Society’s got priorities wrong.

  • most car travels are 1 person or sometimes 2 person

  • the majority of car travels are quite short, less than 40km.

  • many car travels are just to get some groceries or drop of a little package or just say “hi” to someone, carrying nothing but themselves.

  • cars are fucking expensive, to buy and to maintain

  • accidents become way worse with heavier vehicles

Microcar is a valid answer to all of these, while still being sheltered from weather.

How are urban places (i’m in Belgium) with almost permanent super heavy road traffic congestion, bad climate statistics, high polution values, very limited available space left, no self-sustaining energy production and high traffic accident statistics still pooring in billions and billions in subsidies year after year into “regular” big heavy SUV-like vehicles instead of these? It’s beyond my comprehension. The only real valid reason i somewhat get is the collective scare of being in a crash and not wanting to be in the smaller vehicle. We could save the climate, we choose not to.

  • MICROLINO: 17.990 €
  • OPEL ROCKS: 8.699 €
  • CITROEN AMI: 7.790 €
  • RENAULT TWIZY: 13.000 €
  • FIAT TOPOLINO: 9.890 €

A lot of people here casually spend more on a sunday racing bike every few years for fucks sake.

  • Rayspekt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    I get the points that you are trying to make but those micro cars are shit for the consumer for those prices. Yes, you have a small car that isn’t powered by fossil fuels, but

    • You can’t transport jack shit. I’ve sat in the Opel thingy and while it’s comfortable for the two passengers you have literally no boot.
    • If you consider one of those most likely you live in a densely populated urban area an can use public transportation as well. And one of the last things public transportation sucks, is transporting unwieldy stuff with you. And your mini car doesn’t provide a solution to this, so you have to pay a rental again.
    • Those things are waaaaayyyy to expensive for what they offer. Atm you’re paying the early adopter premium to drive in a speed restricted, range restricted, and payload restricted vehicle for 10k.

    I’ve been riding public transportation almost exclusively for the last 10 years or so and only had to consider getting a car for long distance travel and transporting shit. And at that point you’ll be better off spending 4-7k for an older station wagon than those things.

    Also I’m not entirely sure how eco friendly it is to buy a brand new mini EV rather than driving around with a 15 year old car where nothing new has to be produced. Depends for sure on the yearly mileage. Which isn’t high in my case, but you for sure won’t be driving 15000 km a year in a mini car.

    If we compare new regular and new EV? Sure, but then I’ll wait until real competitive alternatives in the low-price sector pop up.

    • AlexWIWA@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      They’re also ugly as shit, which unfortunately will affect adoption more than people care to admit. But then again, the PT Cruiser and Nissan Cube sold, so maybe I’m wrong.

    • Humanius@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Sometimes people do need a car, and if they do I would prefer it to be a small little thing like this rather than something larger.
      These kinds of car are quite popular in Amsterdam, for instance

    • freebee@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Metro unfortunately isn’t a solution in urban sprawled, urban planning disaster Flanders. It’s dense yet too spread out. Metro is good for very dense urban cores like Brussels. But it’s not the one big end all problems solution. Metro is part of what cities need, but not the only thing.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        i mean that just sounds like stockholm lol, also if you can’t quite justify a metro then you just build a baby metro, otherwise called light rail (or fuck it, actual tramlines)

  • norimee@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    Looks like we are back to the 1950’s and the time of the “Smooch bubble” BMW Isetta. I always loved the look of this car.

  • leekleak@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Hmm, I wonder how many of these cars are used to replace existing ones…

    Most of the micro cars I see are parked by a highschool so to me it seems like people view them as a stop gap between no car and car ownership and not as a way to replace existing cars.

    It’s making cars more viable, especially to young people and I fail to see that as a positive thing.

    • freebee@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      01·
      4 months ago

      Okay, that’s stupid.

      The very few I see around are either elderly people (it’s an excellent vehicle for them) or local firms buying it as a marketing gimmick.