[gshdg]

This is awesome. But nobody’s going to buy it if they have to drive it sharing the road with hulking SUVs. It’s nearly as dangerous as a motorcycle simply because it is so small and light. The only advantage is protection from the weather.

[gxon]

This should be drastically safer than a motorcycle. It presumably has a seatbelt and airbags, and no chance of being flung 50 feet in the air or sanded down by asphalt.

Parking would be a huge advantage in a dense city. Limited parking can create a psychology barrier that impacts your realized mobility even if you own a car. I regularly decide to not go somewhere because I know how much of a pain it will be to park. I've been tempted by motorcycles for this reason alone.

[rapjr9]

It has seat belts/chest straps and a few safety features, but no air bags and hasn't been crash tested. That and the price are the main things stopping me from buying one. There are full size cars that cost less than a Solo, even though the cars have all the complexity of an internal combustion engine.

[jdlshore]

The article says that, as it's technically a motorcycle, it's not subject to the safety testing cars are, "but it has a seatbelt and a rollbar." So possibly no airbag.

Edit: I couldn't find anything on their website about safety at all. I'm guessing that means the safety story isn't something they can brag about. So probably no airbag.

[melling]

Plenty of people ride motorcycles. Protection from the weather means year round use. Throw in some specialized parking for small vehicles, and you have a winning product

[taneq]

From experience, the main issues, aside from weather, with using a motorcycle as your sole means of transport are:

- You can't take an arbitrary person as passenger (they need gear and pillion experience)

- You can't take more than a backpack's worth of cargo (slightly expandable with panniers)

This can't take a passenger at all, and looks like it has the same cargo restrictions. It looks fun but I can't see it replacing a small car which solves both of these problems, so it needs to be cheap enough to be a 'fun' second vehicle.

[cortesoft]

There is also the danger factor... you are 27 times more likely to die driving the same distance on a motorcycle as in a car. I don’t think I would want to take that risk.

[adrianN]

Part of the difference could be explainable by different demographics. Maybe motorcyclists drive more dangerously than normal even when they're in a car.

[taneq]

"Nobody rides a big-bore sports bike this far out into the countryside in order to do the speed limit."

Even if people drive their cars safely, the huge difference in performance means they're more likely to get in trouble on a bike.

[throwlaplace]

What is the absolute number? Eg 27*0 is still 0 (note I'm not suggesting it's actually 0)

[TylerE]

It’s also a more nuanced issue than that. A larger proportion of bike fatalities involve alcohol.

[HarryHirsch]

There is much more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_findings_in_the_Hurt_R...

[stonogo]

I thought this was the appeal of the 'full touring' bikes from Harley and Honda? Do you still need pinion experience when you're basically in a recliner?

[taneq]

Not nearly as much as if you're perched on the back of a 600 supersport (and if the pillion does start thrashing around it's far less of an issue since they're a smaller fraction of the overall vehicle weight) but it's still a bit of an acquired skillset.

[pengaru]

Pillion experience has more to do with not panicking and not upsetting the balance especially when cornering.

[LilBytes]

100,000+ km in total under my belt. Pillions in my experience pick it up quite quickly and this is across super sports, super nakeds and adventure tourers.

I tell them either lean with me when I'm going around a bend or stay directly up right. I've not had any problems. And I've had a fair number of Tinder Dates with people without any experience of riding who've came accustomed quite quickly.

[pengaru]

Sure, it's not hard to acclimate at all.

But I too have ridden heaps of miles in a previous life when I'd habitually tour the US on two wheels, and there can definitely be frustrations and risks with inexperienced passengers.

From having to convince them things like No, your Keds are not satisfactory for us to go riding. Yes, you must wear a helmet and some pants and gloves would be smart. No, you should not lean into the corners, just be a predictable appendage of the bike especially at low speeds. No, you should not put your foot anywhere near the chain/chain guard, regardless of how annoyingly high the rear pegs are on this superbike. Yes, you must hold on to me and not let go and bail in a panic, yes, even if the front end comes off the ground and you're looking at the sky briefly.

This walk down memory lane reminds me of the time I had to give my ex a ride to work when her car wouldn't start. I had an 04 R1 back then and she never rode on the back before because she was terrified of the thing, and I never had taken passengers on it because it was so poorly suited to it, I actually had to put passenger pegs on for that trip. Just breathing on the throttle in first with her on the back would pull the front end off the ground, it was comically bad with the combination of short wheelbase, high CoG of the passenger on that steep tail, and liter bike tq. When she got off at work she was shaking with fear and said she almost fell off the first time the front end came up a bit and that was having significant experience riding on the back of my previous sport-tourer.

On that previous sport-tourer years prior we had an annoying spill where she was leaned over to see around my helmet while we were riding in an unfamiliar part of Chicago when the front end locked up briefly over an oily patch on Ashland braking for a light. Due to her leaning to see around me we were down and tumbling down the road in the blink of an eye, it was rather shocking but things happen quickly when the front end locks up with a passenger leaned over. Fortunately we walked away with just skinned knees, bruised egos, and a ground through stator cover.

[theshadowknows]

Don’t forget the spiders!

[cptskippy]

Except the people who ride motorcycles do it for the open air freedom. The high ride and lack of an enclosure also give them superb visibility. This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments, plus all the detriments of a sub compact car.

It's like they distilled bad down into a concentrated form.

[pengaru]

> This literally none of the merits of a motorcycle and all the detriments

Oh please; it doesn't fall over, keeps its occupant dry, protects its occupant more in general, it obviously doesn't have all the detriments of a motorcycle.

[sudosysgen]

It doesn't fall over, unless you get into a turn that exceeds your capabilities. Capabilities that you cannot sense easily at all.

Which is incidentally exactly the same situation as falls on a motorcycle.

[cptskippy]

You're right, I wonder if they're holding those back for a later revision.

[m463]

What I've learned from riding motorcycles is that everyone does it for different reasons.

[cortesoft]

Interesting that they are choosing Los Angeles as the first market, then, since weather isn’t really a factor.

[jccalhoun]

Theoretically, I don't see why this couldn't be like the cockpit of a racecar which is capable of protecting drivers from high speed accidents. Realistically, however, one of the reasons they are making it have 3 wheels is so they don't have to be as safe so it will probably not do well in crashes.

[sudosysgen]

The cockpit of a racecar can only really protect you if you crash into the tires/dirt/sand, and are wearing a helmet.

[dahfizz]

That's quite a silly argument, since millions of people buy motorcycles.

The key difference is that motorcycles are cool and fun to drive. Unless this thing accelerates like a Tesla, nobody will want it.