Automotively-speaking, Europe and America have become relatively more similar over the decades, but there’s still plenty of differences. One of the more unique automotive sectors in certain countries are these “quadra-cycles”, or (proper automobile) license-free automobiles, as they are essentially four-wheeled mopeds. Since a “real’ driver’s license costs some $2000 (for required intensive training) in places like Germany and Austria, some just don’t bother, perhaps older folks who never got a proper license, or sixteen-year olds who aren’t even eligible for one. They have a number of four-wheeled choices, including this Aixam City, which has a legally limited top speed of 45 kmh (28 mph) and an engine (diesel, gas or electric) rated at no more than 4kW (5.4 hp). Sounds a bit modest, but they do the job in the dense cities where they’re mainly found.
The French maker Aixam is the market leader in this field, with a 40% share. There are versions with higher engine outputs for countries with different license regulations or where regular-licensed drivers want a cheap, small car. But in the main central EU markets, the 4kW versions are the most popular ones.
The diesel engine is a two-cylinder made by Kubota, the gas engine is by Lombardini, and the electric version has a 6.4kWh Li-ion battery pack, but costs a fair amount more than the more popular diesel, which can be had for some €10,000 or so (∼$11k). The diesel has 10.3 ft.lbs of torque (14 Nm), and fuel consumption is 80 mpg or better. The transmission is a CVT, and a recently added option is air conditioning. The body is ABS plastic and the chassis is aluminum. Ready-to-roll weight is 400 kg, or 880 lbs.
The 45 kmh/h sign is prominent on the back. This one appears to have dealer tags. I saw a few of these around Innsbruck, most typically inhabited by an older couple; folks who never got a license but desired the mobility of a car in their later years. I don’t recall seeing any kids in one, but then frankly, one just doesn’t see a lot of very young drivers behind the wheel here. Mass transit is so incredibly comprehensive, cheap, and still being enhanced, that driving is just not something on most urban kids’ radar. But Aixam does say that kids who drive these a few years before getting a proper license have better outcomes. Training wheels, in other words.
Imagine that, someone put a steering wheel where the payphone should be!
“Since a driver’s license costs over $2000 (for required intensive training), some just don’t bother, perhaps older folks who never got a license, or sixteen-year olds who aren’t even eligible for one.”
That is insane.
Interesting concept with the vehicle though. Its almost like a much better quality Trabant.
what is insane: that in the U.S. the same type of training isn’t req’d
Its not flying the space shuttle, its a freaking car. Its the kind of training, ideally, your parents should be able to give or maybe a week or two supplemental driver’s ed course. $2,000 worth of “training”-BS.
Behold: the reason American drivers drive like crap.
Yes, because “Americans drive like crap” isn’t just freely asserted nonsense…
There’s nothing insane about it. Only in the US do we have an attitude that a driver’s license is a right. I really wish we would go to a European system of driver’s (and especially motorcycle rider’s) training, but that’s probably an impossibility anymore.
The cat’s way too far out of the bag to tighten up the system and make it work. I don’t even want to think of the percentage of inner city drivers who don’t have a driver’s license in the first place.
Considering the absolute lack of mass transit in much of the country, denying someone a driver’s license is denying them the ability to make a living.
Only the largest US cities have really comprehensive and practical mass transit. Everything else has either buses, or nothing. My experience with buses in small-to-midsize US metro areas (Allentown PA, Harrisburg PA) is that it would take several times longer to get anywhere by bus than it did by car. Folks too poor to own cars spend hours commuting over a distance that would be trivial by car. Orange County (CA) isn’t much better despite being the sixth largest county by population in the US. Of course, then there are places like much of the anthracite coal region in northeastern PA, where most of the towns don’t even have buses.
Now, I think driver licensing should be much more stringent. But we would need to seriously beef up our mass transit options. Considering neither major party shows any serious interest in infrastructure investment, you can file that under not-gonna-happen.
I don’t see what that would do. How much more stringent and to what end? Driving is one of those things that is super easy-until some major wrench gets thrown and then avoidance of a crash is often beyond any skill level.
