle/building, it's going to do less damage than a typical sedan weighing ~1500 kg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_Ami_(electric_veh...

Can’t be used to hurt people. Downside, people can carry it, for example move it when it’s misplaced, or steal it.

> people can carry it, for example move it when it’s misplaced

This can be an advantage when a misparked car is blocking a tram. https://youtu.be/wRPnSHDp3HI?t=34

…it’s 500kg. I don’t think you’re picking it up and walking away with it.

My old Citroën AX weighed about 650kg. I used to park it in spaces about 6" longer than the car by getting the nose in as close to the kerb as I could, leaving it out of gear, and then getting out, picking it up by the back bumper like a big wheelbarrow, and bouncing it sideways into the space.

A 500kg car takes about five people to lift up. It's light enough that it can be moved if it had to (blocking emergency responders, trams, etc), but too heavy to be moved on a whim

500kg is still a lot, Suzuki Swift is about 850kg and Lotus Elise is 730kg. These are full cars with proper safety, performance and features.

IMHO the only proper safety about this car is its low speed and I'm curious about the situation with car collusions. Ami might be slow but this doesn't mean that can't be in a high speed collusion.

We're slowly catching up to 1957 and the Fiat 500 in the weight department.

> it has zero airbags. No crash crumple zones. Not a single electronic safety aid. It doesn't even have anti-lock brakes

If I did get one, I'd want it to be painted in day-glo orange.

Exactly. This isn't really a car. It is a fancy electric golf cart with doors.

I like the open nature of a golf cart.

I kinda wish I lived in a golf cart community.

You might be able to turn yours into one, just start driving one!

https://www.clubcar.com/en-us/personal/street-legal-vehicles

I mean that's literally in the base blurb, it's an electric quadricycle.

Yeah, it’s effectively an enclosed four-wheel ‘bicycle quality’ type vehicle - and I imagine a huge chunk of the asking price is to cover the 5.5 kWh lithium battery.

I’d like one, but not for £8,000 - an electric bakfiet (cargo bike) seems better value for money.

You are not meant to take it on a highway, either. It's a bit like saying "pedestrians have zero airbags, crush crumple zones are bones" - you are soo close to getting it!

> You are not meant to take it on a highway, either.

At a top speed of 28mph, it's literally illegal to take it on a highway in most of the world.

Over here in America we’re at the forefront of developing pedestrians with airbags and crumple zones.

Unfortunately actually walking seems to remove them again, but top scientists are on it.

> It doesn't even have anti-lock brakes

It doesn't go fast enough for them to work.

Huh. I owned a Citroen Ami back in the seventies. It was a gas car (two cylinder air cooled engine), much like the 2CV but made to look a bit more like a conventional car. Interesting that they decided to reuse the name.

Note : "ami" means "friend" in French. I knew about the old Ami (but young people this car is aimed at do not know about it) but I think this is a welcomed reuse of that name.

That's the Ami8

There’s a (YC?) company called Nimbus working on a similar class of vehicle: https://nimbusev.com/. They’re still pre-series-production IIRC but if they pull it off it’s a similar price point for a much higher performance vehicle.

There’s a lot of overlap with an ebike in terms of use cases but when the it’s cold and/or pouring down rain I’d be much more likely to use something like that than my ebike. Likewise when navigating areas with higher speeds and no bike infrastructure.

Double the battery and double the speed for the same price?

Yeah that sounds believable. Reminds me of the original price estimates for the Lightyear One.

I guess they're really banking on the part where they rent it out for double the price.

edit: spec sheet doesn't seem to pass even a cursory sniff test:

> Nimbus One - 9 kWh (swappable)

> Charge Time (0-95%) Under 5.5 hours from a standard household plug

This is an american product so a standard household plug is 15A, NEC doesn't allow continuous loads (>3h) to exceed 80%, so you get 12A to play with. At 120V that's 1440W, which means 6 hours (5:56 specifically) to charge the battery to 95% assuming the battery can handle full power for that entire range.

They clearly aren't talking about a 20A circuit as by my reckoning that'd charge in a hair under 4:30.

I do love this, and hope more things like it gets made so there is choice. It's exactly the kind of thing I want for most of my day to day traveling.

It's competition though is what I did instead. Last year I brought a 7 year old Nissan leaf.

