Hello! Yes, it's something I've thought about quite a bit over the past ~10 years.
> But no, you can’t haul your trash, or your ATV in that thing.
When I moved apartments last year, I did the move using an electric cargo trike. You don't need a large vehicle to move a lot of stuff. Smaller vehicles like the one in the article would necessitate cargo trailers for larger hauling tasks. But that's an easily solvable problem with a local community trailer-share.
> You certainly can’t fit a rear-facing child seat in the back with a passenger in front.
You're right, of course you can't. I was not ever suggesting this ONE vehicle would solve everyone's problem. I was, however, suggesting that vehicles LIKE this could. I.e. a small, low speed, lightweight electric minivan. Or a micro-pickup truck, if you were a regular ATV-er
> You probably couldn’t even take it on the highway because it wouldn’t be safe at the minimum required speed.
That's a matter of convention, not a natural law of the road. I'm suggesting that we transition away from fast + big + crush whatever we hit, as the optimization for cars - and instead optimize for small + light + low speed non-fatal collisions.
> you’re making a caricature out of any opposing viewpoint and domineering the discussion.
It is not my intent to caricature or domineer. I see a lot of people in this thread defending the status quo in a similar way to the way you are - I'm just trying to share that there are some simple ways we could dramatically rethink the core premises we've all taken for granted - ways that might end up creating a safer + greener world.
As much as I love small electric vehicles (I drive a third-party converted electric Citroen c1), I just can't imagine driving across the US at 40mph so the electric trikes can keep up.
as a highly multi-modal angeleno, i love the idea of a small, cheap electric car.
however, you make the very common mistake of focusing on speed as (inverse) proxy for safety, because that's what's been beaten into our heads by the confluence of politics, media complicity, and industrial lobby.
the biggest issue wrt car accidents is distracted driving. speed is only a contributor to severity, not the cause of accidents. reduce distracted driving and reduce accidents. reducing speed only reduces severity while increasing susceptibility to distraction. plus, you can reduce speed in populous areas (where overall danger is highest) through traffic calming measures like narrowing lanes and lining streets with trees (which heightens alertness too).
but the measures to reduce distraction are contrary to convenience, comfort and expression of "personal brand", which is why hardly anyone wants to tackle that real problem and instead blindly piling on the speed bandwagon as a palliative rather than a solution.
> But no, you can’t haul your trash, or your ATV in that thing.
When I moved apartments last year, I did the move using an electric cargo trike. You don't need a large vehicle to move a lot of stuff. Smaller vehicles like the one in the article would necessitate cargo trailers for larger hauling tasks. But that's an easily solvable problem with a local community trailer-share.
> You certainly can’t fit a rear-facing child seat in the back with a passenger in front.
You're right, of course you can't. I was not ever suggesting this ONE vehicle would solve everyone's problem. I was, however, suggesting that vehicles LIKE this could. I.e. a small, low speed, lightweight electric minivan. Or a micro-pickup truck, if you were a regular ATV-er
> You probably couldn’t even take it on the highway because it wouldn’t be safe at the minimum required speed.
That's a matter of convention, not a natural law of the road. I'm suggesting that we transition away from fast + big + crush whatever we hit, as the optimization for cars - and instead optimize for small + light + low speed non-fatal collisions.
> you’re making a caricature out of any opposing viewpoint and domineering the discussion.
It is not my intent to caricature or domineer. I see a lot of people in this thread defending the status quo in a similar way to the way you are - I'm just trying to share that there are some simple ways we could dramatically rethink the core premises we've all taken for granted - ways that might end up creating a safer + greener world.