As to mass transit, many of the cities were not designed with them in mind at all. I live in the Midwest, and outside of the “old” part of town, even bus routes don’t make a whole lot of sense. One usually sees them half full, at most so I’m guessing its a money loosing venture. Many cities here are way to spread out, designed around the freeways and interstates. So, yes, that would be nice for inner city folks if some more mass transit were available but when you see a) much of what is available isn’t being used to near capacity anyway and b) the way the cities are built, there isn’t much to be done outside of maybe some specific areas it just isn’t going to get done because it doesn’t make much sense in the long run. Why built more mass transit that probably isn’t going to be used much?
Driving isn’t always “super-easy”. I’ve driven in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Western Australia, NZ, Thailand, England, Scotland and Spain, and ridden motorcycles in Vietnam.
Driving in Minnesota or Scotland or Spain or rural NZ are all quite different experiences. It makes sense to me that different jurisdictions would have different requirements, although mandatory training (especially theory) doesn’t seem as important to me as a stricter test.
If you’ve gone through a longer training process, and had to meet a very high standard to pass the test under pressure, you’re more likely to drive with the required focus, and to drive in a slightly more methodical way, rather than driving as if you’re the only thing on the road. I suspect the training and testing process in each country also has an effect on the driving “culture” out on the roads.
Perhaps you take driving more seriously if learning was such an intense process.
As another commenter said, there is really no replacement for good old fashioned experience. That, and the simple realization that screwing around while driving could get you or someone else killed or injured, not to mention total your car. Nothing drives home the seriousness of driving more than that.
By the time I was 16 I had driven more miles than my two children had driven by the time they were 21. By the time I was 21 I had driven more miles than both of them put together today. They are 29 & 30. Experience today is lot different than 40-50 years ago and not for the better.
My Daughter is heading of to college in a couple of weeks and the house that I’m buying for her is on a bus line, and is 1.7 miles from school. There are 3 main ways she can take the bus. Assuming she leaves at the right time to catch a specific combo of buses, with a bus stop right in front of the house it will be a 32 min ride. Google says it will take 31 minutes to walk to the same place on campus but it will actually be a couple of minutes less to get to where most classes are instead of the bus stop. Now if she doesn’t leave at the exact right time and can’t use the best combo of busses it could be a 45 – 60 minute ride. Meanwhile driving is 7 min but there will be a few minutes of walking to get to class.
I did this drill for my wife’s commute a few years ago. She would seem to be an ideal candidate for public transportation. We live in a central suburb of Dallas (Los Colinas) and her commute distance is only six miles (10 kilometers) each way, while her office is in a major cluster of towers. Further, her starting time is 9 a.m.
When I checked into things though, I just couldn’t make it work on any level. First, six miles, required TWO transfers resulting in a commute (including waiting times) of 1.5 hours. Then, the cost of a pass was equal to the cost of gas, and insurance. Finally, the distance from our home to the closest (useable for her commute) bus stop is roughly a kilometer. In Dallas, summer temperatures of 36 to 38 degrees C are common, with 40 C plus not infrequent. That makes a very long walk home from the bus stop in the evenings, for a woman in office attire. Finally, if she chose to work beyond normal office hours the commute time multiplied as buses become less and less frequent away from peak hours.
So, an easy commute becomes a long uncomfortable one with zero savings.
Note that I did not count the cost of her vehicle because:
a. She would have one anyhow even if not used for commuting as shopping by bus would be logistically unfeasible in the suburbs.
b. Her car is paid for, and is therefore a sunk cost and thus not relevant.
I have spelled this out for our European readers who often believe, I suspect that the American rampant use of cars to go everywhere is more laziness than anything else. However, even when we try, it often won’t work for us.
Scoutdude,
You’re BUYING your daughter a house to go to college!? Wow! What do you do for a living?
I can’t even afford to pay for my son’s room and board in the dormitory let alone buy him a house (or car for that matter). If he didn’t work, he wouldn’t be going to college.