£9,800. 22Kwh battery (probably degraded about 15%, so estimated actual capacity is around 18Kwh) which gives me about 85 miles range with the current battery state. And I get a decent sized boot, 5 seats and 80+mph top speed.

I love my leaf, and use it to commute around 20 miles total each day plus lots of other local travel. It's perfect as a 2nd car for town driving.

However, that 85 mile range is only in good conditions. With the heating on in winter it's range is probably more like 40 miles. I'd say this Citroen's battery is too small for me to buy compared to my leaf. 46 mile range doesn't give you much spare, especially in winter when using heating. Unless charge points become a lot more ubiquitous. It shouldn't take them much to double the battery size though, and then I'd seriously go for this.

(Edit to add, my leaf also has air bags and antilock breaks. What with it being an actual car)

I guess this wasn’t made targeting you; I’m glad not every vehicle being made it catering to extreme distance needs. There are a lot of places that are walkable or almost walkable. Having cheaper cars for those places that use less material makes it so that more people can have electric vehicles at a time where batteries are a major limiting factor for production.

It will be nice when the cheaper cars are actually cheaper in a useful way. Here, a new Leaf is $45k vs a new Corolla is $25k. The breakeven time on that for my driving patterns is several multiples longer the life of a car. (Not even taking into account that my house would need thousands of dollars of work to be able to practically charge an EV.)

I'm not sure I'd call 85miles extreme distance. It's very low compared to modern EVs.

I'd say this Citroen is totally targeting me. My need is less than 20 miles a day, and I'm saying I'd be nervous about how little buffer that battery would give me.

My point really was 46 miles range is too low, even for low usage. In poor conditions with heating, etc, if the range halves that doesn't leave any spare. Unlike an ICE you can't just run it close the bottom of the tank because charging takes time, and has limited locations.

> charging takes time, and has limited locations.

It does and has not though. This is a 5.5kW battery, and a European vehicle. So charge takes about 3h on a standard wall socket.

Just wanted to add a "me too" vote: 2013 Nissan Leaf bought used for $8900, 10 of 12 bars of battery remaining, roughly a 25 mile commute ~3 days per week. Miles of range: ~82@city, ~60@highway and ~45@freeway, minus 10 miles if using heater or air conditioner. It's effectively a supercar doing 0-40 mph in about 2-3 seconds, and there's nothing quite as satisfying as leaving expensive sports cars in the dust at a green light. Yes they roar past me at 40, but they paid 10 times more than I did hahaha.

I don't believe in artificial limits for electric vehicles. There's no reason why they can't use a stronger motor, perhaps with extra aluminum wires (to address resource limits around copper and rare earth metals) that engage at high amperages so maybe efficiency drops from 95% to 85% while you floor it. There's no reason why an ultracapacitor couldn't provide twice the amperage for a few seconds of acceleration. $1000 for twice the performance would be worth it IMHO.

So I see these boutique electric vehicles as kind of a gimmick.

Like you I'm happy to see these things being design, if nothing else as experiments. Personally I don't much see the point.

85 miles is fine for many of the thing I need a car for, but once in a while I need the additional range, and I don't want to own two cars. I also need it to be highway safe, if I'm not on the highway I can almost always bike.

Finally: I need my car to be able to pull a trailer, not a big one necessarily. I have a house, some times I need to pick up DIY stuff, or get things to the recycling station.

For people who need a car infrequently, but need it for long distances or larger hauls, there's very little good options, beyond just buying a bigger, expensive car. I could rent, but that limits my use, and if I do that for a couple of time a months I can just buy a used car for the same money.

Those cars are aimed at rich and posh kids and they represent majority of users here in France as it can be driven from 14.

Yeah for that price only people who think having an electric bike is beneath them are going to buy that

There's a similar selection of electric vehicles at Alibaba. I'm a little tempted by the electric truck on offer. On my rural property, it might actually be useful. Even if not useful, would be fun to drive around. It's not street legal, but my small town has no problem with ATVs & golf carts. And it has air conditioning.

The shipping process sounds very painful, so hoping something like this would show up at local dealers. I'd think the ATV and small tractor dealers could find a market for these.

Previous HN Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32231209 A video review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U

Funny they brought back the "Ami" name (see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_Ami_6%2C_8_et_Super)

The Citreon Ami was featured on a recent episode of Top Gear, along with 2 other similar vehicles. They drive them around Paris doing various challenges. Link (if you're in the UK or have access to a VPN): https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001f0wl/top-gear-seri...

