• stoy@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I am sorry, that is dumb.

    I am all for less cars in cities, but this is a terrible design.

    Why does the control system have to be a bike?

    Why is the driver so exposed both to the elements and other drivers?

    Why give the driver shit rear and side visibillity?

    No, just do something like an old milk float design, don’t reinvent the wheel all the time.

    A milk float is already designed for local deliveries at a low cost, with a normal driving interface.

    • Pipoca@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      The main question for me is what kinds of paths this is expected to use.

      If you can take this on bike paths and into pedestrianized areas, it clearly already has a small niche. If it can only fit on a regular car lane, it’s terrible.

      • stoy@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        No, that is a terrible way to think about it.

        It is clearly much wider than any normal bike, meaning it would allways use up most of the space on the bike path, it is heavy and dangerous to other bikes in a collision, and since it has to stop for deliveries it will clog up the bike paths.

        No, just use a milk float on normal roads, way better than a normal van, and it can use existing infrastructure that it was actually designed for.

        • Pipoca@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          There are already cargo bikes that are way bigger and heavier than a normal bike.

          This particularly seems not too dissimilar to the bike food carts you already see in some places.

  • Rogers@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Definitely not practical and not designed for the person that uses it. Great way for companies like Amazon to save a buck while making life harder for the people that get paid the least.

    • Hardly any protection from the elements
    • no place to put a drink or anything
    • have you ever been on a bicycle seat all day?
    • not safe if your on a road with cars/trucks

    Maybe it would work for a college campus or something, but small electric box trucks would be far better for the person doing the work.

  • ForestOrca@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    8 inch rear, and 20 inch front wheels - it’ll be a slow and bumpy ride, when they finally work out all the bumps in development. https://civilizedcycles.com/pages/commercial

    Civilized Cycles has a starting price of $4999 for the CC Model 1, 60 mile range, released in 2020.

    In the mean time , the cool thing is that truck bikes already exist, e.g. the oldest US bike manufacturer, Worksman Cycles, and they’ve worked out the electrification part, too.

    http://worksman.com/

    I’m currently working on rebuilding a Worksman Front Loader, which has a 500lb load limit, and 3 speed sturmey-archer hub.

    https://www.worksmancycles.com/sud.html