Thank God because its simply not that hard. Sure, driving a car is not enshrined in the Constitution or Bill of Rights as one of those God given rights but having that view that driving is a sort of “soft right” merely flows from the idea that Americans are citizens, not subjects, and we don’t need an omnipresent Nanny State doling out goodies based on its own caprice. You don’t have to be especially bright or especially accomplished to be a decent driver. A license does not make a driver, that is just government folderol.
A license certainly doesn’t make a driver in places where you get a license at the bottom of your cereal box. Having driven in places with strict licensing rules and places with lax ones, I know where I’d rather drive.
It’s not that I’m driving around saying to myself “Wasn’t it awfully gracious of the queen to let me drive this car”, it’s just that driving is much less pleasurable when you’re surrounded by incompetents.
That hasn’t been my experience. It does vary by location, i.e. driving out in the country is much less stressful than in the city but out there, we tend to get a lot more experience than our city counterparts. I’d been driving old tractors since I was 12 or so, pickups and the old junker cars since then or maybe 13/14. Learning on a stick also helps.
We have the same sort of attitude in Australia too – as out terrible driving habits show.
Studies have shown that more extensive driver’s ed really doesn’t make any meaningful difference. The only thing that really makes a difference is the attention a driver applies to driving, and that’s not something that is affected by driver’s ed.
Advanced skills are really not relevant, especially in modern cars. There’s zero evidence that advanced driver skills/training makes a difference in accident rates.
The European system is really similar to the effect that their high fuel taxes create: it makes driving something that’s not universal, but requires a substantial financial commitment/ability.
Exactly. No matter how much you know about the way a car works, or how it should drive, etc. etc. if something happens too quickly for your to respond or any number of things-its just going to be you and God, or Luck, or Fate or whatever.
I’m much more in favor of making something like driving widely available to as many people as wish to do so, not making it artificially unavailable because of high taxes or other red tape hoops to jump through.
Granted there is a point in which high costs prejudice the freedom of movement (which is a part of the Austrian constitution – I do not know how far you could follow that line in court case though) and, having to pay €750 in hp tax per year (in addition to fuel taxes) I have no argument with the costs issue – but the point is that after having taken a driving course here at least when you get on the road you are aware of the rules and thus ideally flow into the system, rather than use the road as a place to carry out experiments in what works and what does not, hopefully not taking yourself and others out in the process.
+1
I have spent a lot of time in Europe and I never for one second thought I needed a car, and if I did, I would simply rent one.
When I lived in Asia, I was carless most of the time, and when I had one, I rarely ever used it. Taxis, buses and trains were first rate and cheap for what you were getting.
Last week I was driving around eastern Canada in a rented Ford Fusion. I did a lot of driving. Next year I am going to do the long legs by train, since it is a lot easier and downtown to downtown. I can rent locally if need be but staying downtown makes this not an issue.
Here in Vancouver, last night my wife and I wanted to go to White Rock, about 60 min by car. It took a grand total of 75 min on the train and express bus. My wife’s fare was included in her student pass, and mine cost $4.20, round trip.
See where this is going? Cars are just a pain in the butt for a lot of folks these days. I drive them less and less.
Again, if the UK is part of Europe then it’s not the “European” system, I don’t know about other EU countries, but there is no mandatory training here, only stringent testing, so if you have an aptitude for it, getting a licence is relatively cheap, and because used cars are incredibly cheap, actually the high fuel costs aren’t the disaster they’re painted as.
I would also point out that UK driving instructors are not taking people to skid pans (maybe they should) or telling them how the car works, but rather drilling into them a systematic way to drive, which apart from anything else, hammers home the point that driving is something to be taken seriously and done with due care and attention.
I would agree that mandatory courses costing a 4 figure sum seem designed to keep the poor off the roads, and don’t seem necessary, but given the comedy driving I’ve seen in some countries (and I see from rental car drivers in Scotland every day), the fact that 43% of people pass the UK test first time pleases me no end.
There are already to many posts to check if my points have been made already.
The article states that these cars are license free. This is not true. You are required to have a moped license. I believe this license can be acquired by passing a written only test.