If Mahindra[1] or Gayam[2] would put some doors on their electric tuktuks, they'd have this thing beat pretty handily, IMO.

[1] https://www.mahindraelectric.com/vehicles/treo-electric-auto... [2] https://gayammotorworks.com/

I love this as a concept. Small, lightweight and ..slow to be fairly safe. The issue is how to integrate it with the rest of the established world. How do you have a little car sharing road with 3ton trucks and speeds 50-70mpg (_read_ 70-90mph, yah, this is Texas).

Sadly this vehicle is what vast majority of people really need for daily commute and errands. It’s silly to push for ride sharing.

> How do you have a little car sharing road with 3ton trucks and speeds 50-70mpg (_read_ 70-90mph, yah, this is Texas).

You don’t because this thing is not highway legal and should not be interacting with vehicles going anywhere near 70. It’s an urban vehicle.

It’s neat but for greater range, check out the microlino from those scooter people!! Oh yes, that one’s not restricted for speed too!

Microlino https://youtu.be/uNp_M76wIws

These cars are carbon positive in most cities as they increase pollution. These slow moving vehicles are slowing down traffic behind them. I see similar vehicles in and around my city in India and they end up clogging the lanes. As most of us are on ICE vehicles, we end up spending more time driving and increasing pollution.

What is the speed limit in your city? Most gas cars are most efficient at something like 60 kmh. This thing goes 45 kmh. So not that much difference for efficiency[1]. After all, we are talking about a vehicle that is only 20-30% efficient to start with.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Speed-fuel-consumption-c...

Upto 100kmph is fine I guess but traffic hardly allows it. That 45kmph is without any load I would assume. Once you add load and real world fiction the slows to 25/30kmph.

Our post service uses this car to deliver parcels in our neighborhood along with a fleet of electric motorbikes. They take around the same space and move around at about the same speed, but I’m sure the postman using the car is a much happier fellow when it rains.

Low range means fewer batteries cells (or pouches) means less parallelization means slower charge speeds. However this is probably not a huge issue since the use case for a short range car like this is charge at home at night, and use it only around town.

I checked the charge time for a twizy a while ago and that’s in the same ballpark regarding battery size, even slightly bigger. It charges to 80% in 2.5 hours and to full in 3.5 hours on a standard European wall socket. No fast charge, obviously, but plenty usable.

> it takes three hours to charge using a conventional three-pin domestic plug and socket.

Granted that's with glorious european 230V, but there you go. You can literally go out, come back, charge it, then go back out again.

The battery is 5.5kWh. The first gen leaf had an entry-level battery of 24kWh, the second gen starts at 40. It's more comparable to a phev battery (the first-gen Prius had 4.4kWh, the current third gen uses a 13.6kWh battery).

Drove this car over the weekend, was pretty zippy and fun. ( I don't normally drive)

Not to be confused with Peter Gregory's car: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commuter_Cars_Tango

> no boot

Anyone else go into this hoping to see a lack of excessive infotainment and other electronics and their associated boot times (looks like that's mostly also true for this, but not the highlight of the article)?

Seen a few in my area, but not much (unlike the Zoe or Teslas). Always fun to see, since they're small, silent and not fast (safe) and I assume a lot less costly for young owners.

A classic Top Gear feature on the even more snug Peel P50:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=dJfSS0ZXYdo

And who can forget the P45 that they created: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aFdBcYN3sNw which is even smaller, though only one of them is in existence afaik.

It's actually at Beaulieu Motor Museum, where I happened to visit last week! They have a whole permanent Top Gear section. Would recommend a visit if you're ever in this part of the world https://www.beaulieu.co.uk/attractions/national-motor-museum...

Or.. buy a used EV for less and give up none of those things?

The design is brilliant, the front and back use the same piece, so the manufacturer only has to produce one part for both sides.

In Paris 14yr olds can drive these on the road.

I see teenagers driving these things because I think they have such low horsepower that they don’t require the regular class of driver’s license.

