[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', 'A')dding a motor to a bicycle is like building a sewage treatment facility in the middle of Yosemite National Park - it undermines everything that makes the thing worthwhile. I mean the lady in the photo may as well buy a motorbike.

[Subjectivist]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')it Motors CEO Danny Kim composed a letter to hopeful customers this week, updating them on the stages of progress. “In addition to developing EP-5, we unlocked the doors to our storage facility and revived our beloved prototype EP-4 for dynamics testing,” Kim stated. “After installing a new custom battery pack, we are rediscovering all of the elegant, innovative solutions we made to this piece of engineering/design history.”
Kim also mentioned that the company will be offering test drives in San Francisco for those who pre-ordered a vehicle.
Chinese companies have come under fire many times (with little repercussion in many cases) for blatantly ripping off vehicle designs from heavy hitters such as BMW, Mercedes, and Rolls Royce. This is apparently not limited to four-wheel transport, as Beijing-based Lingyun Intelligent Technology is developing its own gyroscopically balanced two-wheeler.
Though a little healthy competition can be a good thing, you can’t deny the striking similarities between startup LIT’s (even the acronym raises suspicion) vehicle and Lit Motors’ AEV. The video below shows the single seater in question as well as a two seater, which were displayed at the recent Beijing Auto Show:

[KaiserJeep]

As long as everybody who contemplates buying one of these high tech motorcycles carries an organ donor card, I don't have a problem. Two and three-wheeled vehicles exist to sidestep the FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards), colloquially called the DOT regs. The statistics are fairly grim, drivers of such vehicles experience 35X the number of fatal accidents as do drivers of cars on a per miles driven basis. Thus the organ donor cards, it is how society pays for the greater medical costs of the occupants of such vehicles.

The secret to surviving a collision is to be in the vehicle with the greater mass, surrounded by a stout rollover structure, side impact protection, airbags, auto-tensioning seatbelts, etc. The US Congress has been tampering with vehicle design for decades, and every time they added a "safety feature", the typical average road vehicles got heavier and the motorcycle fatality rate inched up.

I have a regular old bicycle, the ultimate fuel saving vehicle. But I only ride it in daylight, on dry roads, on streets where the speed limit is less than 35 mph, and I wear a helmet and have active LED flashers going. I also accept the fact that I am on a deathtrap in a collision, so I want to minimize the chances of such an accident.

While I can appreciate the economies of 3-wheel and 2-wheel motorcycle class vehicles, they don't offer the same passenger and payload carrying capacity as a standard car, and the same - or even an acceptable - level of safety for the driver. They will never be as popular as standard cars and trucks IMHO, even with $25 per gallon gas. Physics is a bitch sometimes.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')While I can appreciate the economies of 3-wheel and 2-wheel motorcycle class vehicles, they don't offer the same passenger and payload carrying capacity as a standard car, and the same - or even an acceptable - level of safety for the driver. They will never be as popular as standard cars and trucks IMHO, even with $25 per gallon gas. Physics is a bitch sometimes.

[KaiserJeep]

I look at the picture you posted, and I don't see one single car. I see one double-decker bus and a hundred or so mopeds/motorcycles and a couple of hundred pedestrians. That is NOT a scenario where a motorcycle has a 35X fatality rate over a car.

American roads are different, and we do have dense urban environments and we do have suburbs and we do have rural areas, all joined by roads. We are going to continue to use cars, light trucks, and SUVs on our roads, and the Lit Motors C-1 will remain a deathtrap on our roads.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') look at the picture you posted, and I don't see one single car. I see one double-decker bus and a hundred or so mopeds/motorcycles and a couple of hundred pedestrians. That is NOT a scenario where a motorcycle has a 35X fatality rate over a car.

American roads are different, and we do have dense urban environments and we do have suburbs and we do have rural areas, all joined by roads. We are going to continue to use cars, light trucks, and SUVs on our roads, and the Lit Motors C-1 will remain a deathtrap on our roads.