In this regard the car is a modern day Goggomobil. Germany had a license class that was limited to vehicles powered by engines of up to 250cc. This gave rise to the mighty micro cars after the war.
As far a driving skill goes nothing replaces experience. Even in the USA where licensing is lax the trend goes to more training and more restrictions. The insurance companies push hard for graduated licensing. See here:http://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-30/news/ls-14474_1_licensing-teen-drivers
I suppose the cost to acquire a license is also a result of lobbying by the driving schools. I don’t think it has to be that expensive. More intense training does not result in fewer and fewer accidents. More experience does. You only get the experience by making your own unsupervised driving decisions. About 6 years of driving a total of about 100000 km (60000miles) will take you there. Incidentally that takes most young drivers to the age of 25 when the frontal lobes finish their development.
I do wonder how much of the problem in the USA is that we license drivers too young, as teens tend to make bad decisions anyway plus are more enthusiastic users of distracting technology.
A national minimum driving age of 18 sounds like a good idea to me.
Plus the public transportation situation here is something of a chicken and egg problem. Because driving yourself is comparatively cheap and easy, public transportation is under-utilized even when it is widely available. This leads to people not considering proximity to public transportation when looking for a place to live, which leads to even less demand, which leads to even fewer routes/lower frequency.
Most European countries do have better traffic-related death statistics compared to the US though. Although that’s probably not necessarily due to more intense driver training, there might be other factors as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
I find myself wondering what the other factors might be?
One thing I remember reading was that roundabouts are much safer than a 4 way stop or traffic lights, as you are far less likely to have a car ram into your driver’s door at 60mph on a roundabout.
You’d think we’d be dying left, right and centre, what with the little ol’ tin cans we drive. 😉
Vehicle size & weight disparity could be another factor, we have a lot of Full size pickups and SUVs running around with our cheaper fuel and lack of engine size taxes.
When a 5600lb (2540 kg)Chevy Tahoe hits a 2800lb (1270kg) Toyota Corolla the physics do not favor the occupants of the corolla.
I think it is interesting that these are aimed mainly at the elderly. When one of thinks of an urban car, one thinks of a hip young driver. These remind me a little of those smaller than a 2CV small French countryside cars from the fifties and sixties that one never saw in Paris. Tough to imagine that they are still allowed to exist.
I guess the Isetta never really died.
in innsbruck! can it go up a hill?
Good question. Apparently there are chip-tuning kits for them, if you must.
Paul, I know no one (other than their owners) who does not hate these things; particularly galling is the idea you have to share the road with people who should have no right being on it, having received absolutely no training whatsoever – driving standards are as you may expect them. I give these a long berth whenever I have to get around them. I believe they became available here due to some EU regulation which of course did not exist until 1995 (when Austria unfortunately joined the EU), previously the nearest equivalent was three wheelers like Reliants and the like (considered as a motorcycle with a sidecar) but you had to pass a test to drive one. As for the costs of getting a license here, I think the amount you quoted is top estimate but yes, it’s a lot more expensive than in the US, the trade-off being you get a smaller amount of incompetents on the roads…
PS: Editing to add most younger people who are into cars would not be caught dead in one of these things, they are the epitome of uncool – you’d rather take the bus or risk the chance of being laughed to bits.
Absolutely agree with how despised these things are. Being limited to 45km/h they don’t manage the general 50 km/h in town speed limit, hence posing a hindrance to traffic. Generally they are driven by elderly not because they never had a drivers license, but because they likely did not pass the mandatory health check up for drivers over 70 years old. And true, even cycling is less uncool than being seen in such an indoors wheel chair.
I’m an American who’s driven the autobahn exactly once (in an Audi A3 hire car), but what a refreshing difference it was! It was predictable! At least much moreso than here in the States. There were still some rude folks – guess they’re everywhere – but it was still a delightful experience.
Driving in Sweden wasn’t too bad, either. Had a TDi Golf hire car there, and couldn’t get over the frequent sightings of 1960s American iron.