Its ugly! A key to Tesla's success is that its cars look like cars, not abominations. Many electric car makers seem to hate cars.

i think it's cute, it's very small, practical for a city life

it's not meant to be luxurious, it's meant to be affordable

and it's not meant to "look like a car", it's meant to be useful and practical

To quote the article: "In France, anyone from the age of 14 can drive one without a licence. You can also hire an Ami on a short-term basis in Paris. For €0.26-a-minute (with a subscription fee of €9.90 per month) you can whizz around the capital's streets. It's probably nicer - and more hygienic - than taking the Metro or a bus"

> and it's not meant to "look like a car", it's meant to be useful and practical

How many "Ugly electric practical and useful electric cars" sell well?

i never said they are "ugly", you said "it is ugly", that's your opinion

my opinion is: "it's cute"

i don't understand why you change my words, it wasn't to your liking?

I like the way this car looks (and I’m not a particular fan of how the Tesla models look).

Were I to buy a car, this is close to what I would look for.

It's ugly because it was made to be as cheap as possible. For example, the "passenger" side door is the same door as the driver side, so the driver's door opens like a suicide door, while the passenger one opens like a conventional door.

All elements of the car were made to be as perfectly symmetrical as possible and interchangeable.

The so-called abomination has a hope of driving poorer people from A to B, while your beauty pageant Tesla remains a car for the wealthy. Because for all the talks about environmentalism from Musk, he has never cared about that. He has never cared about bringing cheaper green transportation to the larger public. It's all about wealth.

Cheap EVs aren’t profitable. If you want to make them cheap, supply chains must spin up to drive down costs, not sell lip stick on a pig death traps.

This is not Musk specific. Legacy automakers can’t bring cheap EVs to market that compete with Teslas either. They are glorified golf carts because they must be. Cheap out on batteries and motors and your warranty reserves and costs are exorbitant and destroy profitability, so you cheap out on fit and finish (Tesla does, and demand is still…robust) or safety (not great!). Go Google for what the Porsche Taycan battery warranty requires for it to remain in effect, and this is a premium vehicle supposedly.

Regarding “it’s all about wealth”, let’s set aside who Musk is for a moment and reflect on a $1B global dc fast charger network (“Superchargers”) and an EV manufacturing flywheel that continues to ramp (approaching 3 million units built and sold pa), together which has convinced major nation states to enact or pull forward their new vehicle combustion vehicle sales bans. Someone can be a pathological liar and greedy and yet have moved the needle. Tesla’s board recognized that he was irreplaceable, and that’s likely true. Obsessive people are motivated but there are costs personality wise.

High level, let’s recalibrate Tesla to not be just Elon Musk. Consider that he brought the funding, he ran the ship through the storm, but humble JB Straubel was the CTO and was a significant component in Tesla’s success (wrt battery engineering and manufacturing), along with countless decent, passionate engineers and ancillary roles over two decades. Tesla =! Musk. There is nuance.

(Tesla is building their own lithium refinery in Texas to drive down battery costs; point me to an automaker that is doing the same, they can barely source batteries at the scale they need)

>(Tesla is building their own lithium refinery in Texas to drive down battery costs; point me to an automaker that is doing the same, they can barely source batteries at the scale they need)

With this kind of statement I have to believe you're arguing in bad faith. Even manufacturers that haven't jumped onto the full electric bandwagon like Toyota are ramping up manufacturing, see : https://www.thestreet.com/investing/automakers-in-race-to-ma... >The Japanese automaker said on Aug. 31 it will spend another $2.5 billion in its battery plant in North Carolina, called the Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina.

>The investment at its newest North American facility will increase capacity to support battery production. Toyota plans to hire another 350 employees for a total of 2,100 workers.

>Toyota said last year it plans to invest heavily in electrification and plans to spend a total of $70 billion, plus a total of $5.6 billion for battery production, which includes the new North Carolina investment.

> let’s set aside who Musk is for a moment and reflect on a $1B global dc fast charger network (“Superchargers”) and an EV manufacturing flywheel that continues to ramp (approaching 3 million units built and sold pa), together which has convinced major nation states to enact or pull forward their new vehicle combustion vehicle sales bans. Someone can be a pathological liar and greedy and yet have moved the needle.

Tesla totally invested in superchargers for the greater good and not to have a proprietary charging network! if it wasn't for the rules we have in the European Union they would have brought the proprietary chargers they had in America and would not allow competitors to use it.

