Why ultra-light urban vehicles like Luvly offer the only viable future for evs

[rcjordan]

https://www.maddyness.com/uk/2023/01/26/why-ultra-light-urban-vehicles-like-luvly-offer-the-only-viable-future-for-electric-cars/

[ergophobe]

One thing that is cool about EVs is that people are really rethinking what a car should be, from the Cybertanktruck to the LUVly, there is a so much broader design space.

Lately, I have been thinking that in a first "hybrid" phase, the idea was that you have one car that uses both gas and electric power trains, but the second phase will be two vehicles, one gas and one electric, and the final phase will be all-electric, but the energy storage might be a fuel cell or a solid-state battery or something like that.

I think in America, especially in urban and dense suburban areas, we'll see hybrid mean a gas touring car and an electric city car, maybe a step up from the LUVly if they can convince the suburban soccer moms they do not need to be surrounded by 6,000 pounds of Chevy Suburban for picking kids up at school.

This revelation came to me when pricing AWD EVs, which are still all over $50,000 (the Tesla Model 3 is a little less now that it qualifies for tax credits again and Tesla slashed prices). The Ioniq 5 is a nice car. But I realized that I could buy BOTH a used Crosstrek with 40K miles AND new Bolt and still come in $20,000 cheaper than the Ionic 5.

I only travel long distance maybe a dozen days a year and I only have maybe 60 days per year when chain controls make an AWD vehicle much, much, much more appealing (typically AWD vehicles are not required to chain up, though it did happen two days ago when things got very icy). So roughly speaking, there are 290 days per year when the cheapo 3600-pound Bolt is just as good a vehicle to me as a luxurious, 4,662-pound Ioniq 5, and on those other 75 days, I just drive the cheapo 3100-pound Crosstrek.

The LUVly Gen 1 is still be impractical for me - it doesn't have enough range to get to the grocery store and back. But the general idea of a small, cheap, light, local car and another car for touring is attractive.