While these little microcars do have an appeal to me, they would be completely useless here in the rural Middle West. There’s a lot of ag equipment out here that can go faster than these! (c:
Ed, I think what driver training here does is at least ram home some sense of order – you know which lane you are supposed to hold, who has the right of way and so on. From what I’ve heard about the US people eventually “get it” after a period of practical learning but that is a very dangerous period…
If the 25 Year Rule didn’t exist I’d import one of these “quadracycles” and purposely fit a sportbike or ATV engine into it. Because who really needs crosswind stability when your car can fit through your front door, right? At least I won’t have to spend money on buying a carport, so that’s one expense in favour of the Axiam.
EDIT: I just realized my lawnmower has more horsepower (6 HP Briggs and Stratton) than this car. That only makes me want it more.
I like the car and I like the concept, especially if they can get the price down a bit more. If you drive around the Bay Area or LA you aren’t going to much faster in all that traffic. A car like this would need a cruising speed of at least 55-60 mph. so you could jump on and off the freeway when needed. I see a few Smart Cars out and about, in fact one passed me doing 75mph. last week on US101. I think the big problem for manufacturers in the US is meeting the collision and safety standards. These tend to make cars bigger, heavier and more expensive. I don’t see how the Smart Cars can meet the standards. And Calif. is the land of the lawsuit. I used to teach the Motorcycle Safety Program Driver’s course mandated by Ca. law. We would advise the students that by riding a motorcycle that they were accepting a higher potential of hazard and that they were making a conscious decision to accept it. However we were told never to actively promote the idea of riding a motorcycle to anyone in class. I guess we could have been held liable in some one’s eyes. I can’t imagine a micro car salesperson informing a customer that you should be able to survive 45% of possible traffic collisions, for example.
I’ve seen the aftermath of a collision with one of these and trust me, you don’t want to have one.
That’s what’s great about these cars. After an accident, you don’t need to pay for a coffin. They just bury you and the car in one hole in the ground!
Smart cars are remarkably safe, google it.
I worked with a guy who rolled the works Smart car and the fire brigade told him that if he’d been in just about any other car, he might not have survived. On the other hand, maybe he rolled it because it was a Smart car.
These are not built like a Smart car.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v708z67ALww
Actually Smart cars are built with really stiff frames, whereas bigger cars like the S-class are built with frames that deform more easily to take most of kinetic force.
These are aimed at the elderly and the disabled. Keeps them mobile, which is great. Sometimes kids drive these, but generally they prefer a scooter. Or a Unimog. Or an old off-roader or van, detuned to a T5-vehicle. That’s an agricultural or forestry vehicle.
Aixam also builds minitrucks.
You see, THIS is cool to drive as a 16 year old kid.
Now you’re taking
Of course it is.
hehehe
Interesting, its like the EU version of the Kei Car; it exists mostly to favorable regulations &/or taxation.
It’s a modern day Goggomobile.
Here, enjoy the horror: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLTT1da7ZvU
Kei cars are no better a friend recently bought a Subaru Ace which is not really any bigger than that, it uses far less fuel than his 66 VW bus and is faster in traffic, I’d buy one as a town runabout I expect it a turbo could be fitted for better efficiency.
Trust me Bryce, a Kei is a BMW in comparison…
Sounds like a Trabant with Dynaflow! I guess that’s the CVT.
The car next to the Aixam is also French, a Citroën Xsara Picasso.
These things are mostly driven by octogenarians and kids from remote villages who are too young for a driver’s license. The driving skills of these two demographic groups are largely the same: absent. I’m always very alert whenever I see one of these glorified lawnmowers on the road.
Never heard of these before. They make Kei cars look like muscle cars.
I had read about these being used by people who had been banned for drink-driving in France and was intrigued. From what I read, you need a licence to drive them in the UK, but I still see them from time to time, so I wonder who buys them, and why.
I’m also intrigued as to how you can spend $2000 to get a driving licence. Where does that 2 grand go?
Mostly to a very comprehensive mandatory driver training program that has both theoretical and practical aspects. I doubt it’s still the case, but back in the day, one had to know a lot about how an automobile functioned mechanically. My father got his driver’s license in Vienna in 1939, and I remember the books he used to study for it: very detailed.
