Looks like if you ever hit a pebble on the road it would probably flip and kill you. Note also the conspicuous absence of a seat belt. Cute little death machine.
Did anything have a seatbelt in 1944?
Preston Tucker designed his Tucker Torpedo with a safety belt (and a lot of other safety features) in 1948.
And then was driven out of business by the Big Three automakers in the U.S.
There's a good movie about it.
Yeah but not instantly. It would drag you around the road grinding your meats and bones into a nice pasty consistency.
I mean, I could see a modern version being made with a rally harness-type restraint system and a windshield frame that doubles as a rollover bar. In this case the biggest danger would be to the driver's limbs.
It's almost a motorcycle. Something like this would be great for commuting, if not for all the Compensator™ Trucks and SUVs on the road.
I feel bad for driving a big SUV, but I needed something electric that was easy for my wife to get in and out of.
I totally get the need for tall vehicles that are easy for people to get in and out. Not everyone can lift themselves from a low seat in a modern sedan or coupe. Accessibility is important.
That last picture doesn't look too bad
It only got two stars sadly
It's easy to make a 100mpg car. All you need is to make it small, flimsy, no aircon, no heater, no stereo, no airbags, toss emissions standards out, pack you in like a snake going up a bear's anus, and drive around at a steady 25 mph without any stops.
Idk, Dutch micro cars are pretty comfortable. They're quieter, safer for pedestrians, and environmentally friendly. Had a chance to use one last time I was in the Netherlands. The American mindset of "it has to be a giga-truck or it's bad" really sucks.
No, that's pretty much what I mean. I'm having trouble finding references to the gas milage of the Canta, but Kei cars tend to max out around 60mpg, and the Canta is only a bit smaller. I also found plenty of posts from locals saying it's loud, uncomfortable, and unsafe.
The Peel P50 can get close to 100mpg, but that's pushing what a person can even fit in. This sort of thing is pushing into "why not get a moped?" territory.
It's that last thing that america (or at least California) has an issue with. We fucking love stop signs. If you have a stop sign every other block, your mpg is gonna be in the range matt gaetz would be interested in regardless of what car you drive.
Buddy, I don't know when the last time you drove a car in the summer with no AC in dress clothes but I lived that for a few seasons and I'll say that it's a bigger problem than the stop signs lol
Idk man, I got comfy 50mpg from a 2 ton Mercedes-Benz with most of the trimmings. Well... it was too old to have AC.
The acceleration was utter dogshit tho. Comfy ride tho.
But it’s hard to make such a car street-legal in the US.
I beg you pardon?
Ah yes, a scrotumnudger
Ah, the balltingler
Considering it was 1944, I'm just hoping they didn't name it after this doodlebug, because that would have been pretty tasteless.
That said, probably not the best choice of names due to that.
I'm not sure I'd want to do 45 in that thing, hell of a way to go if you got speed wobbles. I could see a use for kei vehicles in downtown areas. Traffic is so bad that a car's top speed might be 30 if you are lucky. Mass transit, bikes and tiny vehicles are what most people could easily get away with day to day.
Oddly enough my state made UTV’s(side by sides) street legal and that opened up the legality of kei trucks and the such being street legal here. One of my coworkers has something like this.
Not entirely sure how long that’s going to last. They’ve already threatened removing that law because people are abusing the hell out of it. They had to do an education campaign because people just thought you could take them on the road. They need to be licensed, registered and insured to the same standards as a car…aka at least liability to state minimums.
They can’t go on any road over 45mph(even though a lot of the nicer ones can go much faster). It was kind of comical to see the number of roads that went from 45 to 50 because of this.
Red light? I’m in an off-road UTV! Hop this curb, go over the side walk and make my right turn! Not to mention the jack assess that have their 50” 40,000 lumen light bars on the roof blasting at ALL TIMES.
That and one city had $350K of damage done to a park because somebody thought doing doughnuts in the fields was a good idea. Much harder to do if you have to trailer it there first.
I’m mostly in favor of it but the people outright breaking the law need to be dealt with. There are some safety concerns I have with it as well. Those vehicles are not safety tested. Even a small sedan would make an absolute mess of them in most accidents. That’s fine if you are making that decision consciously. The amount of people that load up their entire family and kids in these things is alarming though. Sometimes kids that would need a car seat in a car but it’s a UTV!
Well that comment got a lot longer than I was planning. I’d love a kei car for around town though. I’m aware of the risks…it’s not worse than my motorcycle.
That thing looks like it falls over on its side if you look at it funny.
That's terribly inefficient for a motorcycle
How do you figure? 70mpg isn't too shabby for a motorcycle today. In the 40s? 70mpg is pretty bonkers for a 40s machine.
Seems like it was a joke that the "car" is a motorcycle in disguise.
it looks like a Twinkie fucked a space ship.
spaceshipsfuckingtwinkies
The world would be a more fun place if we all drove bumper cars
So a motor scooter with a car-like wrapper.
It looks like a bumper car without the bumpers and pole
One wheel in front?
It's a TRICYCLE!
If you sneeze you can do a kickflip.
Cool, now make it HPV or EV.
HPV
It's been vaccinated.
OK, but this appears to carry a maximum of two people and doesn't look like it has a trunk, so...how would this be better than public transit? Realistically, anyone who bought this would still need a full sized car to support a family of more than two, so this thing would only work for single people or childless couples. It's cool, and certainly better than everyone owning their own sedan, but not exactly a practical solution to car culture.
That's kind of like asking, "why do people buy ebikes?" These seem the fit the same nich but like in 1944. Obviously it's not a perfect solution, humans and perfect solutions mix like oil and water. (Salad dressing is mostly oil and water, so I guess that's the perfect solution)
My 2007 Ninja 250 made about 35 horsepower, could achieve a top speed over 100 mph and could also travel nearly 70 miles on a gallon of gas.
My Honda Metropolitan gets 117 MPG. As a result, its fuel tank is precisely 1 gallon.
...It only makes 4 horsepower and has a top speed of 40, though.
Yeah I couldn't quite hit that efficiency with my Ninja but it was fully capable of traveling on the interstate and it it had a damn near 5 gallon tank. That bike was designed in 1988 and received only minor adjustments for 20 years and basically nothing has that combination of efficiency and capacity.
Not to mention super reliable and fun to ride
Looks like a giant tape dispenser.
@jordanlund@lemmy.world needs to find a way to merge this with his wheelchair.
Zipping around town in style!
My plan is to build a shell for the wheelchair. ;)
Yes! With hovercraft fans at the bottom so you can pretend you're making it float!