The needle would move nonetheless, it is no longer a matter of choice but about the continued survival of the species as a whole. In France tesla are a rare sight but small delivery cars like these : https://imgur.com/a/kUUJKYV Have become extremely common sights in the city centre. We are also doing a lot in trying to get people away from cars as much as possible : Montpellier is going to make all local public transportation free.

It’s great to hear these auto makers are playing catch-up now wrt battery manufacturing capacity compared to when Tesla announced their Gigafactory in 2014. It only took a decade. I’m not being disingenuous, I’m just pointing out poor businesses operations, forecasting, and a lack of will at legacy automakers. Only very recently did Toyota shift their strategy from hydrogen to batteries because Tesla gave them no choice.

Tesla spent the $1B on their superchargers. Why would you let your competitor who are barely trying to deliver EVs freeload on it? Spend your own capital on fast dc chargers (or contribute to Teslas capital costs) if you want to offer your vehicle buyers a premium long distance experience (instead of the sadness that is random CCS chargers with no assurances they’ll work when you arrive). Legacy automakers will continue to have to be dragged to an EV future because of lackluster management and shareholders who can’t get comfortable with the cannibalization and transformation combustion vehicle manufacturing will have to go through to come out as EV makers on the other side.

High level, don’t slow down when you’re winning and don’t help your competitors. Drive them into the sea. “Innovator’s Dilemma” and all that jazz. Europe is a microcosm in the world where public transportation is likely a better option than EVs to your point (due to preindustrial revolution land use and urban planning). The rest of the world needs quality long range electric mobility.

https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exclus...

> Why would you let your competitor who are barely trying to deliver EVs freeload on it?

This is such strange thinking. It's not like Tesla will give away free charging. The reality is more EVs using your chargers means more revenue. High utilization is better than low utilization. But you won't listen to me about it, so listen to Tesla instead:

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/28/22596337/tesla-supercharg...

This is what Tesla is already doing in Europe. It's easy in Europe because Europe has a common charging standard in CCS Type 2 Combo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y33AArvMUQ

A big benefit of CCS for Tesla owners is that they can easily switch to other charging networks when Tesla's network is uncompetitive:

https://www.electrive.com/2022/11/23/tesla-reduces-superchar...

The sad thing for North America is that it looks like Tesla will take the extremely cynical approach of allowing low volume manufacturers (like Aptera) to use Tesla's chargers if they adopt Tesla's plug. Hence the recent announcement of Tesla's plug supposedly being "open" and a "standard" now (as opposed to Tesla's previous faux openness):

https://www.tesla.com/blog/opening-north-american-charging-s...

Tesla believes that having the chargers support more than one manufacturer in this way will qualify Tesla chargers for US government subsidies. Tesla wants public funds, but doesn't want to provide public infrastructure by using CCS Type 1 Combo.

Maybe they'll allow other EVs to charge using a dongle, maybe they won't. But having to carry around a dongle merely to charge your car is just dumb. One more thing to buy, one more thing to lose, one more thing to break. Europe shows it doesn't need to be that way.

Closed, incompatible charging infrastructure makes EVs worse than ICE vehicles. You can fuel your ICE vehicle at any fueling station and you should be able to charge your EV at any charging station. Anything less is backward, primitive, and underdeveloped.

> so the driver's door opens like a suicide door, while the passenger one opens like a conventional door.

Is it really more dangerous than a normal door? Someone is going to use it only when the car is parked anyway.

(I'd used the oposite design. A normal door for the driver that is always present and when parked in the street opens the door into transit, and a weird door for the passenger that opens the door into the sidewalk. Am I missing something?)

Wikipedia lists some advantages & disadvantages of suicide doors here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_door#Advantages On a modern vehicle moving at most 28 mph they are unlikely to be dangerous.

A lot of expensive eletric cars are ugly too. like BMW i3. https://www.hotcars.com/ugliest-evs-produced-so-far/

Well, to be fair "hating cars" is the sensible view x) Cars are wasteful, dirty, loud, and unsafe. Unfortunately, in most places in the world the last 80+ years of infrastructure design were made around the personal automobile, to the detriment of everything else: air quality, scarce space in cities, pedestrian safety, etc.

I think this is ugly and cute at once. Like a first gen Scion xB (although that was boxier).

But this is clearly a car to fit a regulatory niche, few will drive this if they have other options, so style isn't really in the budget.