It’s interesting what different countries expect from drivers. I started (but soon quit) truck training in Australia (already held UK truck licence) and was amazed that there was talk of how to deal with a puncture. “Call ATS” was my answer.
While working in Vietnam, someone told me the car test involved several months of expensive night school classes, followed by a laughably simple practical test.
In the UK, some people spend hundreds on lessons, but there is no mandatory training, you just have to be able to pass the tests (theory, hazard perception, practical), however the practical test is very pedantic and less than half pass it first time.
11 years ago, my driving lessons cost around €1000, here in the Netherlands. It was combo deal of 30 lessons, theory lessons (on traffic rules), 1 theoretical exam on traffic rules and 1 practical exam. That package of 30 lessons was the smallest offered and my instructor claimed I wouldn’t make it (so I’d have to take more lesson), I took the challenge and passed on the first try. 30 lessons are considered very few, and those package deals are uncommon. Most instructors offer only individual lessons and let the student take the exam only when they’re confident the student can do it (the student cannot request to do an exam bypassing the instructor). To keep their stats up and to earn money, instructors will take very long before letting the student take the exam. My sister had to take 70(!) lessons (although she still really isn’t a very good driver).
Hope that clarifies where that money goes a bit.
I could see these being popular in dense cities like NYC, LA and Chicago. But it’d be a novelty not a necessity. Much like a Scooter.
The three socialist colonies of the West Coast have the grand plan of eliminating automobiles as a goal, Portland would just love to see everyone in these except for a very few as a first phase. Some new construction now does not have to provide a parking space for a new unit. All new housing construction is geared to either super space and luxury for those who can afford it or 500 sq ft apartments for the other 90%. Having lived here for 64 years within the same mile and one half radius area I think I know what is going on. If you have no place to park your car economically then how are you going to keep it.
I saw a post the other day where someone who didn’t have a car but had an apartment with an assigned parking spot was offering to rent the space for $300 a month. The ad didn’t stay up long, either. As for me, I stay out of downtown and NW with my Versa. Trimet is easier and oddly enough less time consuming than driving in stop and go and looking for a spot so I can eat out.
There’s a big kerfluffle over new construction not planning for parking. It comes up frequently in the WW and the Mercury.
The flip side of that coin is the absurd parking requirements for *any* new construction in a lot of less urban cities. When you can’t build anything without providing 521 parking spaces along with it, you end up with completely un-walkable, completely car-centric districts. It also depends on the density–my former neighborhood in Richmond, which consisted of predominantly row houses, town houses, and small apartment buildings, was mostly built out by the 1920’s. Many, if not most, of the buildings had no parking of their own, so street parking was the only option. And we made it work for three cars. If you’re not afraid to walk a block or two, it can be done easily. Of course, with more density, this ceases to be an option.
There’s a happy medium somewhere but few seem to have found it.
I think I’d rather just have a motorcycle. mine is the smallest Yamaha cruiser on offer and it has 4x the horsepower of this thing.
Heck, a Honda 250 Nighthawk has 3x the power and gets the same mileage. Goes 3x as fast, too.
Thank you for this article! I was in Avignon France about a month ago and saw one of these in the city center. I had no idea what it was. It was really tiny! It was intriging though, and it had no business being where it was at that moment, so I snapped a picture hoping to research it later….now, thanks to the CC effect, all my questions have been answered! FWIW, the driver didn’t strike me as particularly sober…
Surely CCers of all people have the perspective to draw the line between the fantasies of the 50s and 60s cars that we all love and the growing need for alternatives in our current world?
Having said that, I agree with the issue of (lack of) driver training. But the concept of the vehicle itself is closer to what we need than most of the vehicles that currently clog our roads.
I accept that most younger people who are into cars would not be caught dead in one of these. So what. It’s meant for people who have nothing to prove and just want to get around. And since when has cycling been uncool? What century are we in?
Sure, they’re no good for the freeway or rural areas, but that’s not what they’re designed for. Like anything, use it the way it was designed for and you get the most satisfaction from it. They’re an inner city car for an inner city problem.
