Microcars were an affordable-mobility solution starting during the 1950s in Europe with no solid public transport at that time. Since then, they’ve morphed quite a bit.
The Design Lounge this week has a look at a new breed of BEV microcars with interesting attributes. They comply with all European emissions regulations, naturally, as well as by-laws of major cities—a particularly unique trait, when making a small combustion-engine car meet the same regulations costs a fortune. These new BEVs create the lowest-cost mobility offering, and they’re built for the modern urban environment that now includes per-minute rental usage, sales through non-dealer channels, and designed for usage not based upon vehicle ownership. They’re devoid of the feature content creep we see in today’s more mainstream BEVs.
To benchmark the other side of the hill is always important. Japan has its Kei cars (the official classification of microcars in Japan). Very interesting to see efforts to expand the market for these cars to the rest of the world, as with Mitsubishi’s Minica EV.
The DMS session at the DVN Workshop next month is finalized with five outstanding lectures. The topic is really blossoming everywhere, with three additional technologies presented in this week’s news. Don’t miss the workshop! If you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to register here.
Sincerely yours,