Technology

After seeing announcements and headlines like this for over 10 years and just about nothing available for sale I just kind of yawn Now. Good way to raise some venture capital though. does it have AI? let's do this

What if, and here me out here, what if, and that’s a crazy thought, what if cars don’t have be ridicules in size and battery capacity is actually used more efficiently rather than carrying dead weight.

No mention of safety in the article. Does a manufacturer of this size have to do crash tests?

Also, this sounds like the Spirit/Ryanair of cars. Everything costs extra.

For years, I drove ~10-20 minutes to and from work. Mostly stroads and freeway. I could never justify buying an extra nice car because I didn't use it that much. Same for a nice car stereo. I'd just listen to NPR and talk radio for news, traffic reports, and maybe a quirky story about some cultural oddity or eclectic artist. If I spend thousands on a sound system it goes in my house, where I live and vibe. Now I work from home, ride my bike everywhere, and a tank of gas can easily last me a month. My current car was purchased for about $20k. If my car died for some reason, I don't even know if I'd be willing to part with 20k to replace it. I appreciate that these guys are building something for ordinary people and not another faux luxury lifted minivan the size of a garbage truck.

I can see a lot of retired people buying one of these to drive to their once a week bridge tournament or bingo night.

Sounds like the consumer version of the DHL StreetScooter Work (L), with those even the passenger seat is an optional extra. Trouble was that while it's the perfect vehicle for last-mile distribution routes most companies doing that kind of thing (like bakeries) don't have the finances to back up an actual car producer, and DHL didn't want to become a car producer. Taking over the company to get their hands on the trucks, yes, but bringing it to scale so they wouldn't have to subsidise it? Not their business. And German car manufactures don't want to build it because small bare-bones vehicles don't have margin, anything smaller and less fancy than an actual van doesn't make sense to them given the fixed cost of their production lines. Don't worry, though, the inventor got the rights back, production is moving to Thailand, new vehicle is in the pipeline, with the core components (chassis etc.) designed for a 50 year lifetime. I'm sure DHL will figure out how to deliver delivery vans.

150kWatt and a top speed of 145? That's kind of insane?

Wait a minute, mph not km/h I guess.