> few will drive this if they have other options

Why not? If you're a city-zen and going to do something in the city too far to go on foot, using an ami is much easier than using a full-size car, unless you have an A-segment car (and even then, the ami is a full meter shorter than your average A-segment, the length of the Ami is the wheelbase of a Picanto or an Aygo).

It's not like the 28mph is a big impediment in most city traffic.

Did we forget the Cybertruck already?

Citroen has a Cybertruck version of this too, called the Oli:

https://www.electrifying.com/blog/article/the-ami-gets-a-big...

The Oli makes the Cybertruck look normal.

It's only a research project, unfortunately. I'd be seriously interested in buying one.

It’s certainly fun seeing Citroen going back to being absolute weirdoes.

You're right. Cybertruck is also an abomination.

*Cars as defined by “car people”. Personally I couldn’t care less if my “car looks like a car.” (I don’t even know what that means.) I want it to get me from A to B with a minimum of financial and environmental expense.

Most people care a lot.

Some people are very passionate about it. I don't think most people care, though that's probably a cultural thing

Yes, I am sure that most of the car people you know care a lot.

Many different auto companies have produced numerous different cars over a very long period of time. Which one is the “official” template of what a car should look like?

It is necessary not to look ridiculous.

The 2CV or the Beetle were cheap but charming.

This one is a hideous yoghurt cup, made to atone for your sins, made by joyless bureaucrats and puritans. The Extinction Rebellion Gretamobile.

Teslas look bland, if not horrid, for how much they cost, at least compared to the sedans we're used to in Europe.

Bland is ok. Other EVs: https://www.hotcars.com/ugliest-evs-produced-so-far/ reply

I think it's cute

The cheapest EVs and the most expensive bicycles overlap in price. Not exactly sure what that means, but it's interesting to me.

> So it has zero airbags. No crash crumple zones. Not a single electronic safety aid. It doesn't even have anti-lock brakes

Yeah, no thanks.

> 28mph top speed

please no one buy this. I purchased a vehicle similar to this years ago, and while fun, the top speed was ALWAYS an issue. Even on surface streets, its too slow, so you end up essentially redlining for the entire trip, and even then its too slow. Unless this is purely as second "toy vehicle" for you, don't buy this. Get something that can go at least 40.

All the roads between me and the nearest big supermarket have a speed limit of 20mph.

right, but you understand that people go other places besides the supermarket right? hence why I said "toy vehicle". If you are only using this for a single destination, then its not a general purpose vehicle, its a "toy vehicle" or "single purpose" vehicle.

I'm very uninformed on this but at that point why not get a electric quad instead?

For the same reason most people are unwilling to go to work with a bicycle even when they live near their work. Quads are fun vehicles in good weather but you don't want to drive one when it rains the beejesus.

Being from Europe. Where they have those tiny <45kph cars for which you don't need a license, thanks but no thanks. People don't get these because they want to. They get them because they cannot get a full license.

So now you're on a road with a 90kph speed limit and this guy pulls in front of you. Maxing out at 45.

> and this guy pulls in front of you

That sounds like your problem, not theirs?

> So now you're on a road with a 90kph speed limit and this guy pulls in front of you. Maxing out at 45.

Oh yeah, the horror. Which doesn’t routinely happen. Because license-less cars didn’t exist. And neither did farm equipment with a max speed of 30.

Seems like they (re)invented and expensive Power Wheels

this car has french written all over it, tiny, low power, short range

Built entirely in Morocco

What's benefit in this over electric scooter (moped)? Slightly better protection against weather and little bit more cargo space?

Electric scooter will be much easier to park, will have longer/same range, will be cheaper/same, will be easier to get through congestion and can also ride two people.

I'd for sure trade trunk and roof for parking/maneuverability.

Any "neighborhood" car in the U.S. needs decent acceleration and a top speed of 45 mph to work in traffic. Even when the speed limit is 30 mph you'll need to speed up to pass a turning vehicle or to avoid a pedestrian. Anything less just isn't safe for everyone involved.

I'm OK with small size, limited range and even the lack of safety features in my sedate neighborhood where I know the streets, potholes and driving patterns. Perfect for an hour of neighborhood errands with five stops, driving to the gym or the library. That's really all we need in a second car.

this is a golf cart pretending to be a car.

It’s literally not classified as a car, and driveable by people who can’t drive cars, how is it pretending to be a car? Because it has 4 wheels and is fully enclosed?

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