Cars are bad, and the world would be better with widespread public transit, but we've built the world around cars so transitioning away from cars is likely to be very difficult.
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Cars are bad, and the world would be better with widespread public transit, but we've built the world around cars so transitioning away from cars is likely to be very difficult.
This was by design, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it.
In fact, we had a decent solution to last mile transit in 1905.
Electric Buggies. Horseless carriages.
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Cars are bad, and the world would be better with widespread public transit, but we've built the world around cars so transitioning away from cars is likely to be very difficult.
This was by design, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it.
In fact, we had a decent solution to last mile transit in 1905.
Electric Buggies. Horseless carriages.
So here's the pitch:
Big, light, slow, simple, cheap, fragile electric vehicles.
We reinvent the electric buggy in the cheapest, simplest format possible.
Open source plans for large CNC mills (which, frankly, can be built from open source plans and off the shelf hardware, making creating a "car" factory bootstrappable for a few hundred bucks and an investment in time and expertise.)
Mostly wood, basic steering, max speed under 40, no amenities. Target a $500 price point (that's probably overly optimistic, but it might not be!)
Enough room inside for 4 - 6 people, enough room outside for two more people. Can be steered from within or without, I don't care.
Some basic aluminum tubing can go into the construction to save weight if you want, I don't care.
I dunno if they'd get classified as kit cars or as LSEVs, and I don't really care!
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So here's the pitch:
Big, light, slow, simple, cheap, fragile electric vehicles.
We reinvent the electric buggy in the cheapest, simplest format possible.
Open source plans for large CNC mills (which, frankly, can be built from open source plans and off the shelf hardware, making creating a "car" factory bootstrappable for a few hundred bucks and an investment in time and expertise.)
Mostly wood, basic steering, max speed under 40, no amenities. Target a $500 price point (that's probably overly optimistic, but it might not be!)
Enough room inside for 4 - 6 people, enough room outside for two more people. Can be steered from within or without, I don't care.
Some basic aluminum tubing can go into the construction to save weight if you want, I don't care.
I dunno if they'd get classified as kit cars or as LSEVs, and I don't really care!
Would they be road legal? It depends on how they get classified and where you live. Where I live, LSEVs are only legal in some areas, and kit cars are legal everywhere.
But, and I can't stress this enough, I don't care!
Laws are just compromises in the form of threats of physical or economic violence that only exist so long as enough people have enough respect for the governing institution to continue to accept the compromise and threat.
If enough people are driving around in cheap electric buggies, either the laws will change to suit us or we will change the laws.
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Would they be road legal? It depends on how they get classified and where you live. Where I live, LSEVs are only legal in some areas, and kit cars are legal everywhere.
But, and I can't stress this enough, I don't care!
Laws are just compromises in the form of threats of physical or economic violence that only exist so long as enough people have enough respect for the governing institution to continue to accept the compromise and threat.
If enough people are driving around in cheap electric buggies, either the laws will change to suit us or we will change the laws.
If I could buy this kind of object, right now, I would.
And I know dozens of other people who would.
Who would prefer them to cars. Who would prefer them to not having cars. Who would prefer to have one even if they were illegal to run on the road, and who would approach that illegality with the time honored phrase of the Space Patrol Try and stop me bozo.
intergalactic.computer/social/solarica/try-and-stop-me-bozo/
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If I could buy this kind of object, right now, I would.
And I know dozens of other people who would.
Who would prefer them to cars. Who would prefer them to not having cars. Who would prefer to have one even if they were illegal to run on the road, and who would approach that illegality with the time honored phrase of the Space Patrol Try and stop me bozo.
intergalactic.computer/social/solarica/try-and-stop-me-bozo/
@ajroach42 Personally I'd love if the cargo e-trikes came down in price. If I could get one cheap enough and just slap some kind of canopy over it, the 28mph pedal assist of a class 3 is fast enough to get me to work about as quick as I do in a car.
