468 the bike-cars are coming!

Spotted one of these Arcimoto three wheel electric scooter-majigs in town yesterday. While this headline says it's "right sized" I was kinda surprised how long it was. It didn't look like you could park it laterally to the curb.

It did look pretty slick, though, in a dorky not sure I'd be comfortable with all the attention way. I want to see this Oregon company succeed, but I know think they need to half their price point (currently I think $15-20k) and somehow shrink the whole package by a couple feet.

What if we just got rid of the fucking cars entirely?

As EVs take off, bicycles are leading the pack.

Because we're lazy? No, because we like to feel superhuman.

There are several reasons I haven't bought an ebike yet. I don't really need one is big. Also, parking. I currently carry my bike up a flight of stairs, and ebikes are heavy. Then there's the emerging technology factor. I'm generally not an early adopter. I'm happy enough waiting for the tech to get sorted out, then buy when it gets affordable.


That said, the category of ebike I find most appealing is the cargo carrier (although some of the mid-drive full suspension bikes are pretty lust inducing), and there are starting to be more options. This KBO looks like a cheaper Tern, the current king of the daddy bikes.


Meanwhile, electric motors are enabling small entrepreneurs to create cool shit like this motorcycle.

For under 1000 pounds! (That's like $2k, depending on the exchange rate.)


And small-scale innovation is happening even in the "car" segment. Of the "top ten mini EVs" in this video, here was my favorite:

Unlike the Arcimoto, you might actually feel cool driving this around, huh? 

Also, Governor Hairdo needs to put on a real helmet and try stopping his bike at every corner.

When I moved to California, I learned about the "California Stop." That's when you slowly roll your car through a stop sign without ever actually stopping.

Now the state that invented lower friction stop signs is sticking with forcing bikes to stop at every stop sign, despite the fact that it's been legal for cyclists to roll through them in several states now for a while, with no problems. So, now the legal bike version is called an "Idaho stop" and California just looks like a bunch of car addicts.

Speaking of cars, and batteries.

This is the car of the future. It's called a "skateboard" and it's basically a solid-state battery with wheels you plunk any body onto. Pretty sexy, huh? It really lets you know that everything beyond four wheels to move you around is ego and marketing.


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