• Obi
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      5 months ago

      Was very intrigued but this isn’t a serious alternative, they themselves refer to it as a toy multiple times on the website (even comes in it’s own giant toy box).

      • utopiah@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        I’m not sure what you mean by “serious” here. Are you saying it’s fake in the sense that it won’t be sold? Or that the license plate would not actually legally allow it to on the road in France or Europe? Or some of the criteria, e.g autonomy, power, etc would make it realistically usable for any use case except literally playing in a playground?

        • Obi
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          5 months ago

          That last one. If they have plates it should mean it’s technically road legal as far as I know, but in the same sense a dune buggy can be road legal but you couldn’t really use one as your daily driver.

          • utopiah@lemmy.ml
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            5 months ago

            So you’re saying they are legal, truly sold, but the volume? weight? autonomy isn’t enough?

            Sorry if you specified a criteria rather than an example that I missed. I’m genuinely curious as to understand because it seem you are dismissing it as useless for anyone rather than, like a buggy, something that one potentially useful but only within some context, to go with your example something one wouldn’t use in a city center but works perfectly on a beach.

            PS: full disclosure, I don’t have that car, not have any economical link to the company, only trying to understand the position.

            • Obi
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              5 months ago

              Sorry if it came across as dismissive as that wasn’t my intention, I think it’s a great looking little thing, just that it’s not an alternative to a “real” car. It’s in a different (legal) category, can be driven without a license and can only access secondary roads etc (I don’t live in France anymore and not super aware of what category L6e can and cannot do but for example it definitely can’t go on the highway).

              If all you need is to grab your groceries etc from the next village, then yes it looks like it could do that. It does look like it’s legit but still in preorder phase. Realistically I think most people buying this either don’t really need a car or have more vehicles and are getting this for the fun factor.

              • utopiah@lemmy.ml
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                5 months ago

                If all you need is to grab your groceries etc from the next village, then yes it looks like it could do that.

                This is exactly the kind of usages I imagine the market target is. Namely I believe it’s :

                • NOT for going from a city proper to another, e.g NOT to go from Rennes to Paris where a “big” car or train would do, even less going further
                • NOT for going within a city, e.g Rennes, where public transport is rather well connected

                but rather, as you suggest, going from one small town to another, say 50km radius or less. It’s while one lives in the country side to go to the farmer market on Thursday. It’s to go from and to work from the suburb, without proper bus, even less tram, to work downtown, etc.

                I imagine it’s basically where most people who wouldn’t feel “adventurous” enough to use an electric bike, due to the bad weather or workload, could use something just a big bigger.