Unsafe in a collision? Better than a motorbike or scooter, and probably no worse than most of the 60s cars we now drool over. But then, drivers who have nothing to prove are probably much less likely to be in a collision in the first place compared to ‘younger people who are into cars’. Just ask an insurance company.
“… since when has cycling been uncool? What century are we in?….
A. Cycling in Dallas has been remarkably uncool ever since summer temperatures started reaching 38 – 40 degrees C some millennia ago. Not everyone lives in densely populated northern Europe.
B. We are in a Century where (supposedly at least) 2015 is the hottest year on record. Further, we are in a century where we have a glut of oil thanks to new production techniques, and will most likely have plenty to carry us over for the next few hundred years until technological advances change the mechanics and dynamics of the daily commute.
I don’t wish to debate these points here, on a site for people who love cars but you shouldn’t extrapolate from your personal situation to assumptions about the entire planet. Now, let’s go back to marveling at the wonder of the various machines people use.
{/end rant}
I wonder if anyone’s hotting these up?
yes… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK1s2xdhI60
In the UK, they have separate licenses for manuals and automatics. Your instructor must be certified to drive the kind of car you’ll be using for your license test drive.
I bet about 15 minutes after one of these City cars landed in the good ol’ USA, someone will have figured out a way to put a SBC in one and change the plate on the back to read 450 km/hr!
SBC FTW! Welcome to ‘Merica where everything gets a V8.
These are very common in Norway too mostly driven by 16 year olds, all though the difference is, they do require a license for someone to be allowed to drive one, last I checked it was a moped/scooter license ( CLASS AM). Alongside the scooters and mopeds themselves, these are also limited to 45km/h
As you would imagine, driving a scooter in Norway during winter is a frigid, and not to mention a dangerous experience, so it’s a pretty handy replacement for a lot of people. :p
I can see some of these abominations here in Sweden too, in the rural area where I live. One wonders how anyone dares to drive them on those roads with speed limits up to 60mph. Driving one of these cardboard boxes with lumber trailers holding 55 mph passing can’t be a pleasure.
Would probably consider such Microcars / Light Autos at least in the UK via motorcycle or provisional drivers license if it were better styled along with the weight limit was increased by 50-100kg, max engine size / power being 550-600cc / 40-55 hp and with max speed electronically limited to 70 mph or in other words roughly corresponding to the 550cc Kei Car Era.
There are also these things:
http://www.auto-ellenrieder.de/ellenator.html
They take small Skodas, Seats and VWs and modify them as 3-wheelers which can then be driven with scooter licences starting at age 16.
Good grief, can you imagine the carnage if one of these got popped in the side by an Escalade or F350 crew cab dually?
Probably the same carnage if an Escalade or F350 crew cab dually got popped in the side by a Mack or Kenworth.
Mostly the final boss is someone (or something) else.
Yes, but the driver might live, which is more than could be said if a moped/scooter or motorcycle was in that same situation.
Cars of the Future will drive themselves with not no training needed by driver. All will accident liabilities will have to be absorbed by manufacturer. I will have much time on my commute to email this site to complain about the drivers ( emailers) around me. Please have a good life. billc
That’s exactly right. All the indications seem to be that driverless cars will probably be on the road in limited scope in the next 5 years or so, and will probably be commonplace in about the next 10.
From there, it becomes a question of when they will outlaw human-driven cars on the interstate, and when/if they will be outlawed altogether.
Aixam is also a sort of cheap daily commuter allowed to be used only in inhabited areas. Max speed: 45 kms. Engine is a small twostroke diesel. I’d mention this thing is a kind of 4 wheel motorcycle. Its purpose and value of use is quite limited.
I have always been of the belief that young drivers should start out with a bog-slow car. How bog slow? Well in the American open road environment, not THAT bog slow. But my 50hp 240D (it was probably a lot less, it was an engine with limited compression!) was a great first car. I learned how to drive because I didn’t have power (or great handling for that matter) as a crutch. Anticipation was the order of the day. Just try that while texting!